Stepping aside, he let me in.
“Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll pour us a drink,” he offered.
He had never offered to sit and have drinks in the months that I had been here. It threw me off for a moment, but I swiftly declined.
“I’m not here to have drinks. I have questions that need answers.”
He sighed heavily and sat down on the sofa with the finger of whiskey he had just poured for himself.
I didn’t leave any room for a response from him.
“Did you know Sheriff Strauss was a dirty cop?” I decided knowing the answer to this question would set the tone for the rest of the conversation.
“I didn’t know about his extracurricular activities with his son, but I did know that sometimes he liked to color outside of the lines.”
“Why did you break our agreement?”
There was a pause before he responded.
“You’ll understand when you have children.” He took a sip of his drink before he continued, “You were always helping others when you were a child. When your mother was pregnant with your sisters, you followed her around constantly. Always there if she dropped something or needed a hand getting up from achair. You were only five, and you were taking better care of her than I was. The world is cruel. It will chew you up and spit you out. You hardly knew Evelyn, and I was worried that you would bring trouble upon yourself for helping her when you should’ve walked away. Look what happened to us.”
I mulled over his words. I could tell, even now, he thought he did the right thing. He judged her based on her upbringing. He saw that her father was a petty crook and decided to paint Evelyn with the same brush. His trip down memory lane did nothing to soften me.
“I don’t believe you were trying to protect me. Evelyn showed everyone here nothing but kindness. Every day you saw her, she was covered in scars, the light was gone from her eyes, yet you still went out of your way to make her feel unwelcome, unwanted.” I scoffed. “You made a promise to me. I am not the naive eighteen-year-old boy who left Oakland Ridge ten years ago. I came back here and did everything you asked. I asked you to do one thing, and you couldn’t keep your word.”
He started to speak, but I cut him off by firing another question.
“What happened to you, Dad? You used to be a man of integrity. Now you’re scheming and making dirty backroom deals. What happened to the man who raised me?”
“If I didn’t do the things I’ve done, this company would never have survived. My father had a way of doing things. The old way. Companies don’t survive because of friendships and goodwill. They thrive because of risks. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.”
He said it so casually as if that explained it all.
“Manipulating your children was just a calculated risk, huh?”
Nothing was funny about this situation, but I laughed. My father had broken my heart long before Evelyn ever came into our lives. At this point, I had lost hope. There was nothing thathe could say that would change my perception of him. As far as I was concerned, this conversation was over.
“You’ve become a man your family doesn’t even recognize. I was shot and beaten within an inch of my life. Evelyn was badly injured as well, but she still saved my life. We almost died in that fire because of the decision you chose to make out of this false sense of love and protection. The whole time I was here, you never tried to talk to me about my life. You just forced more of your beliefs and dreams on me. Now you expect me to believe that you wanted to protect me?”
I turned my back and walked to the doorway. Before stepping through, I turned once more.
“All the things you claim you did for Gentry, for your family, were all in vain. Look at you now.”
The drive back to the estate was quiet. I usually blasted music through my speakers, but this time I sat quietly, letting my thoughts run through my mind.
While I was disappointed at what my father had become, I was happy to be home with my mother and sisters. I had survived, and I had love in my life.
When I walked into the pool house, Evelyn was in her room journaling. We slept in my room most nights, but sometimes Evelyn liked to journal and do her therapy appointments in her old room.
She was humming a song to herself and scribbling away in her notebook. She smiled when she noticed me in the doorway. Untangling her legs and getting to her feet, she met me by the door and wrapped her arms around me.
“I’m so happy that you’re home,” she said into my chest.
I wrapped her in my arms, tightly resting my head on top of hers.
“Me too. But I have a question for you?”
She pulled away slightly to look up at me. “What’s on your mind?”
