“What the fuck does he want from me, Avery? After all this time, does he think we can patch up a lifetime of despisement?” He scoffs brittly. “Does he actually expect he can mistreat me for the first eighteen years of my life then come looking for sympathy because he’s rotting away in a nursing home somewhere? Or isn’t he satisfied that he already fucked me up enough?”
I close the distance between us as he speaks, yearning to ease the agony that’s festering inside him. I want to obliterate the demons that are destroying the man I love.
But in order to do that, first Nick is going to have to face them.
“Maybe those are questions you need to ask your father.”
He glares at me as if I’ve betrayed him just with the suggestion. “Ask him?”
It’s not easy to hold his outraged glower. Our connection is too strong. I feel his anguish and fury simply by looking at his face. And I know something of what he’s going through because I’ve been in a similar hell. One that Nick helped see me through at a time when I was certain I’d never fully heal. I had an ugly secret, too, and if not for him it would still be eating me alive.
“I know what it’s like to carry pain and hatred in your heart,” I remind him. “It’s corrosive. It’s self-administered poison, Nick. The only one it harms is you.”
“I can’t face him again, Avery. I don’t care what he thinks he wants or needs from me now that he’s on death’s door. We’ve already said everything we have to say to each other. I’ve got the goddamn scars to prove it.”
“Nick,” I say softly. “I don’t want you to go down there for him. Do it for yourself.”
He shakes his head, his gaze shuttering even before he’s considered it. “I don’t need anything from the bastard now. He had his chance to be a father. Hell, he had his chance to be a decent human being, but evidently even that was asking too much. I don’t need answers from him, if that’s what you think. I sure as fuck don’t need his apologies.”
“I know you don’t.” I reach out to him, resting my palms against his chest. “But I think you need to forgive him. If you and I are going to try to build a future together, you need to find a way free from the pain your father caused you.”
Something dark flickers over his features now. I can’t name the emotion, and when I try to study it more closely, Nick blinks and it’s gone. He’s put it away now, somewhere he doesn’t want me to find it. My heart aches to see that subtle withdrawal. If we stand any chance of making it this time, he needs to trust that he can show me all of who he is.
He needs to be able to take me into the darkest corners of his past and know that I won’t ever leave him.
“I know what I’m asking isn’t easy for you. It won’t be easy for me to see you hurting either.” I hold his face, imploring him to see how much he means to me. “But I also can’t watch this issue between you and your father destroy the man I love. I love you so much, Nick. That’s why I’m asking you to do this. For you. For me. I need you to do this for us.”
“If I go . . . I don’t know what I’ll find there.”
The sober confession is so vulnerable it brings the prickle of tears to the backs of my eyes.
“I know you don’t. And I know how terrifying that must be.” I rest my cheek against his sternum, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart. “But you won’t have to do it alone. I’m going with you. We’re going to do this together.”
Chapter 24
Three days later, Avery’s hand rests warmly in mine as we walk together into the sand-colored brick building in Homestead where my father has lived for the past five years.
Of course, lived is a relative term. As Avery and I are greeted by a distracted twenty-something receptionist then directed toward the wing of the institution that’s reserved for full-time nursing care, I can’t help feeling the smallest pang of pity for the old man.
After spending his whole life on the water down in the Keys, this taupe-walled maze of corridors and sickrooms must feel like a damn prison.
A monotonous, prolonged state of hell.
Not that he hasn’t earned his piece of it in many ways.
Although to be fair, he isn’t the only Baine man to deserve a stint in hell.
“You must be Dominic,” says a heavy-set woman with big hair and a kind smile as we arrive at the attendant station in my father’s area of the home. The woman shakes my hand, then Avery’s, introducing herself as the afternoon floor manager. “I have to say, we were surprised to hear you were coming. And so soon. I’m sure it’ll mean a lot to Bill to know you’re here.”
It feels bizarre to hear her mention my father with such familiarity, as if she knows him. As if she actually cares about the surly son of a bitch. Maybe the stroke mellowed him.
Then again, William Baine only seemed to have problems getting along with his own son. Just another of the reasons I learned to hate him at a young age.
The woman gestures for Avery and I to follow her. “How long has it been since you came to see him, Dominic?”
“I haven’t. My father and I aren’t close.”
“I see.” I don’t miss the trace of judgment in her tone. It’s also in the flick of her gaze, the slight compression of her lips.
As we walk the length of the hallway, Avery’s fingers flex in my grasp, a reassuring reminder that she’s with me. That she will remain with me every step of this dubious journey.
I don’t realize how rapidly my heart is pounding, how damp my palms have gotten, until we’re approaching a room with a closed door. Its gauzy beige curtain is drawn across the narrow pane of glass, shrouding the unlit room and its lone occupant. To the right of the doorjamb is a removable name plate that reads William “Bill” Baine.
It’s been sixteen years since I saw him; now all that separates us is a few feet of pitted linoleum tile and the door I’ll have to walk through on my own volition.
The attendant lowers her voice. “Before you go in, I feel I should warn you that your father’s not doing well. He’s been declining for some time. I, ah, I don’t know if anyone has told you, but he’s in the early stages of kidney failure now. Usually that means we’re down to a matter of weeks before his organs begin to fail.”
“Yes.” I nod. “I’m aware.”
I feel Avery’s tender gaze on me, her soft inhalation when she hears this news for the first time. We haven’t spoken of what this trip will entail or what might wait for me on the other side of this door. She’s given me endless patience this week, allowing me all the time and space I need to sort out my feelings in preparation for this trip.
More importantly, she’s given me her love.
“Just so you understand, Dominic, even if your father is awake, he won’t be able to speak to you. But he can hear, so whatever you’d like to say to him, know that he will understand even if he no longer has the ability to express himself or respond.”
I grunt, struck by the irony.
After all the times his words wounded me, now it’s my turn to pay him back.
The woman looks at her watch, then offers me a polite smile. “I’ll be at the nursing station where we just came from if you need anything. Take all the time you need.”
Avery and I stand there for a long moment once we’re alone. My feet feel rooted to the floor. My lungs seem to be drying up, making it difficult to get air.
“Are you okay?” Avery’s touch is feather light on my cheek. “If you’re not ready to do this now, we can come back—”
“I’m ready.” I brush my lips against hers in a brief kiss as I release her hand.
“I love you,” she says, clutching my face in her gentle palms. “I’m going to be right out here the whole time.”
My nod feels shaky. So does my hand as I reach for the latch on the door. The tangle of scars turn white as I grip the cold metal lever and push the panel open.
The room is dark. So fucking quiet.
An empty bed sits closest to the door, but I hardly notice i
t as I approach the other one—the one containing a shriveled shape swathed in white sheets and a thin wheat-colored blanket.
I’m not going to lie, the sight of my father lying there is a shock.
The once tall, muscular man with jet hair like my own is so far diminished I never would have recognized him. Matted gray hair covers a skull cloaked in spotted, yellowed skin. Eyes I know to be the same bright blue as mine are closed in sleep, and the mouth that used to snarl such explosive, ugly things to me now sags on the left side, lasting evidence of the stroke that sent him to this place five years ago.
I am struck by his incapacitation, by how small he seems compared to the raging monster from my youth. His unmoving body is beyond thin, the long legs that used to carry him so agilely on the deck of his fishing boat now look skeletal beneath the sheets, incapable of supporting even his diminished weight. Stretched out along his sides, his arms are mottled with the bruising of old age and blood-thinning medicines.
The powerful fists that struck me only once—that last night I was in his house—lay gnarled and bony at the ends of his wrists like useless claws.
“Jesus Christ.”
An astonishing sense of sorrow swamps me as I stand beside his sleeping form. I don’t want to feel sympathy for him. After all, he never had any for me. He never had anything in his heart for me except animosity.
And doubt.
This last thing was the one that cut me the deepest. It’s the thing that moves me to speak to him now, even though he’s snoring quietly, fully asleep.
“Are you in pain, old man?” My voice is low and hoarse with unwanted emotion as I stare down at him in the bed. “I wanted to think you would be. I thought I wanted to see you suffering.”
I take a breath and I’m shocked to hear the catch in my throat. I don’t want to feel anything for the uncaring bastard. I want to look at him with the same detachment, the same neglect that he always showed me.
But I can’t.
“You were my father, you son of a bitch,” I whisper thickly. “You were supposed to be there for me. You were supposed to protect me.”
I swallow past the knot of anguish and rage that I’ve been carrying inside me since I was an eleven-year-old boy. Its bitter taste fills my mouth now, as acrid as poison.
“You were supposed to love me. Goddamn you, Dad. You should’ve kept me safe from him.”
At that choked accusation, my father stirs on the mattress. His eyes stay closed, but I can see that his mind is wading through the cobwebs of sleep. Somewhere inside that shriveled shell of a man, he knows how he failed me.
Not only as a child, when I admired him and wanted to be like him. But later too. After my mother was gone and I was a grieving kid in need of kindness. So hungry for comfort I would have turned to anyone . . . and did, only to learn it came at an unthinkable cost.
I needed my dad years later, when I was a self-destructive, messed up teen. He wasn’t there for me then, either. Always pushing me away. Always ensuring I only had cause to avoid him, to hate him.
Hot tears streak down my face. I swipe at them angrily, furious with myself that once again—even after all this time—my father has reduced me to the weakling he always believed I was.
“Fuck.”
This is not what I wanted to do here. I didn’t come down here to cry at my father’s bedside. I sure as hell didn’t come here to cry for myself.
I glance over my shoulder toward the closed door. Avery leans against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, her face turned askance, granting me the privacy she promised.
I didn’t have a plan for what I would say to him, or even what I hoped to hear. I still don’t know why I’ve come, other than to prove to her that I could.
For her—for us—I would do anything. I want to. But I can’t do this.
Not in front of him, even if he doesn’t realize I’m here.
I can’t do this in front of her.
Now that I’m in here, all I want to do is get the hell out of the room.
“Shit.” Shamed, I turn my face into my arm, drying my cheek on the short sleeve of my shirt. “You win, Dad. You were right. I’m a fucking pussy, just like you always said.”
I turn away from the bed and stalk out of the room on a harsh curse.
“Nick?” Avery’s confused, then disappointed look as I exit to the hallway just about kills me.
I don’t pause to explain. I can’t. “I need to get out of here.”
“Okay.”
She falls in at my side, hurrying along with me as my feet guide me on a swift, urgent path out of the building. I don’t breathe again until I’m in the parking lot.
Then, once I’m out of the medicinal stench of the building, all of the air in my lungs explodes out of me in a violent, wracking sob.
Chapter 25
Nick’s hands seem frozen to the steering wheel of our rental. The engine of the Porsche is running, but we haven’t yet left the nursing home parking lot. He’s barely uttered a word since we got into the car.
I’ve been quiet, too, giving him time to process. Waiting for him to decide it’s safe to open up and let me in. All I know is that his father slept through the brief visit. Nick almost seems relieved by that fact. Based on how distressed he was when he came out of the room, I can only imagine how difficult it would be for him to face the man when he was awake.
My heart still reverberates with the sound of his soul-wrenching sob. I want to hold him, but all I see when I look at him now is his urge to escape. His mind seems fixed on a point that’s somewhere a million miles away from where he and I sit.
Or maybe not that far at all.
I think he’s still trapped in a place located somewhere back in the Keys. One Nick thought he’d left behind him when he was eighteen years old.
I look at him and I’m terrified that he’ll remain trapped in that awful place forever.
“We should go,” he murmurs without looking at me.
When he puts his hand on the gearshift, I cover his fingers with mine. “Go where?”
“Home. Back to New York. I’ll phone ahead to my pilot so he can file a flight plan for us.”
“Nick.” I keep my hold on his hand, giving him no choice but to look at me. “I don’t think leaving right now is a good idea.”
“I sure as hell don’t want to stay here.”
“I know,” I offer gently. “But I think you have to. This isn’t over. It won’t be until you put all of your demons to rest.”
He scoffs. “The only demon I have left to contend with is the shriveled bastard lying in that nursing home. Far as I’m concerned he’s right where he belongs. And now I want us to go back to where we belong.”
“I can’t do that, Nick.”
His face hardens, brows coming together in a scowl. “I need you to.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No, that’s not what you need. You need to confront the things that happened to you in your past. All of them, Nick. I think you need to go back to the place it all began.”
The curse that rips from his throat is vicious. “I’m not going back there. I can’t.”
“You can.” I stroke the scarred hand and the knuckles that have gone white from his iron grasp on the gearshift. “You came here to try to forgive your father. If you weren’t able to do that today, then maybe you need to find some way to understand him . . . and what he did.”
“What he did?”
I search for gentle words, even though I know there’s no soft way to bring up the subject of Nick’s abuse. But does he really think I haven’t been able to see the obvious signs? I’ve been there too. I see my broken pieces reflected in him every time I look into his eyes.
“Nick . . . I know you were harmed when you were young. You can tell me. You know I’ll understand. You know it won’t diminish anything I feel for you.”
His head snaps back slightly, as if his mind is just returning to the here and now. “You think my father raped me?” He
glances down, frowning. When he looks back up at me, there is a bleakness in his eyes that breaks my heart. “It wasn’t my father, Avery. It was his father. My grandfather.”
~ ~ ~
I haven’t seen the old house on Key Largo since I was eighteen.
Parked in the overgrown, weed-choked dirt driveway in front of it now, it looks like a nightmarish relic from a swamp monster horror film set. Fitting, I think, as I cut the engine on the rental car and stare out at my childhood home through the windshield.
“Are you ready?” Avery asks from the passenger seat.
I don’t imagine I will ever be ready to reenter the scene of my own nightmares. But I nod at her and open the door. We climb out together and she meets me in front of the vehicle, taking my hand.
I can feel her apprehension as we walk toward the sagging front porch of the waterfront bungalow. It’s still daylight out, so the house is visible in all its neglected glory. In the five years since my father has been at the nursing home, it’s obvious that no one has kept the place up.
The canopy of moss-draped trees are scraggly and brown. The tall swamp grasses in the yard have long gone to seed. The bungalow had been painted crisp white by my mother’s own hands before she got sick. Now the wood and cinderblock structure is peeled and weathered to a dingy gray.
As we approach, I catch Avery straining to see past the modest place I was raised to the other, bigger house that looms behind it on a small incline. If it could be called a house anymore. As bad as my childhood home looks, this other one is completely uninhabitable.
The broad stairs leading to the entrance of the pillared home are caved in, inaccessible. The roof has been crushed by a huge oak, most likely uprooted during an old storm. Windows in front gape like a toothless grin. The house is monstrous and even though it’s obviously vacant, I have a hard time allowing my gaze to linger on it.
“My grandparents lived there,” I tell Avery before she has to ask me. “The old captain’s house and the land it’s built on has been in the Baine family for generations.”