“You don’t talk a lot about your parents. Are you close?”
I shrug. “We were,” I say.
“And your dad liked to fish?”
“Yeah. Still goes out.”
“But you don’t like it? Did you used to like it when you were a kid? You seemed to be pretty good at it, at least according to Ed and the guys.”
I chuckle, but it has a cynical tinge. “Lots of things change as you get older. How you see the world can completely turn upside down.”
“Can it?” she asks.
“Yeah, like most boys, I idolized my dad. He loved to fish, so I loved to fish. He used to like to grow vegetables, so I tried to grow the biggest carrots and the most potatoes.” My best memories of growing up all revolve around spending time with my dad. “He was my hero. I wanted to be just like him.”
“So when did he stop being your hero?” she asks.
I don’t ever talk about Bain Insurance. I told Ed before we went into business together, but that’s it. But something about Lucy makes me want to tell her. I want her to know everything about me. I don’t want to hold anything back. “Did I tell you I took over his business?”
She shakes her head but doesn’t say anything.
“I went to college to study finance so I could take over his life insurance business. Like I said, I wanted to be just like him. When I left college, I worked in the business for four years before he retired and left me in charge.”
“Wow,” she says. “You were young when you took over. Was it a big business?”
I nod. “Yeah. It was a lot of responsibility. But I was ready for it. I’d studied for a long time. I made sure that I’d worked in every aspect of the business before I took it over. I thought I was prepared.”
I glance up at her. Her expression of concern hits me in the chest.
“And I would have been.” I take a breath. “But the business was in debt. It wasn’t making any money—our costs were too high. Rent,payroll. Everything, really. We were weeks away from bankruptcy when I finally understood the mess my dad had handed me.”
“Hunter,” she says and squeezes my hand.
“I tried my best to save it. I really did.” I look into her eyes, trying to gauge whether she believes me. I worked so hard—negotiating with the landlord, trying to cut costs, letting people go. It was a brutal time. “Maybe I should have spent more time growing the business. If I’d been better at business development, maybe things would have gone another way. Some people only want to deal with people with more gray hairs. If my dad had still been in charge, then ...”
“Hunter,” Lucy says again, firmer this time, “I know you. I know you worked harder than anyone to save that business. You wanted it to work.”
“I really did.” I pull in a breath.
“If you start off with high costs and a mountain of debt, you’re fighting a losing battle. What did your dad say?”
I pick up my drink. I only meant to take a sip, but I down the rest of it, trying to push away the feeling of failure that swirls in my gut every time I think back to that time.
“My dad didn’t say anything.”
“What do you mean? He didn’t warn you about the debt?”
“No, I mean he didn’t sayanything. Nothing about the financial position of the business at all. As far as I was concerned, when I took over, it was a family business we’d all done well from. I planned to go in and grow it. Offer different products. Focus on high-net-worth individuals. But I couldn’t doanything. I was fixing leaks as soon as I got there. Just trying to stop the business from sinking was a full-time job.”
“And after it sank, what did he say?”
I knew the question was coming, but it doesn’t stop it hurting when she asks it. Because admitting that my father didn’t take responsibility feels like ... It feels like I lost a father that day. He stopped being the man who’d stand in front of a bus for me. Stopped being the man Icould go to for help and advice. Stopped being a man I could trust. “He told me I shouldn’t feel bad and that I should learn from my mistakes.”
“Oh, Hunter.” She doesn’t say more, and I don’t need her to. She doesn’t make excuses for him or say that it must have been a misunderstanding—rationalizations I’ve tried to make over the years.
“He abandoned you when you needed him most,” she says simply. She slides off her stool and presses her palm on my cheek. It’s so comforting. So warm. So completely what I need. Yes, I was an adult when I took over Bain Insurance, but I needed my dad to step up in that moment. Even if he hadn’t told me the state of things in advance ... Maybe he was embarrassed or thought I could fix things. But when everything eventually collapsed, I needed him to tell me it wasn’t me who had failed. I needed him to let go of his ego, his pride—whatever it was that stopped him being a father in that moment—and to step up as my dad. To take responsibility.
“I think you’re the bravest man I know,” she says.
