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“Not here.” Dad shrugs. “She left for Europe this morning. Shopping trip.”
“That seems… sudden,” I say. She must hate me even more than I thought.
But Dad waves my comment away. “She’s been planning it for weeks. She’s sick of me, and I’m sick of her, to be frank.”
“Wow. Okay.” I don’t know what to say. A tiny part of me can’t help but feel vindicated on behalf of my mom.
“Stephanie married me strictly for the ‘better,’ and this is starting to feel like the ‘worse’ part,” Dad continues in a sour tone. “She’s hardly the nursemaid type, you know. She’s not cut out to take care of me. And I can’t stand her bitching. So…”
He trails off. His face is strangely impassive as he says all this. I can’t tell whether he’s actually bothered that she’s gone or not. A stab of something like sympathy hits me. I’d hate to be in a marriage like his. To have a spouse who’d rather skip town than take care of you sounds terrible. It would almost be better not to have a spouse at all. My mom when she went through her cancer treatments without a husband, but she had me. At least she didn’t have to put up with a fractious spouse on top of everything else.
But Dad doesn’t want to talk about Stephanie, or about being sick. He leans forward and asks me questions about how I like my office, and how I spent my day. He gruffly apologizes for not being there, but says he’ll be in tomorrow, and that we can ride in together.
“Dad,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Look. I still am not really sure what you want me to be doing at RJW. Surely you realize I have no actual qualifications to be doing whatever you think it is I should be.”
“Your qualifications are that you’re my daughter. And it’s time you take your place at the company.”
I blink. “But I don’t have a place at the company.”
“You do. You’re my heir.” He fixes me with a sharp gaze. “You need to come back and settle down in Ironwood, Aurora. It’s time for you to take my place at the helm of RJW.”
“What?” I blurt. “You can’t be serious! I thought Joshua…”
“Yes, yes.” He interrupts me impatiently. “I admit, I have been operating under the assumption that Joshua would be taking over someday. But that was before. I thought it would be far in the future. I thought I’d still be in charge for at least fifteen or twenty more years. But now I’m dying.” He says the word with such force it takes me aback. “And I can’tstandthe idea of the business that I built slipping away from me.” Again, he pierces me with a determined stare. “You are my family, Aurora. You are all that’s left.”
I’m speechless.
“Does Joshua know this is what you want?” I ask in a strangled voice.
“He knows I want you in upper management. He’s a smart boy, he’ll figure it out.”
God. I can’t believe it. Joshua has been working for my dad forever. Dad talks about him all the time. I always assumed he was like the son he never had. I can’t believe Dad is planning to just toss him away like an old sock.
But honestly? It feels a little bit like my dad’s M.O. He did it to Mom, after all. And he sort of did it to me when I disappointed him by getting married so young, and then having the marriage fall apart.
“Joshua mentioned to me what an attractive young woman you are,” Dad continues, and something in his tone changes then. “He’s single, you know. The two of you could make a very good couple. And,” he adds, with a twinkle in his eye, “together, you could raise the next generation to take over RJW. Two birds with one stone, eh?”
“Dad!” I exclaim, staring at him.
“Okay, okay,” he chuckles. “Just don’t dismiss it out of hand. Think about it. It’s time you settled down. This would take care of a lot of problems at once.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I and my lack of relationship and children is not aproblem. But just then, his body tenses, his face twisting into a grimace. He lets out a soft grunt, and I realize he’s in pain.
“I think I’m going to go upstairs and take a rest,” he tells me. “Gina left dinner in the fridge to be heated up. There’s enough for both of us.”
I watch in silence as he gets slowly and awkwardly to his feet. I know instinctively that he won’t want me to help him. He half-walks, half-shuffles out of the room and up the stairs, his posture erect and stiff. It’s only when he’s completely out of earshot that I let out the breath I’ve been holding.
“Whew.” I exhale noisily, and flop back in my chair. My mind is reeling with everything that’s just happened in the last ten minutes. I’m feeling crushed under the weight of my dad’s expectations, and terrified that I don’t know how to say no to him. Even though I’m sure that saying yes is not what I want.
I need to get out of here,my brain clangs. Out of this house. Away from my past. And away from the future my father is trying to write for me.
I need a drink.
And because I basically know almost no one in town anymore, I decide to go to the one place where I know at least one person who will be a sympathetic ear.
The Viking Bar.
15
