My phone buzzes in my hand, and I answer it without looking.
“Hello?” I ask.
“Well, hello, Holden. I finally caught you.”
My dad’s voice sends an immediate dose of tension through my spine. I work my neck back and forth and will myself to stay calm.
Breathe.
“Hey, Dad. What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing,” he says in a way that lets me know that he’s lying. Something is definitely going on. I’m probably not going to like whatever it is. “Heard anything from that job you were waiting on?”
“I have a meeting about it today, actually. So I’ll hear soon.”
“That’s good. I’ll be interested to find out what happens.”
“Me too.”
He doesn’t say anything right away. I don’t either. I wait on him to direct the conversation, because there’s clearly a place he wants to go and I’d rather just go there and be done with it.
“I golfed with Bob Grundel yesterday,” Dad says. “He said he thinks he can find you a job at one of his offices.”
I hold my temple with my free hand. He means well. In his own way, he’s trying to help, and I have to remember that.
“I appreciate it, but I really don’t need it,” I say.
“Why the hell not? You don’t even know if you got that job in Florida yet.”
It takes everything I have not to raise my voice. The tone of his words triggers my reaction, and I can just imagine the look of disdain in his eyes like I’m some errant child who won’t listen to reason.
“If I don’t get it, I’ll find something else. I don’t need charity from one of your friends.”
“You better be appreciative that my friends like me so much that they would extend a hand to my son,” he says, stroking his own ego. “You better get your ass out of that little Podunk town and away from those small-minded people and get back here before they poison your brain.”
My jaw hits the floor.
Anger courses through me, and I have a hard time controlling it.
“I’m not going to sit here and listen to you talk about this town and these people like that,” I spit.
“Oh, please.”
The vein in my temple pulses with each beat of my heart. “The people here have shown me more kindness than you ever have.”
He sighs. “They’ve gotten to you, haven’t they? Just tell me you aren’t staying there. Please, for the love of God, tell me you aren’t staying there. Don’t throw away the education I paid for to play tiddlywinks with your granddad.”
The muscle in the back of my neck throbs. As my shoulders sag, reality sets in, and I know one thing: I won’t change his mind. It’s useless to try.
I drop my hand to the side. “I don’t want to do this with you.”
“Well, I don’t want to have to pick you up by the bootstraps, either, boy, but you just keep getting yourself into a pickle—”
“When?” I ask, my jaw ticking. “When have you ever had to clean up a mess I made? Name one time.”
“Right now, if you don’t get your shit straight.”
“Right now? Right now, I’m on the precipice of the biggest thing of my life. I’ll be working for the most prestigious animal hospital in the world. I’ll have risen to the top before I’m thirty. Did you do that in your field?”
I pause to let my words sink in. I’ve never spoken to him like this, never come back at him with a tenth of the ferocity that I feel.
“The answer is no,” I tell him. “You didn’t. But I will have. So you can take your advice and your—”
“Don’t disappoint me, Holden.”
The laugh that comes out of my mouth is not from amusement. It’s from a place buried so deep inside me that I can feel the reverberation in my toes.
He’s said these very words to me over and over again throughout my life, and every time I tuck my chin and try to do better. I try to make him proud.
This time, though, what I’m going to do—come hell or high water—is make me proud. And he will get no glory in it.
“I have to go, Dad. Take care.”
I end the call.
Patrick walks by the exam room and waves. I nod as I stand by the sink and try to even out my breathing.
The door chimes as Patrick leaves. I take a long, deep breath and turn around . . . and come face-to-face with Dr. Montgomery.
It has to be him. I’ve seen his face on the company website, on interviews, even on the news.
He’s shorter than I expected, but with a face that matches his voice. He’s clean shaven with intelligent eyes and a polite yet slightly reserved professional smile.
“Hello, Dr. Montgomery,” I say. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Holden, I’m sorry I’m so late,” he says. “I had an emergency at the office this morning and had to take a later flight.”