After the Climb (River Rain 0.50)

“Son, you should have told me.”

The pain for his boy carved through his voice.

And his heart.

“Dad, what would you do? Seeing that and her coming to, you know, like she did, snapping into being with it, and then getting so worried you’d be mad and making me promise.”

“I wouldn’t have been mad. But I would have done something about it.”

“Well, I was too young to know then. I see it now. It was her being, you know…her. How she’d get shady. Like, she fed off being sick. She got something out of it. You know, negative attention is still attention. That kind of thing. And she didn’t want you to take it more seriously, how messed up she was. Maybe commit her or something.”

Duncan drew a sharp breath into his nose and said nothing because they both knew all of this was true.

“And while she was throwing shit around, she was ranting about Imogen Swan. How you were trying to find her again. How all your ‘other women’ were blonde and blue-eyed and she was the love of your life. And you were longing for her. And since she was married to some tennis guy, you’d never have her back, so you were fucking a hundred Imogen Swans to get her back—”

“Okay, son,” Duncan cut him off, not for himself, but because this couldn’t be easy on his boy.

“I’m not done, Dad. She showed me a picture of you two. After she calmed down. To prove to me she wasn’t crazy. She showed me a picture. And there you were, together. But she said you kept it in your wallet with you all the time. She found it there. In your wallet. She didn’t seem to get that you were in Bend, we were in Prescott, and she went to the basement to get that picture, so obviously it wasn’t with you all the time in your wallet. It was something in those old boxes of junk you said you’d get around to clearing out, and never did. And she found it and, well…it set her off. And that’s it.”

Duncan did not know what to say and he had no idea what to do.

Which brought back the feeling of frustration he thought he’d left behind, because he had spent a lot of the last part of his marriage not knowing what to say or do.

“Mom follows you on Insta, Dad,” Sully warned.

“I don’t know how that works, son,” Duncan reminded him.

“You can follow a tag or a hashtag. And that pic with you and Imogen Swan has been both. By the way, you guys’ hashtag is isitgonnabeimoway.”

“What?”

“Imoway. Imogen and Holloway mashed together. It’s what they do with famous couples.”

Fucking hell.

“Sully—”

“I saw that picture, Dad. And I’m not just talking the one on Instagram.”

Duncan remained silent.

“I’m not saying Mom had any reason to say what she said or be how she was because of whatever you two had. I remember the good times, before she got sick. I know you loved her. You didn’t hide it. You always told us not to bury our feelings or hide them and you were about tell, but also about the show. But I saw that picture, Dad, and it wasn’t hard to see you two loved each other. I don’t know why that didn’t work, but you’re available, and so’s she, and it sucks, your old friend killed himself. But if that’s how you two have reconnected, then I hope something good comes of it. And it isn’t your problem anymore, but someone is gonna have to tell Mom. If you want that to be me, I’ll do it. But I hate to say it, it probably should be you.”

He was right.

And maybe Duncan wasn’t going to be able to go visit Genny tonight to find some way to explain what they’d all been up to and hope her interest in his life and bashfulness at his side meant they were going to finish talking things through, find a way to let go of the past and explore a future.

Because he needed to deal with Dora.

And that might take a while.

“I’ll call your mother,” he agreed.

Sully tried to hide looking relieved, but he didn’t manage it.

“And I don’t know what’s happening with Genny, son,” he continued. “But I need to be clear that if something is happening, you’re okay with that.”

“Totally,” Sully said. “Aubrey and Charlie had such a huge fight about whether or not she was robbed of an Oscar for her role in It Wasn’t Easy that they made us watch it. And Aubrey was right. She was really good in that. But I, you know, avoided her, after the whole Mom thing. But Aubrey’s a huge fan of hers and she talks about her sometimes and what she says, she seems really cool.”