Hunter
I drop my overnight bag at the bottom of the stairs and go into the kitchen to say goodbye to my mom. Her birthday lunch yesterday with my aunt and uncle and two of her closest friends was fine. My dad and I stayed at the opposite ends of the table and avoided any conversation that wasn’t about Mom. That’s how it is now. That’s how it’s been since Bain Insurance went bankrupt. Even so, I’m still pleased I made the trip.
“I’m going to head out,” I say. “There’s stuff I need to catch up with at the office.” I’m not going into the office today, but I want to clear out my emails to make sure I’m ready for my early start tomorrow. Ed will be back, and I need to spend a chunk of time on the phone to update him. I need to be ready.
“Thanks for coming, sweetie,” Mom says, turning to face me. She holds my hands in hers. “It was lovely to see you. But I’m worried you’re working too hard. You look tired.”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I say.
“Are you?” she asks. “You seem ... like you’re missing out.”
Missing out.It’s an interesting way of describing what I’m feeling. “Everyone’s missing out on something,” I say. All I can think about isLucy. I’m definitely missing out on seeing her. Missing out on spending our nights curled up together, limbs entangled ... together. “But owning your own business requires sacrifices. There’s no one else to make sure everything is working.”
She holds my gaze, and I’m not sure whether she’s holding herself back from saying something or she’s waiting for me to say more.
“Go talk to your father,” she says. “He’s outside deadheading my roses. Then come back and say goodbye.”
I head out and down the steps of the back porch. Dad has on a baseball hat and Mom’s gardening gloves, which are too small for him. “Hey, Dad, I’m just heading back into the city.”
“Already?” he asks, focused on the roses. “But this is your mother’s birthday weekend.”
“I came up for the lunch yesterday, Dad. Her birthday was on Thursday.”
“Yes, and this is her birthday weekend.” He throws some dead roses in the wheelbarrow and dives back into the bushes with the pruning shears. If I didn’t hear him speak, I would have thought he didn’t realize I was standing right next to him.
“I have some work to catch up on.”
He doesn’t say anything.
I haven’t brought up the demise of the family firm for a long time now. It’s been years. Whenever I’ve raised the issue in the past, I feel worse afterward, because Dad never takes any responsibility. So what’s the point? But something about his tone irritates me. Like he disapproves of me working so hard. Maybe if he’d worked a bit harder, I’d still be working in the family business. I wouldn’t be making up for the failure that came so early in my life.
“It takes a lot to run a successful company,” I say.
“You don’t need to tell me,” he replies gruffly. “But you have to prioritize the things that matter.”
“Like keeping the business afloat,” I say. “That’s a priority for me.”
“Rightly so. But your mother only has one birthday a year.”
“Yes, and I was here for her lunch yesterday. Now I’m going back into town to make sure I have a business that doesn’t go bankrupt.”
Without saying a word, he shuffles a few feet to his right, away from me, to the next rosebush.
Normally, I’d just turn and walk away, but Mom saying I was missing out has lit a fire in my belly.
Iammissing out.
And it’s because I’m so full of fear.
Fear of repeating my mistakes.
Fear of trusting Ed.
Fear of failing.
“I don’t want what happened to you to happen to me.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to scoop them up and put them back in. My heart is racing, and I freeze, wondering whether he’ll react or if he even heard me. When I’ve hinted at the dire financial straits the business was in when I took it over, he always acts like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. But hedoesknow. Hehasto know. For years I’ve tried to excuse his disavowal. I’ve tried to explain the way he’s failed to take accountability.
I’m done.
