by Parker, Ali
“Of course, he did,” he answered. “I don’t think I have ever told you, but I had a brother.”
I frowned. “What? You did?”
He slowly nodded. “Yes, I did. I don’t ever talk about him because to remember him is to hurt.”
“What happened?”
“I was about fifteen at the time. He was ten. We lived near a lake and used to go swimming all the time. One day, I guess he decided to go alone. I think I was hanging out with my buddies or something. He drowned. The guilt I felt was tremendous. I shut down. I couldn’t bear to be around my parents. I saw their grief and I was convinced they blamed me. I blamed myself.”
“Oh my god,” I gasped. “Dad, you never told me!”
He offered a small smile. “It didn’t seem like you needed that kind of pain. You feel so strongly. I didn’t want you to think about it.”
“But Dad, you could have told me.”
“It was in my past. There was nothing you could have done. Sometimes, a man chooses to leave those feelings in a dark place. I’m not saying it’s healthy, but it is a coping method.”
“Xander said he wanted to be alone. He said he isn’t capable of love. He’s wrong. I know you don’t like him, and you don’t believe me, but I know in my heart he felt something for me.”
“Well, of course, he does. He’d be a damn fool not to love a woman like you.”
I smiled, fighting back tears. “Thanks. I wish you could see he is a good man.”
“I don’t think I will ever sing the man’s praises, but in this situation, I feel for him. He’s in a tough spot. I might not like him, but I feel bad for him. You need to be there for him.”
That was unexpected. “He doesn’t want me around. He made that very clear.”
“Make him want you. He needs you. He doesn’t know it, but he does. He will push you away. I pushed everyone away. I didn’t want anyone to see me as weak. I refused to cry. I thought if I cried, it made me weak. It took me a very long time to come to terms with my grief. It was actually your mother who helped me to see it wasn’t my fault. Things happen. I had this idea in my head I was some kind of powerful creature capable of fighting fate. Your Xander is very much the same. He’s stubborn and bullheaded and he has the same mindset. He thinks he can do anything. This is going to be a blow.”
My dad had never opened up to me. He had never been so honest with his feelings. I leaned forward and hugged him. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“I’ve coped. Now, it’s time for you to help him cope.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Go to him.”
“Not right now,” I told him.
He smiled. “No, right now, I’d like to be a little selfish and monopolize your time for a couple of hours. Give him the night. He might need some privacy to grieve. Your relationship is fairly new, and a man will not be comfortable releasing his emotions in front of a woman he is still trying to impress.”
“He doesn’t need to impress me,” I said.
He shrugged and smiled. “There is a reason cavemen pounded their chest. Men have a need to impress their women. It doesn’t go away with time.”
“You are so right.”
The rest of the evening, I did my best to focus on my father. I smiled and shook hands with his colleagues and did my best to play the dutiful daughter. In the back of my mind, I thought about Xander. I sent a text message every hour, asking him if he was okay and letting him know I was thinking about him. I never got a response and I didn’t really expect to.
I just needed him to know he wasn’t alone. His words had twisted my guts and shattered me a million times over. I hated that he felt so alone. I hated that he thought he had to be that way for the rest of his life. In the moment, I didn’t think arguing with him was the best approach. I let him say his piece and hoped we could talk about it again when he wasn’t so raw.
I wasn’t sure I would get the chance to tell him I understood his obsession with his work. I got the same way. I didn’t feel neglected. He needed to know he had done nothing wrong. He was a good man. I just had to make him see it and believe it. I didn’t think I could rely on his father to boost his feelings of self-worth. Maybe I was the one being overly confident and arrogant, but I was convinced I was the only person who could make him see he was worthy.
* * *
Monday morning
I was being way too forward. I should mind my own business. I had no business being in his office, but here I was, strolling down the hall in my power suit, pretending I belonged. The receptionist told me the presentation was being held in the conference room and directed me to where to go. I told her I was the assistant to one of the attendees. She didn’t question my story.
I never got a single text back from him all weekend. The gate at his house was closed and locked tight. I was going to track the man down and make him listen to me. He was going to at least hear what I had to say. If he kicked me out, so be it, but not until after I said what I had to say.
I walked into the conference room and took a seat. No one paid me any mind as they chatted amongst themselves. I waited for fifteen minutes, checking the time every five minutes. Xander was always late, I told myself.
After forty-five minutes, it was clear he wasn’t coming. The others in the room began to leave one at a time. None of them were very happy. I went back to talk to the receptionist, who had a very worried look on her face. She had been calling him and never got an answer.
Alarm bells were going off in my head. I left and drove straight to his house. My heart was pounding as I pulled to a stop in front of the gate. I got out, looking for a way in. “Fuck!” I shouted, more nervous than pissed.
I drove to a parking area that would allow me to walk down to the beach. I took off my heels when I hit the sand, carrying them as I ran along the sandy beach. I found his stairs and did my best to haul ass up them. It was not an easy feat. By the time I made it to the landing that opened up to his patio, I was out of breath and sweating like a pig. I walked barefoot cross the hot cement of the patio.
My first thought was to check the pool. I was terrified I would find him floating in the damn thing. I didn’t find him, but I noticed something sitting at the bottom of the pool. I immediately recognized the shiny blue case. It was his phone. That explained the lack of returned messages. I tried the glass doors, which were of course locked.
I found one of the kitchen windows unlocked and hoisted myself inside. He thought he was so smart by not having any neighbors. I was proving why there was something to be said for nosey neighbors.
I walked through the house. He wasn’t there. I didn’t feel his presence.
I headed for his bedroom, hoping he was sleeping. The bed was neatly made. He wasn’t there. I went back down to the kitchen and saw the eggs still sitting out. The coffee I’d made him was untouched and sitting on the counter.
He had vanished.
Chapter 47
Xander
I stared up at the ugly ceiling with the plain tiles. There was a hint of yellowing in one corner. It was to be expected in an environment like this, I supposed. I wasn’t going to panic and demand another hotel room. I didn’t care enough to move.
I’d made it to Oregon the day before and had yet to leave the hotel. I wasn’t sure what I was doing there. My dad would not be pleased to see me. The moment of kindness, if it could be called that when he called to inform me of my brother’s death, would be fleeting. I knew that as much as I knew the wind would be blowing at the beach.
The ringing of a phone disturbed the total quiet in the room. At first, I assumed it was coming from the room next to mine or above mine. Then I remembered it was my new phone with a ringtone I wasn’t quite used to. The damn thing had been ringing pretty steadily since this morning.
I knew why. I’d fucked up. I’d blown off the meeting. It was an important meeting, but it wouldn’t have changed my life, except make me a little richer and
give me a little more cred in the world of ship design. I didn’t care. None of that mattered. I never wanted to design another ship, rudder, or anything else.
The ringing of the landline in my room startled me. I stared at the phone with confusion. How and who? It had to be a wrong number, but if I didn’t answer, the annoying sound was going to continue.
I rolled to my side and snatched the phone out of the cradle. “Hello?” I answered with zero friendliness in my voice.
Charlie’s voice came through. “Finally.”
“What the hell?” I muttered. “How did you get this number?”
“We call it Google search or something like that,” he snapped irritably.
“Why are you calling me? How did you know I was here?”
He sighed and I imagined him pacing the small office he had at the warehouse. “Process of elimination. I knew where you would be. I just had to find which hotel you were in. I skipped the one and two-star motels and started at the top of the list of big ones and worked my way down.”
That surprised me. “You’ve been calling all the hotels in Newport?”
“And Seaside and every other little town up there. If you made me go through the Portland hotels, I would fly up there and kick your ass.”
“What do you want?” I asked. I was not in the mood to hear shit from him or anyone else.
“Um, gee, I don’t know. You kind of left me hanging. Everyone hanging.”
I climbed off the bed and moved to open the curtain blocking the sunlight from coming into my room. “Yeah, as it turns out, I had more important shit to do.”
“I get it,” he said, his voice low. “I’m so sorry about Kade. You know I loved him like a brother.” I could hear his grief. I had sent him a quick text on Friday night, dropping the bombshell. That had been a shitty way to tell him, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually say the words. When he tried calling me, I turned off my phone. Then I drowned my phone. And now I was ignoring his calls.
I gulped down the lump of emotion his words caused. “Thanks.”
“I know you’ve got a lot going on. I get it, but man, you kind of left a lot of people hanging back here.”
“Charlie, how can I care about that? Why would I care?”
“Because my future is on the line. The guys that work for me have been gearing up to begin work on this retrofit. You no-showed to a meeting you called with some of the top shipping magnates in the country. Hell, the world. They flew in from all over and you didn’t even have the courtesy to tell them to fuck off.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I answered honestly. “I really don’t. I guess because I don’t care. I don’t give a shit.”
“Don’t say that. This is temporary. You are in rough shape right now, but you will get through this. Don’t blow up your entire career.”
I shook my head, anxiousness and anger boiling in my belly. “I don’t care. Seriously, I don’t care.”
“Xander, come on, man. You know Kade wouldn’t want you to destroy everything you’ve worked so hard for.”
“You don’t know what Kade would want,” I snapped. “Kade would probably have liked to live. But guess what? We don’t always get what we want.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose we do, but this is in your control. You can change this. You can do what you’ve set out to do. You have the design. All you need to do is show the world. The rest will fall into place. Me and my team are ready to put it to work.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not interested in any of it anymore.”
“Don’t do this,” he begged. “Take a minute and think about what you’re doing.”
“I have. Goodbye.”
I ended the call and tossed the phone on the bed. I yanked open the curtains and stared out at the ocean. It was the same ocean that had captivated Kade’s attention when he had been at my place. It was strange to think he would never look at it again.
I pulled myself out of the funk I was falling into. I didn’t want to go down that road. I didn’t want to feel distraught and sad. Somewhere over the last two days, I had found a place that was devoid of pain. I didn’t feel anything. I erected a magic forcefield around me and was hunkering down.
It was time to face the very thing I came to Oregon to deal with. I was putting it off, but that wasn’t going to make it go away. I grabbed the keys to the rental car I picked up at the airport in Portland and drove out to my father’s modest house near the beach.
I knocked on the door, feeling an acidic burn low in my belly. When he finally opened the door, I immediately regretted my decision to show up unannounced. He was drunk. I could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. His eyes were bloodshot, and it didn’t look like he had showered in days. I doubted he had. Probably not since he got the news.
“Dad,” I said, unsure of what to expect from him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
I shrugged. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
“You shouldn’t have come.”
He walked away from the front door. I followed him into the house and watched as he poured a glass of straight Jack before taking a drink.
“I came to help with the funeral arrangements,” I said.
He scoffed. “You don’t need to do a damn thing. It’s already taken care of.”
“What? How? You said he wasn’t even back home yet.”
He scowled at me with his lip curling in utter disgust. “It’s been taken care of. The Marines have followed Kade’s directives. He will be receiving full military honors.”
I slowly nodded. I knew what Kade would have asked for. Part of me struggled to think of his body no longer in this world. He would have chosen cremation. I wasn’t going to be able to look at his face one last time. I wasn’t going to get the chance to say goodbye. He was well and truly gone.
A stark feeling of emptiness washed over me. It nearly dropped me. It was as if my insides had been carved out and I was a hollow shell. I looked at my father who had taken a seat at the kitchen table. His shoulders, usually thrown back with his chest puffed out, were sagging. His back was bowed. He looked deflated. I knew what I was feeling and imagined it was ten times worse for him.
I pitied him in that moment. His favorite son, his only son as far as he was concerned, was gone. His beloved wife was gone. He was left with me, his biggest failure. Life was not fair. Life fucked with people.
“When?” I asked, taking a seat at the table.
He looked at me bleary eyed. “What?”
“When is the funeral? Will it be here?”
“Yes. Wednesday.”
I nodded. I shouldn’t have been surprised to be left out of the planning of the arrangements. “It’s all taken care of?”
“Yes.”
“When? What time?”
He spouted off the time as if it took him a great deal of effort to say the words. “Don’t bother coming.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to bother yourself by going to the funeral. You were too busy for him in life. Don’t pretend you give a shit now that he’s gone.”
I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. Surprisingly, I didn’t get angry. I was still in the emotional desert that stole away all emotion. That was probably a good thing. Fighting with him wasn’t going to help. “I’m going to the funeral. Period.”
He glared at me. “He was a good son. He was an honorable man. He died for his country. I am proud to be his father and I won’t have you trying to steal his glory.”
“I would never steal his glory. I’m his brother. I’m his only brother. I will be there for him.”
He scoffed before taking a drink. “You just want people to think you give a damn. We both know you don’t.”
I shrugged, knowing it was pointless to argue. “I’m sorry you feel that way. You can be pissed at me if that’s what makes this easier on you.”
“I don’t give a shit about you,” he spat the words. His venom
stung my battered soul, but I dug deep, pulling that invisible forcefield around me just a little tighter. “I’m not pissed. I just don’t give a damn what you do. You made your choice a long time ago. You never cared about this family or the honor we all worked so hard to maintain. Go back to your mansion and your millions. I’ve got this.”
I got to my feet. Staying would only cause more pain. Once the hard shell wore off, his words would be on repeat in my head. They would hurt me if I let them. My father was best in small doses.
“I’ll see you later,” I said and walked out of the house without stopping to look back.
I got in the car and drove to a section of beach that was packed with tourists soaking in the last days of summer. I kicked off my shoes and started to walk. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t care. No matter how hard I tried to block them, my father’s words echoed through my mind. It was like the little ticker tape on the bottom of a newscast. Things he said today mixed in with things he had said to me over the last fifteen years.
My mother’s funeral had been bad, but I knew Kade’s would be a hundred times worse. Maybe it was best I didn’t go. I didn’t like my father, and I knew he didn’t like me, but I didn’t want to make his pain any worse. I wasn’t doing it for me but for Kade. Kade had desperately wanted us to find a way to be a family again. It was the last thing he said to me.
I didn’t think I could honor his wishes, but I could keep from making the situation worse. It wasn’t like Kade would know if I was at the funeral or not. No one would miss me. No one.
Chapter 48
Evie
I cleaned myself up after discovering Xander’s absence, but I was still a mess. I found myself randomly bursting into tears for no good reason. Half the time I didn’t even know what I was crying about.
I just felt fried. My nerves were raw. Every little thing made me cry for no good reason. I stubbed my toe on a chair leg and I burst into tears. I looked at the ocean and I cried. I felt as if I was grieving the loss of not just Kade but Xander.
