“Is Mom here?”
“She’s with Nick. He’s showing her around while your other dumb brother is tending bar with no shirt on. Is that even legal? Doesn’t it violate health codes?”
I laughed, then moved the conversation away from Ryan and his inability to stay clothed. “Haven’t seen you guys lately.”
After everything that had gone on between Nick and our father, we had all been trying to spend more time together as a family. We shot for Sundays, but even those get-togethers had become further and further apart the past few months. Dad was extra busy with work, and Mom had various charities she was always coordinating events for. Not to mention the three of us were slammed with the bar.
But we needed to do better, to try harder. Seeing him now only reinforced that for me. I missed my parents.
“Work has been killing me, and your mother has taken on more projects than one person can possibly handle. She’s a machine who refuses to say no to people.”
I smiled, realizing that both my parents were workaholics in their own way. It made me happy to know that it was in my genes, my very DNA, to want to be successful and be willing to work harder than most to make that happen.
“You look like hell, Frank. Is the bar okay? Do you need money?” Dad leaned forward, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, looking into my eyes with sincerity.
I winced slightly, knowing that I must look like absolute crap if he was offering money. The past week had taken its toll on me, and I knew I couldn’t hide the fact that sleep had all but eluded me for days.
“The bar’s fine, Dad, but thanks.”
“Girl trouble then?” He settled back into the chair, rubbing his chin.
“What?”
“If it’s not business, then it’s love. Is everything all right with Shelby?”
Narrowing my eyes, I wondered just what the hell my dad could possibly know on the subject. It hadn’t been that long ago that he’d almost forced Nick to marry someone he didn’t even like. There was more to it than that, but my dad had let things go too far and Nick almost paid the price for it.
“Dad, not to be a dick, but I’m not sure you’re the best person to talk with about my relationship problems,” I admitted honestly.
He smiled, nodding. “You’re right. I know I’m probably the last person who should be doling out advice on the subject, but I’d still like to know what’s going on, if you’d tell me. Fill your old man in, son. I know you’re not happy. Why?”
I considered lying to him for all of two seconds before I gave him the CliffNotes version of my relationship with Shelby and my feelings f
or Claudia.
His expression changed, and I hated the sympathy I saw in his eyes. I hadn’t confessed everything to get him to feel sorry for me. It was the last thing I wanted. I’d been a very active participant in bringing my love life to its current sorry state, so I had no one to blame but myself. This was on me.
“Don’t look at me like that, Dad.”
“I’m just processing it all. Letting it sink in.”
“Well, can you let it sink in without that look in your eye, please?” I sounded like a child, but then again, I was his child.
Silence hung between us. I knew quite well that my father, a man who had built a multi-million-dollar company from nothing, would think over carefully all I’d just told him before he shared his opinion on it. He processed first, and acted second. I waited, wondering exactly what he would say.
“I’m going to tell you something that no one else knows, Frank,” he said, and surprised, I sat up straighter in my chair. “After everything that happened with Nicholas, your mother was extremely upset. I’d never seen her so angry before. She had no idea what I’d been up to, what I’d been pushing him to do.”
That was something I’d wondered about when the shit hit the fan with my youngest brother—how much my mother had known, and whether she’d been involved. I had suspected that she was in the dark, but none of us had worked up the courage to ask. I was starting to see how we Fishers swept things under the rug and moved on when we should have been slicing the issue open and talking about it.
“She actually kicked me out of the house.”
“What? When?” That surprised me.
“It doesn’t matter. But she told me to leave and that I couldn’t come back until she could stomach looking at me. She wasn’t sure when that would be, if ever.”
I couldn’t hide my shock. “Holy shit, Dad. I had no idea. None of us did.”
“I know. Now, listen because I’m actually getting to my point. When she did that, your mother, it devastated me. Devastated.” He emphasized the word, conveying the intensity of the emotion behind it before continuing. “The idea of losing her was unimaginable to me. It knocked me straight on my ass, threw me for a loop, and I never saw it coming. I fought like hell to get her back. Apologized, went to counseling on more than one occasion, anything she wanted I would have done because I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t live the rest of my life without her in it. I didn’t realize how off track I’d gotten until I almost lost everything.”