Charles sighed. “Look, y’all have had a miscommunication. You can work this out. I have reserved three rooms at the Hilton in Nashville and I hope one of them is going to be yours. I am headed over to pick up Miss Caroline and that sorry excuse for a dog. It’s not the Christmas we imagined, but we are going to be where he is whether he wants us or not. Why don’t you get yourself ready and we’ll come back for you. He’ll be a lot happier to see his grandmother and me if you are with us. He’s got a new phone. Call him and tell him you’re coming. I would suggest surprising him but I think there have been enough surprises lately. Besides, I’d like to see him put out of his misery.”
“So would I,” Lucy whispered. “But I am not the solution to his misery.”
Charles took a drink of his coffee and inclined his head, signaling her to continue. She hesitated. Might as well.
“Brantley is a runner. When things become intolerable for him, he runs. It’s tied up in his grief for his mother and grandfather.”
Pain crept in to Charles’s eyes but he nodded. “I see.”
“I don’t believe Brantley has ever grieved properly and when he moved back here it slapped him in the face. I don’t understand all of it. He will not talk to me, will not consider getting help. But there are things going on inside him. For some reason, he can cope when he’s with me—or he thinks he can. He told me that the night we decorated the tree at Miss Caroline’s. But his dependence on me has nothing to do with love.”
Charles shook his head sadly. “A fiasco if ever there was one. I should have put a stop to that before it started but Caroline was doing what she thought was best. I am not blind to Brantley’s grief. I just don’t know what to do to help him. But I don’t understand why you think he doesn’t love you. Grief and love are not mutually exclusive.”
“I am a refuge—a way to cope. One that seems to work on some level. But that kind of coping mechanism is bound to last only so long. Marrying me would be just another way of running.”
“I guess I taught him that,” Charles said after a moment of consideration. “Maybe I shouldn’t have jerked him up and taken him out of the country as soon as the funeral was over. Maybe I should have kept him here and gotten some counseling for him.”
“Maybe,” Lucy said. “And maybe you did exactly the right thing. It’s impossible to know. What is not impossible to know is what kind of father you are. And what kind of grandmother Miss Caroline is. There are no better. You did what you thought was best, and it might have been. And it doesn’t really matter how Brantley got here.”
Charles nodded. “I don’t know that I have been the best father but thank you for thinking so. I can’t say you’re wrong about Brantley’s state of mind but don’t you think it would be a good thing if you went to Nashville with us and talked to him? Don’t you think you can help him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that I have that power. But I know this. I can’t go to him. He has to stop running before he can do anything.”
Charles rolled his mug between his palms and gave a half laugh.
“Until that day, nothing bad had ever happened to Brantley, at least not to speak of. From the first, we all fell at his feet—Eva, Caroline, Alden, and maybe me most of all. I’d buried my parents and there was literally no one else on the planet who shared my DNA. Not that Alden and Caroline didn’t treat me like a son, but this was different. He might have been born looking like me but he had his mother’s charm—and his grandfather’s. It’s a thousand wonders we didn’t spoil him beyond redemption. But as soon as he was old enough, Eva made him do volunteer work and later, I made him work to pay for his car insurance. Though they had a yardman, he had to work in his grandparents’ yard every summer. I can just hear Alden. He’d call and say, ‘Charles, send that boy over here in the morning—early before it gets too hot.’ Which, as you know, meant about six o’clock. ‘Caroline is of a mind to put in some flowers. We can’t let him lay up under the air conditioner watching that MTV all summer. We’ll ruin him.’ Alden spent a lot of time worrying about ‘ruining’ him. Then he’d buy him a new set of golf clubs and take him to Charleston to have his clothes custom made. We tried so hard, yet he ended up with a ruined life. The best laid plans.”
Lucy shook her head. “Brantley’s life isn’t ruined. He’s damaged and with good reason—one of the best. I hope and pray things will be better for him, for all of you. I just don’t think I’m going to be able to be part of that.”
“You know Brantley wasn’t the only one who saw you as salvation,” Charles said. “Caroline and I latched on to you too. For that I apologize. But he was home and he was happy. And in our defense—” Charles smiled like Brantley “—you are easy to love.”
“So are you.” She didn’t fight the tears. “And it will be easy for you to love the woman he ends up with one day when he’s healthy and ready.”
“Ah, baby girl. Come on and go with us to Nashville for Christmas. I’ll buy you a bottle of wine and a pony. I always wanted a little girl to buy a pony for.”
“I don’t think so.” She got up and retrieved a package from under the tree. “But will you give this to Brantley? It’s a photo album that I put together for him.”
* * *
Brantley’s realtor had not been delighted when she came by Christmas Eve morning to water the rent-a-plants and found him asleep in one of the God awful sheetless beds. He could only imagine what she thought about the wrecked Christmas tree and messed up bathrooms. Of course, she didn’t say anything. After all, she wanted to keep the listing. It was still his house and he’d paid for all the fake stuff to trick it out and he’d do what he damn well wanted here.
That included hooking up the TV and setting Coke cans, bourbon bottles, and takeout containers on the coffee table without the aid of coasters. He was being bad, bad to the bone, just about as bad as Lucy had been in those boots.
He’d bought himself a Christmas present too—a Blu-ray player and the complete James Bond box set—on Blu-ray of course. Ho, ho, ho.
He had just sat down with his leftover cold pizza and popped a disc in when the doorbell rang.
If that was Rita May, he was calling the police. He almost hoped it was.
He shouldn’t have been surprised when he opened the door and found his father standing there. Eller ran in, yelping with joy. At least someone was happy.
“Did you drive all the way up here to bring my dog?” he asked.
“No. I came to see my son on Christmas Eve.” Charles set a duffle bag and a paper shopping bag on the floor. “I brought you some clothes,” he said.
“Well, saddle up,” Brantley said. “Have some pizza. You’re just in time for Octopussy. Too bad Big Mama didn’t come. She’d like this one.”
“She’s at the Hilton.”
Oh, damn. That meant another painful meal in a fancy restaurant surrounded by other people who had no family. Even now, Big Mama would be searching the Internet on her iPad, looking for just the right venue, making calls, asking questions, seeking perfection that wasn’t going to happen. There would be appropriate clothes for him in that bag—unlike the sweat pants and t-shirts he’d bought at Wal-Mart yesterday. We interrupt this Bond marathon to bring you another empty Christmas.
“That’s a new look in decorations.” Charles gestured to the overturned tree and the broken ornaments scattered around it. The realtor had wanted to clean it up, but Brantley had told her no.
“That’s Rita May’s handiwork,” Brantley said. “She always was volatile.”
Charles sat down beside him on the couch. “Seems you left her alone with your phone,” he said.
“Yeah. I told you she broke it. I had to get another one.”
“That’s not all she did. Lucy called and she answered the phone.”
What? “Lucy called me? How do you even know this?” More importantly, had she called again? If so, how many times before he’d had time to replace his broken phone? Had she given up? No, wait, she wouldn’t have called again beca
use she thought he was with Rita May.
Brantley reached for his phone.
“Son, don’t do that,” Charles said.
“I’ve got to tell her—”
“You made a mistake when you proposed marriage to that girl in front of half of Merritt without ever telling her that you love her. I have stayed out of your personal business, apparently too much. But you and I are going to talk. And I am going to keep you from making another mistake if I can.”
There was a lot going on in that short little speech but what snagged on Brantley was without ever telling her that you love her.
He opened his mouth to deny it, but maybe it was true. He was so in sync with Lucy that he must have assumed that she knew what he knew. Still, women liked to be told. He ought to know. Enough of them had tried to get it out of him over the years. That hadn’t happened since he was fifteen and thoroughly confused about the difference between love and the contents of Cindy Baker’s bra and underpants.
But he wasn’t confused now. He started to dial the phone.
“Brantley.” Charles resurrected the daddy voice from Brantley’s childhood. And it worked.
“I need to tell her,” he said. “I need to make sure she knows Rita May is not here with me.”
“I told her,” Charles said. “She knows what happened about that.”
“You’ve talked to her?” Though, come to think of it, that was a stupid question. How else would Charles have known Rita May answered his phone?
“I have. We had quite the little chat.”
This was mind-boggling. “I expect that from Missy. Even from Big Mama. But I’ve never known you to mess in my business.”
“It’s time someone did, someone who knows what he’s doing, meaning me. Missy and Caroline love you and they mean well, but they have no idea what they are doing most of the time. Lucy thinks you don’t love her, that you are a runner, and she’s just a refuge for you.”
“It’s not true.” A runner? He’d never run from anything in his life.
“I know. I can see that you love her.”
“I have to call her. Right now.” He began to dial.
“Brantley. You are a grown man. Do not make me take that phone away from you. What you need to say to her needs to be said in person. But you and I are going to talk right now. This is a talk we should have had a long time ago.”
“You’ve got my attention.” If they got this over with he could get on with his call.
“I knew I had made mistakes but after talking to Lucy I realized how bad they were. I taught you to be a runner when I took you to Ireland after Eva and Alden died.”
No. Not having this conversation. Not now.
“I am NOT a runner. I don’t even know what that means. What am I supposed to be running from? Or toward? That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. What do you think you’ve been doing ever since it happened? Refusing to come home for more than a few days at a time.”
“I am an adult,” Brantley said through clenched teeth. “I don’t live there anymore!” Or he didn’t. He did now. Maybe. Oh, hell. He was homeless!
Charles went on as if Brantley had not spoken. “Having a job that takes you all over the country.”
“That’s my job—how I earn my money! I am a restoration architect. People can’t pack up buildings and bring them to me!” Good thing his dad couldn’t ground him anymore for his tone of voice.
“Never coming home for summer when you were in college, or holidays if you could get around it.”
“I worked! I went skiing! That’s what college kids do! You should be glad I didn’t lie around all summer. No matter what you think, Merritt isn’t the end all and be all!”
“No?” Charles met his eyes. “You were pretty satisfied with it for a while there—until things didn’t go like you wanted. Then you ran again.”
The wind went out of his sails. And it was too bad too. He’d love to sail away. If he knew how to sail a boat. Which he did not.
Charles closed his eyes and shook his head. “Son, I am sorry it took Lucy to make me see that you are in crisis. I should have taken better care of you back then, and maybe you wouldn’t be going through this now.”
His heart rate picked up. And he began to sweat. He could not hear this.
“I’m not going through anything except losing Lucy.”
“That’s not true and you know it. You went warp speed on the girl because you needed safety among all your memories and you found it with her.”
Lucy was comfort and sanity. But she was more than that. She was everything.
“I love Lucy,” he said.
Charles nodded. “I know you do. But you can’t hide in her.”
“Look, Lucy is making complications where there are none and apparently she has sold you on it. This is simple. It should be easy. There are no problems.”
“Then why,” Charles asked, “are you and I sitting in a townhouse in Nashville on Christmas Eve, where neither of us wants to be? Son, it’s time you faced your grief. I failed you once, but I will not fail you again.”
Failed him? His dad had failed him? Oh, God. That was almost funny.
“No,” Brantley said. “You didn’t.”
“How can you say that?” For the first time Brantley saw how upset his father was. “You were eighteen and had lost two of the most important people in your life. I am your father. Did I get any help for you? No. I took you out of the environment where you should have been adjusting, that should have been your comfort. Home. Then I took you straight to a dorm room at Vanderbilt. No wonder you were never comfortable at home again.”
Brantley’s mouth went dry and every muscle in his body tightened. It was one thing to hide the truth, but to let his father blame himself was unthinkable.
“Brantley,” Papa had once told him, “be a boy as long as you can. It’s good training for when you have to be a man.”
He had certainly taken that to heart. But it was time to be a man, no matter what else he lost.
“Dad,” he said carefully, “you are wrong. Nothing was your fault. It was a hard time for all of us.” It was now or never, and it had already been never too long. “And none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for me. If I hadn’t done what I did, we’d all be in Merritt right now doing what we used to do at Christmas. Nobody would be grieving and nobody would be buried.”
Good; it was out. There was no turning back. Even if Charles never wanted to see him again, at least that would be honest.
Charles looked thoroughly perplexed. “Son, I have no idea what you are talking about. You didn’t do anything.”
In for a penny, in for a whole life. Of course, that life was as fake as everything in this townhouse.
“I should have told you a long time ago. You may never forgive me. And that’s all right; I’ve got it coming.”
“Son, I could never—”
“Don’t say what you could never do, until you hear me out.” He’d started now. On with it. “The morning it happened, Mama had told me twice to take a shower and get dressed. It was going on eleven o’clock. I was playing video games and I kept telling her just a minute. She was pretty aggravated with me to begin with and, I admit, I was tired of her nagging me. I didn’t see what difference it made when I took a shower. So anyway, Papa called to say his car was broken down on the interstate. He’d been down to Birmingham for something. Some early breakfast meeting, I think. He was about thirty miles out of town. Of course, you know that part I guess. Anyway, he wanted me to come get him.
“She came in there where I was and said, ‘Brantley, your grandfather has had car trouble and needs you to come get him. Now, I’ve already told you. Put that remote down and get in that shower. Right now. It’s hot and he’s sitting in his car on the side of the road. You need to get there before the wrecker does.’ Well.” He closed his eyes. “It made me mad. Stupid. I was about to top my high score. I threw the controller down and said, ‘Why do I ha
ve to do everything?’ Funny. I never really did much of anything. I’ll never forget the look on her face. She put her hand up and said, ‘Pardon me, my little prince. I’ll do it myself!’ And she left. And you know what? I was glad. I still didn’t get dressed. I sat there and played that stupid video game until—well, you know that part. That’s what I was doing when you came to tell me. You had to send me to the shower before people starting coming.”
There it was done. Charles’s eyes had never left his and his expression remained neutral the whole time.
“And?” Charles said.
And what? Wasn’t that enough? “Don’t you get it? She left mad. First, if I had gone, it wouldn’t have happened. A minute sooner or later, it wouldn’t have happened. Second, she was so mad at me. If I had not been hateful, if she had not been mad, she would not have had the wreck.”
Charles put his head in his hands. “Oh, Brantley. Oh, Son.”
“Even if we can’t come back from this, even if you never forgive me, it’s a relief that you know. I’m tired of living a lie.”
Charles looked up and met his eyes. “Son, I knew about this. I always knew.”
That could not be true. His father could not know this and not blame him. “But how?” he asked because he could not get the question out about the lack of blame.
“Your mother called me on the way to pick up Alden. She was pretty steamed at you and she ranted for a minute or two. Then we started laughing. We kept saying back and forth to each other, ‘Why do I have to do everything?’ It was pretty laughable, considering the extraordinary effort we put into making your life easy. But we decided no video games for the rest of the summer and no taking the Play Station with you to Vandy. And then she said, ‘Oh, Charles, what are we going to do for entertainment when he’s gone?’ I assure you, Brantley, she was not mad at you. You were normally so obliging. You were just lazy that morning and had had a gut load of being told what to do. And you sassed her. That’s what teenagers do, though you not as often as most.”
Brantley was speechless. Or very nearly. There was something else he had to know.
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