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25
Lucas
I destroyed my family twenty years ago. I was a seventeen-year-old jackass who knew his good looks and money would open life’s doors and girls’ legs. I attended an elite boarding school in Massachusetts, hanging out with kids whose families were written about in history books.
Girls pushed each other out of the way to sleep with me. Guys wanted to be my friends, mostly to have a chance with the girls I didn’t take to bed. My attendance at a party determined its success or failure. I was the “it” guy on campus with my nose stuck up so high in the air, I didn’t know where I was going.
Funny thing about being on top of the mountain with the wind at your back? There’s only one place to go—down. And my fall resembled an avalanche as the ground I stood on disappeared under me.
During Christmas break my junior year in high school, my family stayed at our estate in Vermont. Snow covered the hundred-acre grounds. Restless from being cooped up in the house, I talked my parents into taking the snowmobiles out for a late afternoon ride.
My mother and I rode together on one. My father and sister paced behind us on theirs. I’d begged my mother to pull over and let me drive. I hated sitting in the back seat.
Finally, my persistence paid off and she relented, even though I hadn’t passed the required safety course. She warned me to keep my speed down and stay on the normal path.
I did neither. What happened after I took control would haunt me forever—has haunted me since that day.
I guided the snowmobile a few feet off the usual path, thinking it would still be safe. Then I saw a small mound of snow piled ahead of us. Instead of doing the smart thing and returning to the normal route, I accelerated the engine and aimed smack dab for it.
Right before we cruised over the mound, my mother screamed at me. The piercing sound of terror in her voice still visited me in my nightmares. I tried to turn the snowmobile, but it was too late. There was a jarring stop to our forward motion when we hit a tree stump buried in the snow. The crashing sound echoed in the quiet woods. We flew through the air in separate directions. I could still close my eyes and picture the scene in slow motion. The endless reel tortured my mind, but I deserved the punishment.
My father came upon the wreck seconds later, or so he told me. I was dazed from the crash and calling out for my mother, but she didn’t answer.
Twirling red lights from the ambulances filled the snow-covered grounds like a horror movie. Later in the night, after the hospital ran every possible test on me, a doctor released me to go home. He said I was lucky to land in the fresh-fallen snow. I asked him how my mother was, and his eyes had turned toward the floor. He told me my father was outside the door. I gathered the snow gear I had on when I’d arrived and met my father.
I’d hardly recognized him. His shoulders had been slumped, as if he carried the weight of the world. The usual fire in his brown eyes had been reduced to lifeless mud. He’d aged ten years in a few hours.
I’d wanted to ask him about my mother, but I was too scared to hear his answer. I’d already known it wasn’t good news. The man I’d known for seventeen years had disappeared.
My father had been silent as we’d followed the exit signs down the white-tiled floors. Why were we leaving? I’d feared my mother was dead—and she was in so many ways.
When we’d pushed through the doors leading to the waiting area for the ER, he’d pulled me to a stop. I’d noticed our cook and housekeeper standing near the outside exit.
He told me a helicopter was flying in from Boston to take my mother to a trauma hospital. Her helmet had a dent in it and she was unconscious.
Trees had been scattered off the path, so I’d assumed her head had hit one of them. The blame laid at my feet, but no one knew I had been the one behind the controls.
“Mr. Shaw.” Hearing my name, I jumped back to reality. The woman filling in for Father’s assistant called out my name. I wished Vanessa wasn’t on vacation. I could’ve really used her smiles before entering the lion’s den. “Your father will see you now.”
I’d been sitting on a chair too small for my large build for an hour, waiting. I didn’t want to be comfortable, though. I needed to feel everything today. I watched company attorneys march into the office ahead of me. I had to keep my head in the game, because no matter what my father threw at me, I planned on winning in the end. It might look like a defeat to him, but we had different goals in life, and mine had never been clearer.
