Freddie shook his head. “I had the chance to tell her, but I fucked it up.”
“How did you fuck it up?”
He almost wanted to laugh. “Instead of trying to move forward, I brought up everything that had been eating away at me for the past eight years and threw it in her face.”
His dad let out a low whistle.
Freddie sighed. “Yeah.”
“You should apologize,” his father said.
“I don’t know if an apology is going to cut it,” Freddie murmured, scratching at his jaw.
“Depends what you say.”
Freddie’s brow furrowed. “Other than I’m sorry?”
“Anybody can say I’m sorry. You have to put those words into action. Talk things out. Learn from it. Otherwise, what the hell are you doing?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“How?”
Freddie let out a long sigh. “There are still a lot of things that I don’t know if we’ll ever resolve.”
“Then you gotta pick your things.”
Freddie’s brow furrowed. “I don’t get it.”
His father threw him an exasperated glare. “Those things that bug you, maybe even drive you crazy, but you can live with because you’re living with her. It’s like that tree.” He pointed over to the towering silver monstrosity in the corner. “That is the ugliest goddamn Christmas tree that God ever put on this earth. But every November for the past twenty years, I help your mom put it up.”
“So why don’t you say something?”
“Because she loves it. And I love her,” he said. “That’s a thing. Get it?”
Freddie stared at the metallic branches, the twinkle lights that were almost blinding. “Yeah. I get it.”
Silence descended then. They watched the third down, then the fourth, before his father spoke again.
“Have you turned down that job yet?” his father asked during the next commercial break.
Freddie’s gaze snapped to his dad. “How’d you know about that?”
“I didn’t.” He shrugged. “But you were never gonna be happy behind a desk, Freddie. We’ve known that since you locked your kindergarten class out of the classroom and tried to convince the other kids to stage a revolt.”
Freddie laughed. “Yeah. Mom’s going to be disappointed, though.”
“Oh, please. She still has that painting you did of that kindergarten class up in the kitchen. She’s always proud of you. She just also has a lot of opinions.” He got distracted by the game for a moment and cursed under his breath before turning to Freddie again. “What are you gonna do now?”
“Well… I was thinking of finally starting up that nonprofitto fund the implementation of cost-effective sustainable farming techniques in underserved communities,” Freddie continued, trying not to wince.
His father narrowed his eyes on him. “So… still unemployed.” A moment, then Fred Sr. grinned. “At least some things never change.”
Then he clinked his bottle with Freddie’s and turned back to the game.
CHAPTER 25
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE LAUNCH EVENT FOR
