Only now does her gait falter. Her look is grim with comprehension. “He lived right in your backyard?”
I shrug, but the movement feels forced. “He and my father fished together on their boat every day for more than thirty years.”
She doesn’t move, just stares at me for a long, painful moment. “Nick, does your father know what happened to you?”
“He knows.”
As averse as I am to enter the bungalow, now that we’re here I can’t seem to stop my feet from taking me inside. Avery and I climb the two cement steps to the front door. My father never locked it, but even if he had the rotted frame wasn’t going to prevent anyone from breaking in.
Not that there is anyone here to worry.
Silt and sawdust from the termites that have likely infested the place explode in a soft cloud as I push the door open. Inside, the house is musty and dank, abandoned.
“Watch your step,” I tell Avery as we step onto the creaky, dust-covered floor of the vestibule.
A short hallway leads through the center of the house to the kitchen. Off to the left is the living room and a connected formal dining room that we never used after Mom was gone. To the right, a staircase leads to two bedrooms on the second floor and a trapdoor that opens into the attic.
I notice the pale carpet runner is the same as it was when I was a kid. Beneath years of neglect, I can still see the splotch of dark paint I spilled on the third step during the summer after fifth grade. The rusty stain looks like blood. I know that’s what’s on Avery’s mind when I see her glance at it too.
“I was painting in the kitchen while Dad was out fishing. I lost track of time, and when I realized he would be coming in soon, I hurried to put my things away before he saw them.”
She nods, already familiar with the fact that my father disapproved of my love for art. “Did he ever see any of your work? It seems like if he saw your talent—”
“He wasn’t interested in anything I did, least of all my painting.” I shrug, leading her away from the stairs and further into the house.
“You said your mother was a painter. Did he disapprove of her art too?”
“No. He adored her and everything about her. I suppose the only thing she did that didn’t earn his approval was me.” When Avery tilts her head in question, I fill in the blanks. “He told me more than once that he never wanted kids. He was thirty-six when he met my mom while delivering some sea bass to a hotel in Miami. They got together and she ended up pregnant soon afterward. If not for that, I don’t think he ever planned to marry, either.”
We end up in the kitchen, even though I have nothing specific to see in the house. I’m shocked to see the small breakfast table. It seemed so much larger when my dad was hunched over it drinking a glass of Jack like it was morning coffee while he paged through the newspaper.
One of those papers is folded neatly on the table, yellowed and curling up at the edges. Next to it is an empty, salt-filmed juice glass. Both items waiting for him to return, as if he has just stepped away for a few minutes not five years.
For some reason I pity the man now that I’m stepping through the remnants of his empty, angry life. I walk over to toss the old paper. When I drop it into the open trash can at the end of the counter, I disturb the mouse and her half a dozen babies who have made their nest behind the bin.
Avery yelps as the rodents scatter around her feet. I can’t hold back my chuckle as she flees the kitchen for the apparent safety of the dining room as if a herd of wild animals were chasing her.
“It’s okay, they’re gone,” I call to her. “You can come back.”
But she doesn’t.
“Avery?” Now I’m the one gripped by sudden, irrational fear. I bolt for the dining room.
And find her standing inside, her gaze riveted to a framed piece hanging on the wall.
“Is this one of your mother’s paintings?”
When I step beside her I feel all of the blood drain out of my head. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
“No. It’s not hers. It’s one of mine.”
“One of yours?” She places her hand on my back, gaping as openly as I am. “If this is one of yours, Nick, then does that mean—”
“It’s the only one left.”
My voice is wooden, but I can’t help it. I only had five paintings I was proud enough of to keep when I got out of the hospital and finally left this place for good. I took those five paintings with me to New York. A couple of years later I destroyed them all, consequences of my own pointless anger at Kathryn . . . and myself.
I thought this one had been destroyed too.
Not by me, but by my father the night we fought just a few paces from where I stand with Avery now.
I’m in complete shock to see my painting again. Even more so, to see it hanging in the old man’s house.
I stare at the expressionist painting of a white bird soaring over the surface of crystalline blue water, its feathers just skimming the waves. Above the glorious wings, a brilliant sunset explodes in vibrant shades of gold. I remember working on this piece, my sense of accomplishment in seeing my vision of fire and water and the slim plane of harmony that exists between them take shape on my canvas. I had been ridiculously proud of this one.
Avery rests her head against my shoulder as she studies my work. “You painted him too. Icarus.”
“Yes.” I smile, turning my head to press a kiss to hers. “I can’t believe it’s here. That he kept it. I thought he threw it away after he ruined it that night.”
She looks at me, frowning. “What night?”
“The night we fought over there in the living room.”
“That’s the room? That’s the window that he—”
I nod, my scarred hand clenching at the memory.
“Tell me what happened, Nick.”
I see the night playing out in my mind as I reach up and carefully remove my painting from the wall. I set it down on the dining room table, my breath gusting out of me on a long, heavy sigh.
“I was eighteen and I’d been out drinking with a group of friends at some rich fuck’s house party down by Tavernier. I noticed he had a lot of art on the walls. Some of it was shit, but some of it was good. Really good. We started talking and I told him that I painted too. I told him as soon as I saved up some money I was going to move to Miami and try to make a go of it with my work, and he said he’d like to see what I had. He said to bring my best piece around in the morning and maybe he’d buy it.”
At my side, Avery glances at me cautiously. “This painting?”
“I didn’t want to wait until morning. I didn’t want to take the chance that he might change his mind in the meantime. So I went home. Dad was already stinking drunk when I got here. He started in on me about where I’d gone and a dozen other complaints he felt he had to air. I told him I didn’t have time for his bullshit and I ran upstairs to get my work.”
Avery leans against the table so that she’s facing me, her expression tender but etched with dread.
“He followed me upstairs, carrying a glass of bourbon. The way he was talking and swaying on his feet I figured he’d already had several before I got home. I made the mistake of telling him what I was doing, the interest someone had in my art. I thought it might get him off my back but it only made him nastier.”
“Nastier, how?” She asks when it takes me a moment to decide how to continue. How much I should say. “Nick . . . what did he say to you?”
I choke out a brittle laugh. “He went back to one of his favorite cuts—that the last thing he wanted was to raise a son who was a pussy. That I needed to forget about painting and toughen up or life was going to chew me up and spit me out. He said he didn’t want to have some artsy fag for a son, that for my own good I needed to get my hands dirty like a real man. Like him and his father.”
Avery winces. “Jesus.”
“He was drunk,” I say, unsure why I feel the need to defend him. “I’d never seen him so wasted
. So fucking belligerent. But I was drunk too. I lost it. Before I knew it, I was saying things I’d never said to him before. ‘You want me to be a real man, huh? A real man like you, a disgusting drunk and a pitiful excuse for a father? Or maybe you think I ought to be a real man like your father, is that it? A sick monster who gets off on fucking little boys.’”
Avery’s eyes close briefly, but not before a tear leaks down her face. “Oh, Nick.”
She reaches for me, and it takes all of my willpower to stand still and accept her comfort. I’m vibrating with anger at these memories. But I can’t stop them from flooding in now.
“I’ll never forget his expression. His entire face just . . . sagged. As if it were melting because of what I’d said. Then his fury erupted. He called me a liar. He said I was making it up, just trying to hurt him.” I laugh absurdly at the idea. “Jesus Christ, as if what happened to me would hurt him at all. He exploded. Just fucking lost his mind with rage. He threw the glass of bourbon at me, but I ducked out of the way. Instead of hitting me, it smashed against my painting.”
My right hand moves to the small tear that’s been patched from underneath but is still present in the canvas. The faint stain of thrown whiskey still darkens some of the purity of the bird’s feathers.
“He ruined it,” I state flatly. “I couldn’t take it to the man who might have bought it after that. My father destroyed my work. He destroyed my first potential chance to get out of this godforsaken swamp. With or without the painting, I decided I was going to leave that night. Why the fuck didn’t he just let me go?”
“What did he do?”
“He followed after me when I headed back downstairs to the living room. He kept calling me a liar, telling me what I said about my grandfather wasn’t true. But it was true. All of it. How could he not see the evil in his father? He spent practically every day of his life on a boat with the asshole. He had to know something of what his father was really like, didn’t he?”
She slowly shakes her head, seemingly at a loss for words. There are no words that can change what happened. Nothing can be said that will erase the damage.
“I wanted to hurt the old man the way his denial was hurting me. So I told him everything. I gave him details—ugly ones. Graphic ones. I didn’t spare him a thing. Not even when he started hitting me, telling me to shut the fuck up. I just kept talking. I told him how it started—Grandpa inviting me to his house after Mom died, telling me I could cry in front of him if I felt like it, that he wouldn’t make fun of me the way Dad did. He started touching me soon after that. He said it was okay because we were family. Then the other stuff began. I described it all to my father, delighting in his repulsion, in the anger he couldn’t control. At some point, I remember thinking that I just wished he’d finally kill me. If he wanted to shut me up, deny everything I had experienced, why didn’t he just fucking end me right there? The next thing I knew, I was crashing through that window. “
“Oh, my God,” Avery murmurs, her voice catching. “Nick, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for what you went through. I’m sorry that your father refused to believe you—that he could hurt you like that.”
I scoff. “The fact that he called me a liar was worse than the rest of it. Worse than the injury to my hand and arm. Worse than the loss of my art.”
She nods, and I know she understands. Avery, of all people, understands what I’m feeling and how hard it’s been to keep all of this inside for so long.
Her touch is a warm comfort, her gaze fierce and loving. “You haven’t lost all of your art, Nick. He kept this for you.” She grows quiet, considering in silence for moment. “Nick, maybe he was sorry for what he did to you that night.”
Could that be true? It’s almost impossible for me to fathom. The old man never said he was sorry. Not for that night. Not for a goddamn thing.
I glance at my depiction of Icarus lying on the table. “I never thought I’d see this again. It was gone when I got home from the hospital after my injury. I just assumed he’d thrown it away.”
“It looks like he tried to restore it.”
I nod, feeling oddly numb as I run my finger over the crude repairs. Why would he bother? Why would he keep it on his wall when he couldn’t stand the idea of me painting when I actually lived here?
I may never have those answers. I doubt I’ll ever be able to comprehend my father’s animosity toward me or his vehement denials of everything I told him.
But Avery was right that I needed to see this house again. I needed to walk through this place and realize there’s nothing left here that can hurt me.
Not my father’s confounding hatred of me.
Not even the hideous memories of what my grandfather did to me.
None of those things can touch me so long as Avery is standing at my side.
I kiss her, holding her close for a long while. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For loving me. For being with me. I never would’ve come here if not for you.” I press my lips to her forehead. “You were right, Avery. I had to do this. I’m glad I did. And now I’m ready to leave.”
“Yes.” She smiles lovingly and nods. “But not without this.”
She carefully picks up the framed painting and a puzzled look comes over her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. There’s something—” She turns the frame around.
Taped to the back of it is a yellowed envelope. One bearing my name and the address of Baine International’s office in New York, written in my father’s bold scrawl.
“What the hell?” I remove the envelope and lift the brittle seal. “There’s a letter inside.”
I take it out and unfold the single sheet of handwritten words.
My father’s words, a confession dated only weeks before his stroke.
Chapter 26
Nick’s father is awake when we arrive at his room the next morning.
His bed is tilted up to a reclined sitting position, his head turned away from the door. He doesn’t seem to notice that we’ve stepped inside. His breathing remains slow and even. His frail body unmoving.
We spent the night in an area hotel, though I don’t think Nick got more than a couple hours of sleep. Twice I woke to find him pensively pacing in the dark. Before the sun came up he was already showered and dressed, seated on the hard-cushioned sofa with his father’s letter unfolded in his hands.
He must have a hundred questions for the old man slouched on the bed inside this room. We are here with the full awareness that we won’t get answers now. Everything William Baine might have said to his son throughout his life is contained in the five-year-old letter Nick has likely memorized by now.
As we walk into his father’s room, Nick is silent, as if studying him through a new and unfamiliar lens. When the grizzled old face finally swivels in our direction, I see drawn and sallow cheeks that contain traces of the younger, handsomer face I adore. The straight line of the nose. The squared jaw. The startlingly bright blue eyes that stare warily at us as we approach.
There is a guest chair next to the bed. Nick offers it to me but I shake my head. I’ll stand with him. I will always stand with him, no matter what he has to face.
Nick clears his throat. “I came yesterday, but you were asleep.”
No warm greeting. Just a flat statement of facts. My heart squeezes to hear the distance that exists between the man I love and the one who fathered him.
“This is Avery,” he says. “She’s the reason I’m here.”
Nick glances at me, the intensity of his gaze telling me that he doesn’t simply mean I’m the reason he’s in this room. He means something deeper than that. I squeeze his hand, hoping he understands that he means the same to me.
I look down at the fragile, dying old man in the bed and it’s hard to reconcile him with the father who pushed his son away so harshly and repeatedly. At least now I know why.
I give him a slight nod of acknowledgment. “H
ello.”
He doesn’t respond. His guarded gaze slides back to Nick as if he’s bracing for a confrontation he fully expects is coming.
“I spent a lot of years being angry with you,” Nick says, his deep voice toneless and unreadable. “I spent almost two decades being afraid of you. Hating you.”
His father’s face is stoic, but those brilliant blue eyes are filled with uncertainty. Even fear.
Nick frowns, slowly shaking his head. “Growing up, all I wanted was to be close to you. I couldn’t understand why you despised me. I kept trying to figure out what I did. I knew you never wanted me. You never made a secret of that.”
His father’s wiry salt-and-pepper brows furrow. He emits a small moan, his head starting to move side to side against the pillow.
“No,” Nick says. “Now you have to listen to me. It’s my turn to talk.”
I place my hand on his shoulder, trying to gentle him, anchor him. I know he’s still angry and hurting. He might carry those scars forever. But he came here with things to say. Things he needs to release while he still has the chance to be heard.
He blows out a harsh breath, then tries again. “You were not a good father. I’m not even sure you were a good man. I was sure you couldn’t be, not when you could say the many hateful things you said to me, your constant ridicule and denigration, the torment that seemed designed to push me away. What kind of father does that? What kind of man?”
William Baine’s slack mouth quivers mutely as his son speaks. He grows agitated, frustration in his eyes.
“I asked myself those questions every day. How could my own father be so viciously determined to turn me into a heartless, uncaring bastard like himself? Why was he working so fucking hard to push me away?”
The sound his father makes is a strangled one, as if he’s choking on all the words he’s unable to form.
“Because that is what you were doing,” Nick says quietly. “You were trying to make me tough. You wanted to push me away. You had to. Not because you hated me. But because you were afraid to love me. You were scared shitless that deep down, you might turn out to be the same kind of monster your father was.”