“And it would have meant Snow Crystal being run by someone outside the family. He couldn’t do that to Gramps, so he stayed and did a job he didn’t want to do. And the resentment ate him up.”
“He talked to you about it?”
“All the damn time.” Sean leaned forward and turned off the stove. “He used to call me, mostly late at night, when Mom had gone to bed and he was on his own drinking in the kitchen, staring at a mountain of debts and paperwork he had no idea how to handle. He’d call me and he’d say the same thing every time, ‘Stay away from this place. Never give up on your dream.’”
“Does Jackson know he used to call you?”
“There was no reason to tell him.” He reached into his bag and pulled out water. “His business was going well in Europe, he was having a blast, making money, living the dream. It was all blue skies for him and I didn’t see any reason to put a cloud in that sky.”
He’d been protecting his brother. Carrying the weight by himself. “You didn’t tell anyone?”
“No. And then Dad was killed and I wished I had. If I’d said something sooner maybe we could have done something.”
“His car spun on the ice. How could you have prevented that?”
He turned the water bottle in his hands. “Dad was traveling because he couldn’t stand to be at home. He wanted to be where the snow was so he went to New Zealand. Gramps wouldn’t leave him alone. He pressured him to spend more time here, and the more he put the pressure on, the less Dad wanted to be here. He was already giving it everything he could.” His voice was raw. “At the funeral, I lost it.”
“This was the row you had? It was because of your father?”
“I blamed Gramps.” He rubbed his fingers over his forehead and pulled a face. “I accused him of putting too much pressure on Dad. I said it was his fault. He lost it, too, and told me I should have been at home helping. He said if I’d been here, there wouldn’t have been so much pressure. He told me I didn’t have a clue what was really going on. Neither of us has mentioned it since.”
Two men, both too stubborn to say they were sorry.
But it explained a lot. It explained the tension between the two men. It explained why Walter was so defensive with Sean and why Sean still hadn’t dealt with it.
“You still blame him. You’re still angry.”
“Yeah, I guess part of me is and I hate that. That isn’t the way I want to feel.” He stared at his hands. “I need to apologize because obviously Gramps wasn’t responsible for Dad’s death and I should never have said that, not even in the black misery of grief, but that doesn’t change the fact I’m still angry at the pressure he puts on everyone.”
She swallowed. “And your brothers don’t know why you stopped coming home?”
“They didn’t notice much of a difference. Work has pretty much kept me away for the past few years and when we were together it was usually around the holidays and there were so many of us the rift wasn’t so obvious. When Jackson called to tell me about Gramps I knew I had to come home, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to see me. And I was right. The moment I showed my face at the hospital he told me to go back to Boston.”
“But not because he didn’t want you there.” Her heart ached for him. For both of them. “It’s been two years. You must talk to him.”
“Maybe.” He stood up, his mouth a grim line. “But he isn’t easy to talk to and I don’t trust myself not to say the wrong thing and make it worse. Being home just brings it all back. The pressure. The anger. The guilt. It’s all there in a great churning mess.”
She stood up, too. “It’s grief,” she said quietly. “Grief is a messy, horrible thing. Guilt and anger are all part of it. You think the emotions should be clean and straightforward, but they’re not. Believe me, I know. I felt it all when my mother died. You should talk to him. I don’t think it matters if you say the ‘wrong’ thing. What matters is that you’re talking.”
“What do I say? The truth is he did put pressure on my father. There’s no getting around that. But I shouldn’t have lost my temper and I definitely shouldn’t have blamed him. And yeah, I regret it. There isn’t a day when I don’t wish I could pull those words back.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw and gave her a lopsided smile. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Here I am, baring my soul. I guess that’s what happens when you’re out in the wilderness.”
The air was still, the sun dropping down behind the mountaintops sending a rosy glow over the peaks and the forest.
“We all have things we regret in life. Things we wish we hadn’t done. Things we wish we hadn’t said. Your grandfather loves you, Sean. He really loves you. You have to try and fix i
t.”
“So do you have things you regret?”
Her heart thudded a little faster. A little harder. “Of course.”
“Name one.”
She pulled the pan away from the camping stove, thinking of Pascal and wishing she wasn’t. She’d erased him from her life. It was just a shame she couldn’t erase him from her thoughts.
“My mother taught me to think of mistakes as a lesson. She used to say ‘If there is a lesson to be learned learn it and move on. Everything else is just experience.’”
“So what was your biggest lesson?”