Relentless (Mason Family 4)

“Hello?” I say.

“Hey, son.” Dad’s voice barrels through the line. “How’s it going?”

My body tenses. I lean forward and place one elbow on my desk as if it’ll somehow bolster me for this conversation.

“I’m good. You?” I ask.

“Same old, same old.”

In the course of a normal conversation with the old man, I’d volunteer information about my day. I’d tell him about Shaye or about the predicament on the Jewell project. I might ask him to meet me somewhere for a drink and he’d oblige. This, however, isn’t a normal conversation.

I hoped that when he finally called me that I wouldn’t feel as irritated with him. Maybe time would’ve softened my reaction to him missing Rosie’s birthday or that Mom would’ve called and smoothed it over like she’s done before. He’s a grown man, Oliver. He has a life outside of me.

My fingertips strum against the desktop. “Did you just get back to town?”

“I got in yesterday,” he says. “Did some golfing up north. Did a little fishing. Pretty good time.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Is there something wrong?”

I blow out a breath. The sound rattles through the phone. I sit back in my seat and feel a shot of adrenaline push through my veins.

“Yeah, actually,” I say. “I’m a little pissed off that you missed Rosie’s party.”

He scoffs. “She’s a kid. She didn’t miss me being there.”

“Maybe you’re right. But maybe your kid, Boone, did.”

“Oh, come on, Oliver. Don’t try to guilt-trip me about missing a little girl’s birthday party—a little girl I just met, mind you.”

I spring forward, chair squealing. “That little girl is your granddaughter.”

“She’s not my blood.”

The pressure building at the top of my head feels like it’s going to blow. My jaw falls open as a response fit for my father eludes me.

“I’m sure your mother got the granddaughter a very nice, very expensive gift,” he says, sarcasm thick in his tone.

It takes everything I have to keep my composure. “I’m sure that you are missing the fucking point, Pops.”

“Did your mother get to you too?”

“Did my mother …” I clench my teeth together and exhale—for my own good as much as his. “I don’t know where you were going with that, but it would behoove you to leave Mom out of this conversation.”

“It would behoove you, Oliver, to remember who you’re fucking talking to.”

I get to my feet. My free hand goes to my tie, jerking it free from my neck. “I know exactly who I’m talking to.”

“I’ve already been hassled by your mother about this whole party bullshit, and I’m not about to do it again with you,” he says, the statement more a warning than an information bulletin.

“Fine. Let’s leave the party out of it. When is the last time you talked to Boone?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t called.”

“And it never occurred to you to check on your youngest son? The one that’s going through a bunch of shit right now and might, I don’t know, need his dad’s advice? Or at least to know that he’s got his dad behind him?”

“If he needed me, he’d call.”

I run a hand through my hair and face the windows again. “Maybe he just expected more from you. Maybe he expected a little support without having to ask for it. Hell, maybe I expected more from you.”

“You know what? I raised you kids. I did right by all of you and your mother for the past thirty, forty years. I paid my dues. You’re grown-ass men who can handle yourselves. And if you can’t, well that’s not my fucking problem anymore.”

I force a hot, tense swallow. His words ring through my head on repeat—ricocheting through my mind like a bullet fired from an enemy.

Only it’s not an enemy. It’s my father.

My lips part to follow up with a question or a comment, but nothing comes out. My brain fails to find an appropriate response to the admission from Dad that he has been choosing to detach himself from our lives.

No. He’s chosen. Past tense.

I’ve suspected this is the case. Things have been slowly changing with him over the past year or so—less calls. Less appearances. Less normal Dad shit that he’s done my entire life. Even though I’ve thought something wasn’t quite right, it still stuns me to hear him verbalize it. To admit he’s paid his dues.

What the actual fuck?

“What’s going on with you?” I ask him. “Where is all of this coming from?”

“I’m tired. I’m tired of all of this. I’ve spent my entire life making choices that benefit everyone else, and as soon as I decide to do a few things for me, everyone’s pissed.” He sighs. “At what point do I get to live my life, huh?”

I look around my office—the one that used to be his. I remember sitting on the old brown leather sofa he had against the back wall, listening to him finishing up his day. He’d set the phone down or dismiss his secretary, and then smile at me and say, “Let’s go tell Mama how pretty she is.” I recall coming in the door with Holt, the two of us sent here by Mom for fighting, and listening to an hour-long speech about how family is everything. It feels like yesterday that Wade and me, wet behind the ears, helped map out our very first project together with Dad at the helm.