Page 19 of His for the Holiday

“I need to run an errand, but I’ll be back in a few, okay?”

“I’ll keep an eye on the monsters,” I said, grinning. “Free of charge.”

She laughed. “Damn right, Mr. Money Bags.”

While I cleared the table and washed the dishes, I decided to buy them a dishwasher. I didn’t know why they didn’t have one yet, but I’d only been here for a week, and already, I was over doing it all manually. Once I was done cleaning up, I grabbed my phone and ordered one to be delivered. Then I went to build Legos with the boys until Emery got back. The youngest was making a wall made mostly of little yellow heads, which was creepy, but I had to applaud the creativity.

Upon her return, Emery still looked exhausted but she got started on lunch almost immediately anyway. I sighed when I walked into the kitchen to find her standing behind the stove. “We could just make sandwiches, you know?”

“Not with three growing boys in the house,” she said listlessly. “Besides, this is good for me. It keeps me busy and my mind off all the things I want to keep it off of.”

I leaned against the counter and grinned at her. “Go see what Sawyer is building for his Halloween castle. That ought to distract you.”

She shook her head and smiled. “He’s been really into spooky shit lately. I hope I haven’t already failed him as a mother.”

“No way,” I said. “You’re doing great. It’s just a phase. I used to draw skulls on everything and I turned out just fine.”

She shot me a look. “Did you, though?”

We both laughed.

“Hey, do you mind if I take this opportunity to go down to the docks?” I asked.

She absently waved a hand toward the front door. “Go for it. Just don’t be surprised if he doesn’t like you showing up there. He has a lot of strong opinions and he’s not afraid to share them.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I already know he’s a grumpy old cuss, but I need to talk to him. I just don’t get why he’s doing all this.”

Emery sighed. “He’s stuck in the past, unable to accept that he’s getting on in years. It’s who he is, but be my guest. Talk to him till you’re blue in the face. As long as you don’t expect me to go with you.”

I took off and found my dad working on something in his modest office near the port. He barely looked up when I walked in. “What are you doing here?”

“Telling you that I’m paying for your hospital bills,” I said. “You could’ve just told me if it was about money, Dad. You know I’ll pay your bills.”

He sniffed, eyes rooted on the paperwork in front of him. “You shouldn’t say that, boy. There are going to be a lot more coming.”

I inhaled deeply and invited myself into his office, pushing away from the door to take a seat across the desk from him. “What did the doctors say?”

“Fucking Parkinson’s is advancing,” he spat, frustration thick and heavy in his tone. “I have maybe a year or two left before I’m completely useless. Means I’d better work while I still can.”

I watched him swallow, his features twisting like he tasted something bitter. Pain seared through me. I hated seeing him like this.

“It’s probably a good thing you left for greener pastures out west,” he said. “Better than being stuck here with a company that’s going down the drain anyhow.”

For the first time ever, I felt bad. For leaving. For all of it.

Guilt coursed through my veins like hot lava, eating me up from the inside out. There had been a time when my dad had been so proud of me. After I graduated the training program to be a boat pilot and when I’d become a second captain, he’d practically beamed with pride.

My sister had even joked that he’d never fit into our house again because his chest had been so puffed up. When I’d gone to California to pursue piloting barges, his chest had nearly burst at the seams again. Back in those days, it had seemed like I could do no wrong.

Dad and I had been in the same game and he’d loved every second of it, but then I’d found a way to start my own shipping company, leaving the trade and opting for life in an office over the bridge of a boat, and things had changed.

I was convinced my dad had seen that as an affront. A personal attack on his way of life.

All these years, I’d thought that he and I had drifted apart partially because of that and partially because I’d just been so damn busy, but I was starting to think that it ran deeper than that. In fact, it was starting to feel like my father was disappointed in me, which was the opposite of what I wanted.

During my childhood, we’d been pretty well off. Nothing like I was now, but still. Dad had provided for Emery and me, and he’d done so freely and generously by working his butt off all his life. Yet now that I was the one with the money, what had I done with it?

Bought bottle service and gone to Nobu instead of taking care of my ailing dad, my single-mom sister who’d gotten screwed over by her ex, and the company my dad had built from the ground up. Maybe he is disappointed in me. Shit, maybe he even has reason to be.

While I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—take back the fact that I’d left the trade when I’d started my company, I knew I could’ve handled it better when I’d told my dad. I also knew that I hadn’t needed to let that get between us.

Years ago, I should’ve pushed him to have it out with me so we could’ve had the damn fight and moved past it, but no. It’d been easier to just let it go and tell myself that I didn’t have time for his bullshit.

Now, however, I stared at him from across that desk and saw him struggling to turn the pages of the paperwork with his shaking hands, a deep scowl still on his features and frustration about it all practically radiating from him, and I knew that I had fucked up.

I should have made sure that my family was okay all these years since I’d been gone, but I’d left them to their own devices and let myself off the hook about it because I called Emery once a week. Running my hands through my hair, I decided that maybe I needed a night off and a drink too.

These were some pretty shitty things to realize about oneself, and I would change all those things I’d just identified, but I needed a damn minute to get my head wrapped around it all.

So far, coming back to Portsmouth had a been a mindfuck a minute, and something told me this town wasn’t quite done with me just yet.