“What do you mean, son?” he asks, finally standing tall and turning to face me.
“I mean, I don’t want Portis to go under like Bain Insurance did.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson. Out of failure, we build success. I’ve said that to you before.”
He has said it. Many times. Every time I’ve ever tried to talk to him about the failure of Bain Insurance. Except I’m sick of wearing the failure like I wove the cloth and made the suit. It came off the rack.
“You’re right, Dad. I learned a lot from that situation. I learned not to take on a long lease for too much money—like you did. I learned not to keep on staff who were overpaid and underutilized—like you did. I learned that when important decisions are put off, a once-successful business can go downhill—like Bain Insurance did.”
He holds my gaze, and I don’t look away. My heart is pounding against my rib cage, but I try to keep my breathing steady. This is my chance. If I don’t say everything I need to right now, the time will have passed and I never will.
It’s now or never.
I don’t want to regret not telling him that I know exactly what happened. He should know why our relationship has suffered over these last years. He deserves to hear it, even if he knows it in his heart.
And I deserve to say it.
“I learned that I would never hand a business over to my son when it was racing toward failure, and make him think that failure was his fault.”
He looks away and goes back to the roses.
“I guess your reputation as a successful businessman was more important to you than your relationship with your son. I guess it was more important for you to feel like a success than it was to not have me see myself as a failure.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not a failure.”
“I know,” I say. I don’t think I’ve ever believed it until this moment. We’ve always danced around this subject, and it’s allowed me to doubt the reasons for the downfall of Bain Insurance. I’ve never said it in so many words, that it failed because of him, which has allowed me to think that part of it was my fault. “I tried my best to find a way to sustain it, Dad, but it was dead before I took over.”
Dad inhales but doesn’t look at me.
“It lost money every month,” I continue. “The sales team wasn’t bringing in enough to sustain the staffing levels. People weren’t renewing.”
“The business had its challenges. I’ll give you that.”
“You’llgiveme that?” I ask. “It’s just a fact. You’re notgivingme anything. The business was failing, and had been for some time, but you handed it over and let me take the blame.”
He mumbles under his breath and throws more dead roses into the wheelbarrow behind him.
“I’m going back to the city, because when I have a son, I don’t want to hand him a business doomed to fail.”
Dad sighs and dumps some dead leaves and his shears on top of the pile in the wheelbarrow. “You could have turned that business around.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Life isn’t as simple as you make it out to be,” he says. “There are no guarantees in business.”
I huff out a laugh. “You’re right. No guarantees. Except if your costs exceed your revenue, you’re losing money. That’s a guarantee.”
“What do you want from me?” he says. “You’re back in the game. A little failure is good for you.”
I nod slowly. Nothing good will come from this conversation. He knows what he did. He just doesn’t want to say the words out loud. He doesn’t want to be the monster that would hand his son a failing business and let him take the blame. No one wants to believe they’re a monster. He’s made excuses for himself so he can be a hero instead.
“I know what you did, Dad. I know who you are. And that’s not the man I want to be. Live with that.”
I don’t wait for a response. I turn and head back inside for a final goodbye to my mom. I don’t look back. I’m leaving my past in the yard, like the dead heads of the roses piled high in the wheelbarrow. I’m done waiting for answers I’m never going to get. I’m done wanting to know why my father would set me up for a fall.
I’m done living my life in the shadow of someone else’s failure.
Chapter Thirty-Three
