Juliet
He stared at the vase for a moment, trying to recall if anybody had ever given him flowers before. It felt personal, almost too personal, and yet there was a warmth inside him that wasn’t there before.
The woman next door was almost impossible to figure out. Maybe that’s why he found her so intriguing.
After dropping Charlie off at school, Ryan turned his truck in the direction of the business district, right at the heart of Shaw Haven. Though the meeting he was due to attend was an official one he hadn’t bothered dressing appropriately for the occasion. He didn’t own a suit, hadn’t needed one on his travels.
And now? It was a matter of pride more than anything, to wear the same clothes he wore every day. As he stepped into the shiny office block that housed Shaw & Sutherland, his jeans and dark T-shirt made him look more out of place than ever. When he was a child he would have felt uncomfortable at being different, but right now he liked that feeling.
‘Can I help you?’ One of the well-groomed associates looked up from the reception desk. Her eyes showed no recognition at all. Why would they? The last time he’d walked into this building he’d been little more than a kid.
‘I’m here to see Matthew Sutherland.’ Or rather, he’d been summoned. And as much as he disliked his father, his curiosity outweighed his antipathy. Plus he didn’t want him turning up at his home again.
The mention of his father’s name was enough to make the receptionist sit up straight. Anybody invited to see his father was obviously somebody. ‘What’s your name, please?’
‘I’m Ryan.’
She waited for a moment, as if expecting him to give a surname, but Ryan kept quiet. He still didn’t like the way a simple word changed the way people treated him in this town. For good or bad.
‘Please take a seat.’ She pointed at the bank of leather chairs in the corner of the marbled entrance. ‘I’ll let his assistant know you’re here.’
‘No need, I’ll find my own way up.’ Ryan wasn’t about to wait around at his father’s beck and call.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ the receptionist called out at his retreating back. He was already halfway towards the elevators. ‘Mr um … Ryan, you can’t just go up there. Nobody’s allowed to roam the building without an escort.’
He ignored her increasingly frantic calls, stepping into the first elevator that arrived. The inside felt familiar, and as he pressed the button for floor eleven, it felt as though he was stepping back in time, back to that young kid who would come visit his father on very special occasions, his sweaty hand clutching at his tightly knotted tie, feeling out of place the way he always did.
The air in the elevator tasted stale, as if it had been trapped inside for too long. Ryan took a big lungful of it anyhow, watching the display tick past each level, until it finally came to a stop on floor eleven. He stepped out, ignoring the assistant whose desk was angled to welcome whoever exited the elevator, instead turning left, his brown shoes barely making a sound on the carpeted floor.
Strange how easily things came back to him. The conference room had been behind the door at the end of the corridor in his grandfather’s day. And there it still was, though the name had been elevated to ‘boardroom’ according to the gold letters affixed to the thick, oak door. The atmosphere felt the same, too, the air pressing down on him oppressively. Reminding him exactly why he could never work in an office building like this.
He didn’t bother to knock, just pushed the door open, the hinges creaking as the light from the boardroom flooded the corridor beyond. Six faces looked up from the piles of paper on the table.
His father was the first to speak. ‘Ryan.’ There wasn’t a hint of reconciliation on his face. Not that Ryan would have welcomed it after all these years. But he was a father himself now, he couldn’t imagine not having laid eyes on Charlie for all this time, then barely acknowledging him. It went against every impulse he had. ‘Shall we wait for your lawyer to join us?’ his father asked.
‘He’s not coming.’ Ryan folded his arms across his chest.
His father was taking him in, those watery blue eyes not missing a thing. It took everything he had not to squirm in his chair, just like he was a child again, being measured, and found wanting.
Why had he come here again? To show them he wasn’t afraid? Or maybe to show them they should be the ones who were scared.
‘That’s a shame. I was hoping you’d have some wise counsel.’ As always his father’s voice was mild. He lifted his water glass to his thin lips, taking a mouthful of liquid.
The lawyer sitting to his father’s left shifted in his seat, frowning, but saying nothing.
‘Why did you come back, Ryan?’
Ryan tried to ignore the way his father’s question made him feel. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t asked himself the same thing a dozen times anyway. Still, something about the way his father was looking at him compelled Ryan to answer. He wasn’t going to be the kid that ran away again.
‘Because I wanted to show my son where he was from. Because I wanted to show him the town his great-grandfather helped to build. Because you may think you own this place, but the last time I looked it was a free country. I can live anywhere I like.’
‘Yet you chose to live here. Out of three million square miles in this country, you chose little old Shaw Haven to send your boy to Kindergarten. Is that what you expect us to believe?’ His father shook his head slowly, still maintaining eye contact.
There was silence for a moment. His father’s stare didn’t waver, but still, Ryan could see a vulnerability that he hadn’t noticed before. Not quite fear, but definitely not a man in total control of the situation. For the first time, it dawned on him that his father was afraid of his reasons for coming back. Afraid of what he could do to the business – and his life.
‘Why do you think I’m back?’
His father took another sip of water. ‘I think you have unfinished business. Or at least that’s what you believe. But I’m here to tell you to stop it before it starts. I may be older, but I’m not afraid to defend what’s mine.’ He gave a half-smile.