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. “Hello.”
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.”
There is no more struggling to speak. He freezes now, profound misery in his saggy, aged face.
“Avery and I went out to the house yesterday. We found the painting. We found your letter.”
His father’s eyes close. A quiet sob bubbles from between parched lips.
Only then does Nick reach out to touch the old man, resting his hand on the bony shoulder that’s now wracked with tremors as his father struggles with emotions that stay clogged in his throat.
“I wish you would have told me that you’d been hurt by him too. Christ, I wish you’d told Mom. If anyone had known, you might have spared us both so much pain.” Nick swears low under his breath. “Keeping the secret only made things easier for him to continue the sick cycle. It allowed him to move on, to prey on someone else. We could’ve put an end to it if you’d only found a way to tell me, Dad. Damn it, you should have warned me.”
His father weeps while Nick talks. I may not have much sympathy for the way William Baine chose to handle his relationship with his son, but it’s impossible not to feel some degree of pity for the anguish he’s experiencing now, being forced to hear firsthand how his decisions and secrets impacted his only child.
“I didn’t come here today to berate you,” Nick tells him. “I don’t have a need to upset you. That’s not why I came. I just . . . I just wanted to see you one more time.”
And likely the last time, given his father’s hastening decline.
Nick starts to move away from the bed. He’s barely taken a step when one of the thin, mottled arms reaches for him, clawed fingers grasping Nick’s ruined hand. His father’s eyes lock on his, tears spilling in a free fall now.
Regret and the need for absolution are etched all over the old man’s face.
“I know, Dad.” Nick nods solemnly. “I can’t take any of it back, either. I wish we could. I’m sorry we both had to share this horrible thing in common. As for him? I’m glad he’s dead. Thank you for that.”
Another sob breaks free from William Baine’s trembling mouth. The anguish in his haggard face is almost unbearable to watch. But Nick stands firm. He is strong enough for both of them now.
He squeezes his father’s quivering hand. “I want you to know that I’m okay. I’m happy . . . because of her.” He pulls me close, under the shelter of his arm. “I came back today, Dad, because I want you to know that I understand everything you did, and why. And I forgive you.”
The old man’s lips part, but the only sound that escapes them is a long, rasping exhalation. I know what he’s trying to say. I’m certain that Nick knows too.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
Nick extricates himself from the feeble grasp on his hand. With a tender palm, he cups the back of his father’s gray head. “Be at peace now, Dad.”
With a murmured goodbye, Nick turns away from the bed and gathers me close as we walk out of the room together.