Frankly, I wasn’t sure I could ever design buildings again, and I didn’t know where that left me. What would I love as much as I’d loved my work?
A hot breeze toyed with the fine hairs around Savannah’s face as she leaned in to hug her brother.
“Christmas,” she said.
“I can’t promise,” her brother agreed. “But I’ll see what I can do about Tyler.”
My cell phone buzzed, startling me. I’d forgotten I’d turned it on. Or even had it on me. Some kind of passive-aggressive flirtation with the life I’d left behind.
Nothing good would come of it, I was sure.
I opened it, braced for Erica, but got a surprise.
“You have a collect call from Martinsville Prison, do you accept the charges?”
Dad? I hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t even Wednesday.
“I do,” I said and stepped deeper into the shadows.
“Matt?”
My father’s tone, all bonamie and good times, made me smile. Good old Dad. It was nice to have something in my life that never changed.
“Hey, Dad.”
“I tried you last Wednesday but—”
“I didn’t have my phone on,” I said. “I haven’t until recently.”
“Well, then, let me be the first to welcome you back to the living.”
I smiled and ran my hands through my hair. I need a haircut. No doubt one of the many millions of things I needed to do when I was done with the courtyard.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
“Well, I got an interesting visitor this morning.”
“Not the stripper, again, she—”
“Richard Bonavie. He’s back from the dead. Well, Los Angeles, actually, but I think that’s a different story.”
I sat down hard on the cement steps, feeling like my gut had turned to lead. The gems—I’d forgotten all about them. My whole reason for coming here, and they no longer mattered.
I watched Savannah, the sun in her hair, a smile on her face.
So much had changed, and I didn’t care anymore, about the gems, the theft. A month ago, I’d been determined to get justice, but now this information left me cold. Sad, even. Sad that my father was who he was. The kind of man who’d been lured into a scheme that was way over his head then had gotten burned.
I heard the scratch and flicker of a lighter and my father took a deep breath and exhaled. “You won’t believe what Richard—”
“Dad.” I sighed. My father was excited, juiced up about whatever this news was, and I wished there was a way to tell him I wasn’t interested without hurting his feelings. “I don’t want to know.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to know. I can’t fix this for you, Dad. I can’t…I’m sorry.”
“Son.” My father’s voice was warm and I put my hand against the tree, wishing there weren’t miles and steel bars between us. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”
“Yeah, but I got your hopes up—”
“My hopes?” Dad laughed. “I’m out in six months for a crime I committed. Finding out where Vanessa and Richard are or what they did that night wouldn’t change that.”
“Then why…?” I trailed off, a big chasm closing in my head, my chest. I knew why my father sent me here—the answer was in my past. “Remember when I was a kid and you’d take me to those casinos?”
“I’ve already apologized for that, Matt. I can’t change the mistakes I made.”
“I know, but remember that game, the man with the scar and the patch and the hat?”
There was a long pause and finally my dad said, “Yes, I remember.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because you were scared. Because you were bored. Because you’ve got a real big brain, son, and without something to occupy it, you’d go crazy.”
I leaned back, looked up at the bright blue sky. “That’s why you told me about Vanessa and Richard.”
“You were so lost, son, after that accident. I couldn’t stand watching you fade away like that. I was losing you, and I knew that if I could get you interested in something again, anything, you’d find your way back.”
I squinted at the horizon, emotion bit hard at the back of my eyes. “Thank you, Dad.”
“I can only guess that you’ve figured out that clearing my dirty name isn’t going to change what happened in St. Louis.”
Nothing would bring back Peter. Or fix the lives of all the people affected by the collapse. Nothing would stop the occasional nightmare that woke me shaking and screaming in the night.
“I’m working on it,” I finally answered.
“Look, I know I haven’t been an ideal father—”
I snorted.
“But I care about you, I always have. I’m glad you’re putting it behind you.”
My heart flexed and stuttered. I couldn’t argue. For all my father’s many faults, not caring about me was not one of them. Joel wouldn’t win any father of the year awards, but he’d been there. At least there had been Rachmaninoff and card games and dinners and warm beds.