Page 71 of Learning at 40

“Also, wanted to let you know your father was very helpful. There’d been some old footings from another fence he had us remove.”

“My father?” I choke and drop my elbows to my thighs, hanging my head.

“Nice guy,” the man adds.

You have got to be joking. What the hell was Robert doing there? Did he come to threaten River? Did he try to harass her as Daniel had? Did he ask her for money?

“How does the yard look?” My voice isn’t as steady as I’d like it to be in asking such a casual question. The removal of the fencing included filling any holes from the posts and covering the fresh dirt with new grass. By next summer, no one would even know an ugly fence was once present between the properties.

“Looks great.”

After thanking him for his call, I quickly call River. Four attempts with no answer lead me to contact Mason before remembering he isn’t at Anna’s. Next, I call Logan. I want someone to check on River. I want someone to physically lay eyes on her, and I don’t want to bother Anna. She has enough to worry about.

Leaving my office early, I tell my assistant I’ll be working remotely the next day and head out without a care for all the work that’s piled up over the two weeks of my vacation. I quickly call the new nanny and then I have my brother on the phone.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me Dad had returned?”

“And hello to you, too.” My brother chuckles into the phone. We just spoke less than a week ago, and he’d never mentioned our father being in the area I was visiting.

“Noah, cut the shit.” I loved my brother, and we’d been close as far as brothers went, but I count him as one more person who abandoned me when I was young. We worked it out, but sometimes that resentful kid in me still flares up. Noah knows I can’t handle even the mention of our father. He’s been the contact on all things regarding Robert, especially after our father divorced our mother from prison. “Did you know he was here?”

“Maybe.” Noah pauses. “How did you find out?”

“I had the wonderful surprise of seeing him at a canoe rental place.”

“You went to Robbyn’s River Adventure?” He scoffs, but Noah doesn’t sound half as shocked in stating the canoe place as his surprise in me going there.

“I took the boys and River.”

“Why does River sound suspiciously like the name of a woman?” Noah laughs.

“Noah, focus.”

“It is a woman. Does my Zacky have a girlfriend?”

How is this man in his mid-forties? He sounds like he’s still eighteen. “Noah.” My teeth grind as I hit the highway heading due west across the state. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Noah sighs, long and hard. “Because I knew you were still angry. You said you never wanted to see him again, and I figured you didn’t want to know his location. The last place I’d expect you to go was Robbyn’s.”

Even if I hadn’t gone there, I might have still run into my father somewhere else in the area. I could have seen him in Union Pier, the local beach town, or worse, walked right past him and not known it was him. I recall how I hadn’t even looked up when he was first talking to the boys when we approached the canoe landing. I hadn’t a thought that it was him until his eyes caught mine—the same colored eyes I face in the mirror every morning.

“I don’t believe this,” I hiss.

“Did you talk to him?” Noah’s tone drops lower, hesitating on the thought.

“No.” I huff. A heavy pause fills the line as my blinker sounds through the car, echoing like a heartbeat as I pass a slow-moving vehicle.

“Maybe you should,” Noah states.

“Maybe you should fuck off. There’s no way I’m speaking to him.”

“Don’t you think it’s time? It’s been twenty-five years.”

“Try twenty-seven, and I think hell can freeze over three times before I’ll speak with him.”

“That’s harsh,” Noah scoffs.

“He went to my . . . he went to River’s house, which happens to be our old home.” My voice rises louder in frustration and anger.