Life would be so much easier if she quit.
One less person to let down. He’d already let down too many.
Right. Left. Right.
Christine sat up straight and turned to him as he parked.
“You wanted to know about this.” He gestured to his necktie. “Come inside.”
He didn’t wait to see if she’d follow. He didn’t stop inside the front door, merely dropped his keys on the hall table as he passed, heading up the stairs. He didn’t turn on any lights, stopping only when he reached the second-floor landing in front of the master-bedroom door.
She followed, climbing the stairs to the top with a steady tread.
“My father changed after my mother’s fight with cancer.” His voice sounded distant, as if the person speaking wasn’t him, was far away and detached. “He became more cynical. Gone was the open, optimistic man who’d raised me, who was like my best friend. I thought he’d get over her death. But she’d barely passed when he was called in to help rescue his friends and coworkers at the mill fire.” Slade swiped a hand down his tie. “He used to tell me I could do anything, be anything, if only I worked at it hard enough. But the loss of my mother and the deaths at the grain mill were too much for him. His glass became less than half-empty. It didn’t matter that I earned a partial scholarship to Harvard. His view of my chances at a happy life turned grim.”
Christine slipped her hand into his.
“He’d look at Evy and predict she’d leave me. He’d look at the twins and predict...” Slade swallowed, not wanting to recall the dire things he’d predicted. “He’d look at me and tell me not to reach for a goal or dream big, so I wouldn’t be disappointed. Success, for me, became mandatory, the route to proving to my dad that life was worth living. I got a job on Wall Street. I bought an apartment in Manhattan. And still he foresaw the worst.
“Then the stock market collapsed, plunging me to ruin, just as my father had predicted. I lost my job, my salary, my savings, and my dad’s retirement.” He never should have talked his father into letting him manage his retirement, but he’d wanted to prove just how wrong his father was.
“We came here to tell Dad in person Thanksgiving weekend. I told Evy if I couldn’t find a job soon, we might have to move back, at least until we got on our feet again. Evy told me she wasn’t moving from New York. She said she’d been unhappy for a long time and wanted a divorce.” Toddler twins and a cheating wife. His father had been right about Evy, at least.
“She dropped me off here, at the house, and drove back to Santa Rosa to spend the day shopping with money we didn’t have.” His hand drifted to his tie. “Talk about denial.”
Christine gave the hand she held a small squeeze. It was an I-know-this-is-hard-but-keep-going bit of encouragement.
“Dad knew why I’d come. He’d seen the news. And it was the day he’d always told me would arrive—my failure.” Slade drew a heavy breath. “But he didn’t rub it in. He was different. Happy, almost. I apologized, expecting him to be heartbroken or upset. Instead, he talked about a trip we took to Yellowstone when I was a kid. He talked about how proud he was of me. He was like my dad again and I was relieved.” Slade gasped, “Relieved.”
He should have seen the signs. He should have known that no one could flip their attitude around like that.
“Dad suggested I take a walk and get some fresh air. I went down to the river park. I watched the river go by.” He sniffed, fighting back the tears. “I actually felt better. Lucky. My life was crap, but I had my dad back.” He tried to laugh, but laughter stuck in his throat. “Storm clouds were rolling in by then. It was one of those afternoons when the clouds got so thick it seemed like the sun had set.”