His eyes were wet.
I had never seen my father’s eyes wet before. Not fully. Not like this.
Dad put his hand over his eyes for a moment. Then he lowered it.
“You were twenty-six years old,” he said.
“I was old enough to know what I was signing.”
“You were twenty-six.” His voice was firm but not hard. “You made a decision that went wrong. A decision I encouraged. A decision that came from a culture inside that company that I built — the culture ofclose the deal, don’t look back.I built that. You grew up in it.” He shook his head. “If we are handing out blame today, the line starts with me.”
“Dad—”
“No.” He put his hand on my arm. “Listen to me. What happened to that man was a tragedy. A real one. And the pain his family has lived with is real. But you have been carrying this alone for six years and punishing yourself in every way a person can, and the one thing you have not done is forgive yourself.” He squeezed my arm. “It’s time, Fletcher. It is really, truly time.”
I looked at the ocean.
“Did you start an anonymous trust for the Geer family?” Dad asked.
I looked at him. “How do you know about that?”
“I had our accounts audited recently. Went deeper than usual. I recognized the structure of it.” He looked at me steadily. “Is it for them?”
“Yes.”
He put his coffee down and pulled me into a hug. The kind he hadn’t given me since I was maybe fourteen years old. Both arms, full and solid, the way Douglas Calloway hugged people when he meant it down to the bone.
He held on.
I let him.
When he let go he looked at me. His eyes were still wet. He did not wipe them.
“I am so proud of you,” he said. “Do you understand me? Not the deal. Not the acquisition. You. This.” He gestured between us. “The man who couldn’t sleep. The man who built something for those children. The man who has been carrying this alone because he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else having to carry it with him.” He shook his head. “That is not a monster, Fletcher. That is the opposite of one.”
I looked at my hands.
“Stop punishing yourself,” he said. “And stop punishing August for loving you.”
I looked up.
He was almost smiling. That small, tucked-away Calloway smile.
“You think she doesn’t love you?” He picked his coffee back up. “Fletcher. A blind man could see it. Even a stranger could be in the same room as that girl and know she loves you. It is in every single thing about her when you are there.”
I thought about August trimming the stem of the dahlia on the windowsill so it would last longer.
“I said something about her to Margaux, just to diffuse a situation. Something I’m surprised could even escape my lips,” I said. “And she heard me.”
“She heard me call her a nobody, Dad.”
“Maybe she did.”
“She’s going to hate me.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe she is sitting in that van of hers right now waiting for you to be brave enough to explain yourself.” He stood up. He picked up both coffee mugs. “I think you’ve not been brave long enough, son.” He looked at me. “It’s time to change that.”
He went inside.
