Page 27 of Professorhole

“I was worried about her. Asher was only a touch older but more mature. He helped out on the yacht. But you were a handful.” He managed a watery smile, and I bumped my shoulder into him. I was still a handful, and he knew it. So did Flynn, if the snort of laughter was anything to go by.

“You were so active and fearless. When I’d taken you out a few weeks earlier, you’d jumped off the back of the yacht in the middle of the seaway. Boats everywhere and a swell a couple of metres high, and there you were, diving into the water so you could swim with a pod of dolphins. I was worried you’d pull a stunt like that, and no one would be watching you.”

I swallowed. Our not being on that yacht had been a near miss. Such a close shave that if the circumstances were different, I’d have suggested buying a lottery ticket.

“I’m sorry I’m bringing it up.” More than anything, I wanted to be able to share happy memories with Dad, but it still hurt so much. I wanted to be able to talk to him about funny things they did—the good memories—and laugh about them. But our conversations always ended in tears, both of us missing them so desperately. We held on to our memories like a lifeline, but they were all tainted with a grief so deep, it could envelop us whole, and we’d never be seen again.

“I’m glad you did. That was a happy memory. It’s the stuff that came after that was awful. That whole time was a living nightmare. I blamed myself for the longest time. The should-haves and what-ifs still consume me. If I’d suggested we go to the beach house instead, maybe they’d still be here. If I’d been on the yacht, maybe I could have saved them. But if we were, I might have lost you too.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Dad. It was an accident. No one saw it coming.”

“You’re right, and logically I know that, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept. I’ll always live with my regrets.”

“Mum knew how much you loved her.”

“I hope so.” He stopped walking and stood, quietly watching the water for the longest time. When he finally began walking again, it was back toward his townhouse. “I didn’t get to say what I needed to. I didn’t apologize for being so inconsiderate and self-absorbed. I should have been there for her that day, not for work. They could have called someone else, but she only had me.”

He swallowed, his breath catching as he sniffed back a sob. “I didn’t even tell her that I loved her when she left that morning. I was angry that she couldn’t understand why I needed to go to work. And now, I don’t even remember why it was so important. I was so stupid.”

We walked quietly for a while, the sand cool against my toes. With every step, I sank down to my ankles, the water acting like a suction device on my feet.

“What happened with the business when she died?”

“The economy was already on rocky ground. News report after news report showed companies going bankrupt. People were abandoning their houses in the US, just walking away from them. The whole world was heading to a crash, and Rosa’s investors were panicking. It was a complete one-eighty from only a few months earlier. They wanted their money out, but without your mum there leading it, the whole thing fell to pieces. Within weeks the investments were worthless, and the company had nothing. It became a victim of the economic times.”

“Why did we move?” I asked, a lump in my throat.

“The company had debts. I sold everything that had your mum’s name on it and handed it over. I don’t know amounts; I didn’t want to know either. I was in a dark place. The solicitors did what they needed to do to make it all go away.”

Flynn squeezed my hand so hard, my bones were cracking, but it was the only thing keeping me upright. I remembered those dark days all too well. Dad was barely holding on. He wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. He was like a zombie. I thought I might lose him too.

Until Ry’s mum intervened. His dad had died around the same time. They helped each other. They leaned on each other to pull themselves up. Slowly Dad started to see light again. Slowly he came back to me. He and Ry’s mum were like sister and brother nowadays. There was a deep platonic love between them. They’d saved each other, and that gave them an unbreakable bond.

I hadn’t realized that I’d detached myself too. I was alone by choice. I had Flynn and Ryder there with me, but I couldn’t connect with them. It was like a brick wall had gone up between us. The gaping wound in my heart was like the Grand Canyon. I was trapped on one side, and Flynn and Ryder were on the other—close but yet somehow so far away too.

Flynn was there now though. So was Ry. Dad too. I concentrated on their touch—Dad’s arm around my waist and Flynn’s hand in mine—and I slowly put one foot in front of the other.

“Did they ever salvage the yacht?” I asked quietly. I knew it was painful to answer, but this was the most openly we’d spoken about this stuff in years, and I couldn’t let it go. Not yet, not while I needed to know this to protect both Mum and Dad.

Dad stopped walking right where grass met sand in his backyard. He sank down onto his butt, like the bones in his legs had suddenly disintegrated. I collapsed next to him, hugging him as Flynn moved around to Dad’s other side and wrapped an arm around him. We bracketed Dad as he shook his head, and whispered, “No.” Tears tracked down his face once more. Dropping his face into his hands, he cried harder, his quiet sobs like a knife to my heart.

It took a long time for him to start talking again, and when he did, his voice was hoarse, scrubbed raw by the pain that had a chokehold on him. “They think it broke apart. We don’t know if there was an explosion or just a fire, but the wreckage that washed up suggested an explosion. The water was too deep for what was left to be salvaged, especially because they didn’t know exactly where the accident happened.”

He sucked in a breath, seeming to force distance between himself and his emotions. It was as if he was recounting someone else’s loss, his voice turning monotone. “The Coast Guard did an air and sea search when Rosa didn’t check back in and couldn’t be reached on the radio. But it was too late.” His voice cracked on the last sentence, his battle to keep his heartbreak at bay a lost cause.

The despair in his voice, the sheer desolation shattered me. The love of his life and his little boy had died. He was left with a kid who couldn’t fathom a loss like that, who was angry and confused and retaliated by hating the world. Add the survivor’s guilt and money woes, and my respect for the man who raised me skyrocketed. He was a survivor. Even while he was holding on by the skin of his teeth, he was still there. Still putting in the hard yards.

“When nothing except the few pieces of floating debris and your brother’s foot had been found after five days, Rosa and Asher were presumed dead, and the search was called off.” I remembered their funeral. I remembered two white caskets with the brightest-coloured flowers on them. I remembered walking with Dad behind them, wondering what had happened. I remembered the pink frilly dress my aunt had chosen for me that was so itchy, I scratched until I bled. I remembered being confused about why we were saying goodbye to them. I remembered Dad being a shell of himself.

“Your mum loved the ocean. She would have spent every day out on the water if she could have. That yacht was her pride and joy, much like yours is to you.” His smile was brittle, and tears still tracked down his face. “I feel closer to them out here. Connected somehow.”

I got it. Subconsciously I think I did the same, trying to keep a part of them close. “Me too. I wish I could remember them better,” I whispered.

“Maybe it’s time,” Dad wondered aloud, and I stilled, tilting my head in question. “Come with me.”

Flynn helped him up and gestured for me to go first, his hand on the small of my back, as we followed him inside and into the spare bedroom. It was where he kept all of Mum’s and Asher’s things that he couldn’t face giving away even after all these years—Mum’s wedding dress and her favourite robe, Asher’s school uniform, the football he’d scored his first try with, letters and artwork, baby photos and toys, CD mixed tapes they’d given each other, and the Lego set Asher was building. He opened the cupboard and retrieved two archive boxes from the back. After putting them down with a thud, he opened one of the lids and ran his fingers reverently along the leatherbound books. “These are some of your mum’s diaries. She wrote in them every night before bed. They were a comfort for her.”

“Have you read them?” I asked, touching the aging binding.

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