“Yeah, your sister too, right?” I add. “She’s clearly crazy about her nieces and nephews.”
“That’s because she gets to be the fun aunt,” she replies with a slight laugh. “And not deal with the middle-of-the-night wake-ups. But yeah, she adores them. They adore her just the same, it’s the sweetest thing, really.”
She takes another sip of the scotch, letting a drop linger on her bottom lip before she swipes it away with her tongue. For a second, I’m reminded of the way her tongue felt against mine, kissing me like it was the most important thing in the world to her.
“Your mom still lives in Devin Ridge, right?” she asks, turning the conversation around on me. “I mean—I know that your dad…” She trails off, clearly not wanting to dredge up too much of the past.
As much as I appreciate her kindness, it’s not like it hasn’t been hanging over my head this entire time. From the second I set foot back in the county. This name I carry means something, whether I like it or not. Some people have a positive legacy from their parents, but me? I’m left with the weight of something heavier than most people will ever have to live with, and sometimes, it feels like more than I can take.
“Yeah, he passed away a few years ago,” I reply, figuring the best course of action is just to cut to the chase. It’s not like anyone could have missed it, anyway. She was living here when he passed, and no doubt it was big news when he died, the carrier of the town name passing away. Shit, probably a few toasts raised to it, all things considered, given what he had done.
I can still remember when I got the call about his death, when I was away on duty. I wasn’t able to take the time away from service, or at least, that’s what I told my mother at the time. The truth of it was that I likely could have gotten out if I’d wanted to, but the thought of setting foot back in this place didn’t sit right with me.
I still carry the heavy guilt of knowing that I wasn’t there for my mother when she lost him. Hell, I haven’t even visited his grave since I came back to Devin Ridge, almost ashamed, like he might somehow sense from beyond the grave that I waited far too long to come to it. Ridiculous, I know that, but sometimes it’s easier to believe the impossible than to face up to the truth of everything I failed to do.
“I’m so sorry,” Angelie murmurs, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean to bring it all up. I know how hard it must be for you, losing him…”
I grimace slightly. Not because she’s right, but because I’m not sure if I want to tell her the truth. That the hardest part about my father’s death is being left with the fortune and infamy that he abandoned behind him—and the indelible mark he branded on this town.
“I can’t imagine it was difficult for Devin Ridge,” I remark, shrugging.
She frowns, nonplussed. “What do you…?”
“Come on, you don’t have to lie to me,” I reply, forcing a grin onto my face as though it doesn’t bother me at all. “I know what kind of reputation he had around here, after he closed up the logging industry in the nineties…”
She presses her lips together, clearly not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but unable to argue with me. It’s not like I’m ignorant to the facts; when I was in school, I couldn’t count the number of students who didn’t want a damn thing to do with me because their parents had worked in the logging industry in Devin Ridge, the very same one that this cabin had once been a part of. The industry was the backbone of the region for a long time, started by my great-great-grandfather. But as business moved toward the surrounding cities, the turnover became less impressive, the cash flow more focused on keeping the places ticking rather than bringing in the prosperity it once did.
And that was when my father decided to sell up. He handed over the business, every part of it, to the very same companies that his own grandfather would have loathed, the ones that went outof their way to mechanize every detail of what had once been a proudly man-driven business. The factories closed down, people lost their jobs, and my father pocketed a fat stack of cash for his troubles while he left so many in the town without an income, scraping just to make ends meet.
“Yeah, but he was still your father,” Angelie offers. “Doesn’t matter what other people thought of him. It can’t have been easy, losing him like that.”
“It wasn’t,” I admit. “But I…”
I look out over the forest. It has regrown plenty in the few decades since my father sold the logging processing lots around here, but even when the industry was at its peak, the people of this town did everything they could to replant so that the forest would stand for generations to come. Something that my great-great-grandfather had instituted, and that I can only imagine he thought would last for generations to come. Well, he was half-right.
“He did a lot of damage to this place,” I finish up. “And I can’t ignore that.”
Her face creases as she listens to me, like it hurts her to hear me speak about my own family in that way.
“But it doesn’t have to stay that way, right?” she points out. “I mean, look at what you’re doing for the town. God knows what would have happened if you and the other guys hadn’t been here to step in the other day, when the fires were coming in.”
“Not sure that it’s going to make up for what he did.”
“You need to give yourself more credit,” she tells me, nudging me with her foot.
I lock eyes with her, wishing I could believe her. It’s not that I want to beat myself up like this, it’s that…I’m not sure I deserve anything better. I’ve had my father’s fortune sitting in my bank account for a few years now, and beyond setting up this group with the guys, I haven’t done anything with it. As ridiculous as it might sound, it feels like blood money to me, like money earned from cutting the heart out of this place and leaving so many people without the support they need so desperately.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“You should stick around after all of this is dealt with,” she suggests. “Why not, right? I’m sure you could find plenty of people here who would have good stories to share about your father?—”
“Uh, I’m not so sure about that,” I reply with a slight laugh. “Better not to bring up that name at all, if I can help it.”
“Oh, it can’t be that bad?—”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Really?”
