Chapter 13
Ian
The thinking chair. That’s what my dad had always called it. He’d positioned his dark brown leather chair at a nice angle in between the kitchen and living room area, facing the large wall-to-wall window so that he could look out over the city.
It was sort of appropriate, really, considering my dad had a bit of a god complex. He always had to be in control. It wasn’t a coincidence that his favorite spot was above everyone and everything across the city. It wasn’t a coincidence that it was looking down on all the “small people” beneath.
It wasn’t a coincidence because Dad had thought he was a god in a sense.
The thing was, though, that he wasn’t far from one. He was still the most powerful man that I had ever known. He was everywhere, even after death. So much so that a part of me felt that maybe if I sat on his little throne, looking out at the world beneath me, maybe I might somehow inherit some of that power.
Maybe that power could bring me some sort of clarity.
But it didn’t happen. I wasn’t a god, and I sure as fuck never would be. I didn’t want to be. I sighed and swirled the half-empty glass of whisky in the palm of my hand. If Dad was here, sitting right in this spot, and he knew what I knew, he’d probably throw his glass right square at my head for even entertaining the thought of Kate Murphy.
Even now, as I looked over the city’s lights and down at all the ant-sized people, I was thinking only of her. I usually loved the view from up here, whether or not it gave me any sort of insight into the mind and tenacity of my late-father. That much was irrelevant. I liked the view. But today, I couldn’t enjoy it.
I shouldn’t have left her like that, standing alone in the middle of Starbucks.
I knew in order to move past it that I shouldn’t care. I knew that I shouldn’t even think about it. I was trying to unwind atop my dad’s “godly” throne. I didn’t want to think about the whole reason I was trying to unwind.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been cruel to her. I’d basically reached a whole new level of jerk status by leaving her like I had.
It wasn’t her fault who her father was — just like it wasn’t my fault who mine was.
“Fuck, Ian, stop being stupid. Stop thinking about it,” I growled. “There’s no way a relationship could work with her.”
I slumped down further in the chair and looked out over the city once more. My old man was probably be rolling over in his grave at the thought of me and Kate.
But, then again, he wasn’t always the most rational man either, especially near the end. The time that stood out the most was one of our last meetings together.
We’d been in the middle of a big, late-night meeting at the office. I remembered looking down at my leather-bound binder. I was avoiding eye contact with Mr. Bartlett, a senior board member, because I’d just had a fling with his daughter the night before.
He was speaking, about what, I wasn’t even sure. I never really used to listen in board meetings. The only thing I remembered was Jerome piping up and yelling, “Where the hell is he going?” which immediately made me snap to attention.
By the time I — or anyone else other than Jerome — had realized that my dad had stormed out, he was gone. I tried to excuse myself to follow him, but Jerome said, “We lost him, we’re not losing you, too—you can fill him in.”
One Cross had to be in the meeting. We owned the majority of the company. If I left, too, nothing would have been agreed on that night — and the whole stupid meeting would have been in vain.
I tried texting Dad while everyone else talked, as we all sat around the large wooden conference table. I felt annoyed that he’d left me there, surrounded by men twice my age, with egos and tempers tenfold my own. I even tried calling during my one bathroom break of the evening. But he didn’t want to talk—or at least, he hadn’t wanted to talk to me.
After the meeting, I’d gone to his penthouse—the one I was sitting in right now—and drank a cup of coffee, waiting for him to come home. I was drained and completely exhausted. Sitting at the table in his breakfast nook, just off of his overly luxurious kitchen, I’d felt a hundred years old.
I’d waited up on him, my anger giving me the energy I needed to stay awake. I sat quietly, my hands balled up in knots so tight that I could see the whites of my knuckles. Just past my anger, I was getting nervous. I hated feeling worried. It was a useless emotion—Dad had drummed that idea into me from a young age: What was the point with worry? You couldn’t change any sort of outcome — good or bad. There was no use worrying about it.
But it didn’t stop me as I sat there and wracked my brain, thinking about him that night, wondering where the hell he could be.
With a sigh, I’d glanced at the presents unopened beneath the tree. There were two of them. One was from me to him. The other was from him to me. Depressing, really. It was crazy how unlike a regular family we were. We didn’t give a damn about Christmas, or anything else for that matter. Well — at least not like normal people did. It was a miracle there was anything under the tree — and that there even was a tree — at all. Christmas was still almost a month away, but his housekeeping service brought the tree, like they did every year. As for the gifts, Dad had probably asked his secretary to pick up the gift for me, and I’d gotten him an expensive tie like I did every other year.
I’d looked out through the dark windows. It was cold as fuck outside already, and the darkness made it seem colder. Shivering cold. Face frozen, lips chaffing, pneumonia type cold. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was out in it, walking around in the streets like an idiot…
Despite my resolve to not worry, I kept thinking about all the shit he could have been into — the trouble or harm he could have found himself in. I’d been working myself up into an anxious wreck, and I was starting to get pissed that I was here playing concerned parent to my freaking father of all people.
“Fuck it,” I’d growled to myself. He was a grown man. He could take care of himself. I didn’t need to run after him, and he likely didn’t need or want me running after him.
All of a sudden there was a noise at the door—the jingling of keys, and the sound of a heavy body falling against the door. I knew before I even saw the door swing open that he was drunk.
“Goddammit!” I heard his voice sound out from the other side in a growling slur.
I knew I could have helped him, but I wasn’t going to. Instead, I sat and watched from my dim place in the kitchen, waiting for him to finally manage to come inside. When he did finally manage to open the door, though, something happened that I didn’t quite expect.
I immediately felt bad for him. His jacket was gone. I had no idea where he’d left it. I knew he didn’t leave it in his car. He hadn’t even taken his car to work that day. I knew he didn’t leave it at work. When he’d run out of the boardroom, his jacket had been very much on his body, perfectly draped over his shoulders.
His tie was completely undone, and his shirt was untucked on one side. The one exposed tail of the once crisp shirt dangled freely, and seemed to be frayed at the bottom. It looked like he’d completely gone through the wringer that night.
I’d watched him as he stumbled completely through the door and felt for the lights. I only knew what he was after because he kept grumbling, “Fucking lights, where are you, you fucking lights,” over and over and over again.
He’d moved closer to me. Incredibly close, and he was nowhere near the lights. Hell, he wasn’t even anywhere near the walls.
He was directly in the center of the kitchen, his hands outstretched in front of him. He shuffled forward and the toe of his foot caught the kitchen island. Although I reached for him, I wasn’t fast enough. He stumbled forward until he fell all the way to the floor.
It was like seeing a god fall from his throne, all the way to the feet of his subjects.
His feet wobbled beneath him as he pulled himself up by grabbing ahold of cabinet doors and counter tops.
“Fuck!” he growled, over and over again, until he finally reached his feet and stabilized himself.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” he said. His last “fuck” had been solemn, almost spiritual. He looked sad. I wasn’t sure what it was, but there was a look of great pain and emotion in his eyes. They were red and puffy, from what I could see, and it looked like he’d been crying.
A glass toppled off the counter, and the glass shattered on the floor.
"Dad, you’re drunk,” I said, finally breaking my silence. “You should go to bed."
He looked at me, un-blinking, focusing — as if his life depended on it — before flashing a lopsided grin. “No, I’m not drunk,” he said with a high-pitched chuckle.
“That’s convincing,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Seriously, Dad.”
“Well, maybe just a little bit.” He held his finger and thumb only an inch apart.
“How many drinks did you have?” I asked, challenging his “just a little bit” bullshit, while I continued to watch in horror at how completely sloshed he actually was
“A few thousand,” he said. He lost his balance again, and gripped the counter so he wouldn’t fall. “Obviously, Ian!”
Despite my rising anger, I moved forward and grabbed his shoulders to steer him toward the bedroom. He struggled to straighten himself upright and flashed me a crooked grin.
"Come on," I said quietly. “All I need is for you to fall and break a hip.” I was partially joking, partially not.
It was obvious that I wasn’t going to get anything out of him that night — such as why he bailed on the late-night meeting in the first place. I knew it was pointless to question him, so I didn’t bother.
He’d needed his bed — even more than I needed one. But as soon as I pulled his sweaty body toward the hall leading to his room, I could tell he had other plans.
With a fueled, jolt, he shook himself free my grasp and moved towards the bedroom himself. "It's okay, all right?” he snapped. “I’m fine!”
I let him go.
“I’m fucking fine!” he yelled again, even though I wasn’t touching him anymore. With an unsteady hand, he leaned against one of the walls in the hallway to stay upright. “I can fucking manage.”
"Go to bed, we'll talk in the morning." I said.
“I’ll go to bed when I’m damn well ready!” he shouted, and took his supporting hand off the wall to point at me.
“Dammit!” I yelled, grabbing him by his shoulders again before he toppled over.
He brushed my hands away and stared at me.
"Okay," he slurred. “Bed.”
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, watching as his head tilted and he fumbled all over the place. He looked like he’d just been knocked out in a video game with the circular motion he was making, and his eyes looked deserted, like he wasn’t even there.
“Well, we’ll go in a second…let me just stand here for a second.” He smiled strangely.
This night had been bad enough with the meeting. Now my old man was freaking me out.
“Son,” he slurred. His drowsy eyes seemed to sharpen a fraction. “It’s about time you remember this, and make a lesson of it.”
“Make a lesson of what?” I asked, not really sure why. I didn’t want to get into any sort of conversation with a drunken John Cross, but I had been in the habit of questioning people when they didn’t make any fucking sense. The only thing I could learn from this was that I needed to handle alcohol more appropriately than he had.
"I learned that no matter how hard I try, people will still be pissed off. All the time.”
I still had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured I’d let him continue.
“So eventually I had to learn — and you will too — that you may as well piss them off by trying to rather than trying not to. Because it’s worse when you’re trying not to and still wind up doing it.”
He was almost losing me. “Dad, I’m not really sure what you mean.”
“At least then, you’ll be happy,” he said, ignoring me completely.
“Are you happy?” I asked, still not sure why I was still humoring him.
“As happy as I can be,” he smiled. “But no matter how much I lie to myself, I will never do what I wanted to. My own employees are scared of me, and the people in the community hate me. I’m the tyrannical asshole that is ruining BioResearch. Fuck BioResearch. Fuck the Murphy’s!”
Now alone in the penthouse that used to be his, I thought about how he’d said it like that — “Fuck the Murphy’s!” — and it made me feel even guiltier for entertaining thoughts of Kate, even though I knew the truth.
At the time, I’d felt like someone had slapped me across the face. I wasn’t in complete shock. I’d known he wasn’t thrilled about how everything was going with the lawsuit, but I was still speechless. He never talked about his feelings, drunk or not drunk. Hell, I hadn’t even known he cared that much.
"I should have known, really. It should have been obvious,” Dad continued. No matter what I do, I'll always be known as a dickhead and a snake.” He was talking nonsense. I didn’t understand where it was all coming from or what he meant with all of his rambling.
"Dad," I started as I took a small step closer to him.
"No, no, it's all right. It's the truth isn't it?” His words were badly slurred, but they were just clear enough that I could understand. “Murphy is right. He's right, he's right. I'm evil and cruel and a fucking snake. He's right. I shouldn't be trusted.”
He laughed, almost maniacally for a second before speaking again, with a slow, deliberate nod. “But he’s a fucking snake too.”
It was the first time in my entire life I saw emotional pain visible on my Dad’s face. It was there, and once I was confronted with it, there was no ignoring it. Seeing him like that made me want to rush over to his side, even though neither of us was touchy-feely. I closed in on him and held him by the shoulders, supporting his staggering, unsteady body.
“What brought this on?” I demanded. This had all started in the board meeting. No one had said anything to prompt such ridiculous behavior. So what was it?
He didn’t answer. He probably didn’t even know I was talking to him — or remember how he’d abruptly left the boardroom. He looked out the big window by his chair to where the stars would have been if we could see any.
“I need to have a seat,” he said, as he tore his eyes away from the sky. He pulled away from me, stumbling about until he flopped into his chair. He reached beside him and grabbed the crystal bottle of whiskey that sat on the little side table.
“Fuck,” I groaned, as I moved to confiscate the bottle. But it was too late. He took a long swig, and then another one before gripping it tightly in his hand.
“I had a love once, you know?” he slurred.
“Yeah, I know, Dad, I know.” I was trying my best to stay out of the emotional territory and urge him back toward the bed.
He and my mom had a rough marriage. I never thought he cared about her as much as he seemed to in that maudlin, drunken moment — but that was just the way he was. He was a rock. He didn’t show any sort of emotion. Not unless he was belligerently drunk, it seemed — but even then, this was the first time I’d really ever seen full emotion.
“No, you don’t understand — not your mom.”
I pulled back just enough to look at him fully. “What do you mean?”
But that was all he said. He fished his hand into his coat pocket and grabbed out a shimmering metal flask.
“Dad, no!” I grabbed his hand and pulled the flask away from him sharply. “You’re drunk enough!”
“Fuck off, Ian!” he snapped, fumbling for the flask — trying his best to get it out of my hands. His tongue was sticking out, concentration set. I didn’t even care at that point.
“Fine,” I said, as I tossed it over to him. If he wanted to drink himself into oblivion, could I really stop him? “Not like there’s much left in it anyway.”
There were just a few drops from what I could tell, but he really didn’t need any more at all. Even a few drops. As I watched him take hold of it, swigging, it seemed as if he was desperately trying to bury whatever memory had just been swirling around in his mind.
I understood. I knew that sometimes alcohol brought on things that weren’t necessarily wanted.
“I wonder if she’d be ashamed of me,” he said as he tucked the flask underneath his armpit and lay back.
He started crying. Now, sitting in the same chair, I couldn’t recall everything he said, but tears were trailing down his face. He hadn’t even made any sort of movements to hide them or wipe them away.
I’d stiffened at all of his emotion and all of his words. Everything he was saying was too much to handle. I hated seeing tears. I stood awkwardly, almost in the hallway, feeling like I was witness a nervous breakdown. His shoulders start rose and fell, and his body shook with a sadness that I’d never seen before.
Next to the overwhelming feeling of confusion and a reluctance to get involved with his emotions, I felt angry. He’d put us all behind and made me miss out on a good chunk of sleep. Sleep that I cherished after all the hours he already worked me. It was hard to stay angry at a crying man, but a part of me couldn’t help feeling like he’d brought this on himself. If he hadn’t had so much to drink, he wouldn’t have become so maudlin.
I was trying to collect myself the best that I could as I turned to face him again.
“Listen to me, Dad. You’re successful, and you’re well liked. And our business is on top!” I was trying to cheer him up at first, but I wanted to push my point even further. “So just focus on work and stop abandoning your responsibilities.”
I realized my words were useless.
He wasn’t coherent enough to hear anything I had to say — or understand it, even if he had.
He was staring between the large window in front of him, and the floor, muttering to himself.
I pushed down every single emotion I felt, grabbed ahold of him again, and yanked him up from his chair. He barely protested as I pulled him toward the direction of his bedroom. “Come on, Dad. Let’s get your ass in bed.”
There was a large lump in my throat all the way to the bedroom. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been this close in proximity. We never hugged — and that’s what this felt like. A sweaty, smelly hug. It lasted all the way to the bedroom, and to the bed, which was strangely unmade, still.
I helped him lie, carefully, down into the plump luxury of his expensive sheets.
He smelled like a bourbon filled ashtray.
“You smell like shit,” I muttered. I glanced down at him, and then over to his closet before shrugging. He could wake up in his stinky clothes. Served him right.
I tucked him in, and pulled away before looking down at him one final second before leaving the room. I remembered running through the penthouse, until I found a cleaning bucket just underneath his kitchen sink, and placed it beside his bed. I knew he’d need it, and for some reason, I wanted to give it to him.
After that, as well as placing a glass of water, and a couple of tablets of Advil beside his bed, I left again. I remembered fumbling about in the darkness of the entire penthouse, before finally collapsing onto the sofa.
The weight of the world had seemed crushing on that night. I remembered holding my head in my own hands. Pissed off that he’d left the meeting, but even more pissed off that his drunken bullshit caused me to lose out on some much needed sleep. With that, I’d found myself drifting off.
The next morning, I’d gotten up off my dad’s couch and made my way into the kitchen, where I somehow managed to not step in the broken glass from the cup he’d knocked over. I made him breakfast, and was surprised when he didn’t insist on coming to the office with me. Instead, he’d eaten his eggs, thrown up, and then shuffled back to bed.
Whatever had been bothering him had really been bothering him, and I had been worried.
Around midday, he texted me with a pissy attitude. “What the hell is going on today? Keep me informed,” the text read.
I’d responded with a simple, “Shut the fuck up. Relax. Be back soon.”
The job would still be there when he was feeling better, but he didn’t seem to care. In perfect Dad fashion, he texted back, “Shove it up your skinny ass. I’m fine. Keep me informed.”
Now that I thought back to it all, I had no idea what all happened that day. I had no idea what Jerome had to say, or what people asked when they realized John Cross was a no-show.
All I remembered was that — just to piss him off — I let him know every single little non-work related thing that happened. Every time I moved a pen. Every time I took a piss. Every time I scratched my nose. Every time I heard Jerome kissing ass. Every single thing I thought of, I texted him about all of it.
The only thing work-related that I actually remembered was the fact that I’d had lunch with the board members. I’d had no idea what we talked about. Just that I did my best to smooth over his bailing from the night before.
When I left the office, I’d gone straight to his penthouse. “So I met with the board today,” I said. “You’re going to have to make it up to them, for bailing like that last night.
His slightly bloodshot eyes stared up at me in surprise, like he hadn’t expected me to take the reins.
He sighed deeply before nodding his head. “You’re going to do well.”
“Do well at what?” I asked.
“Running the company.”
“Hardly!” I choked, completely amused just before clearing my throat. “But luckily we don’t have to think about that for a good long while.”
He growled in what seemed like annoyance, and now that I thought back to that day, I wondered if he had any sort of clue of what was coming in his near future. I could have kept the conversation going and discussed what he was really thinking. I could have pushed for some kind of emotion from him, maybe some truths on the past love—who was not Mom—that he’d lost. Unfortunately, I was too uncomfortable with emotion to do anything like that.
Now, though, the more I remembered that day, the more I wished I’d just had the conversation. I could have talked to him about it, heard what he had to say about the past regrets he had, and his thoughts for the future of the company. At the time, I wasn’t ready to hear about his expectations for me, but now I wish I’d just sucked it up because now I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be doing except sitting at that stupid desk in that stupid fucking office and looking at documents on my computer, or having meetings with rich men who were just as bored and angry as I was.
I still wondered to this day if he ever came to the conclusion that I’d helped him get to his bed that night he came in drunk, or that I’d heard him talking and ranting about all those weird things. I wondered if he even cared. I also wondered if he’d remembered anything that he’d said to me. If it made him nervous that he’d somehow given me a glimpse into a world he’d kept hidden from me so long before.
It had certainly made me nervous. I barely knew anything about my dad. What was it that he had been talking so heatedly and passionately about that night? What had bothered him so much?
I knew those questions would never be answered — especially not now. But even if he hadn’t died, I probably still would have never found out what his erratic ramblings had meant.
It would have wrecked him if I’d ever brought it up. I had hoped that from that day forward that his drinking would slow down — and eventually maybe even stop. But it didn’t.
Not that it had much of a chance to, because he died so soon after.
I sighed. The bottle of whiskey, now only half full, clanked as I placed it back on the table. My vision was slightly blurred, and my head spun whenever I moved.
“Oh God, I'm drunk.” It was like a weird form of father-son déjà vu. Drunk on the throne chair, overlooking the city.
I was a fucking shadow of what my dad was. A drunken man with a lot of work left to do. Drunk because the world was heavy, and having it on your shoulders all day every day was the most straining experience anyone could ever face.
The only difference I could see was that my dad had actually wanted to go to work. He was fine carrying the weight of the world.
I, on the other hand, was sick of it. I didn’t have any sort of motivation to do it anymore. I didn’t want to be the CEO of a company, let alone a CEO involved in a bullshit lawsuit that I wanted no part of, or a company that would keep me from someone as awesome as the woman I’d already fallen for.
I took a swig of my drink again, allowing my thoughts to sink in. I wasn’t really making a lot of sense to myself. My brain was getting fuzzy. It was getting late.
I needed to get to bed. I stood, only to find myself unable to really stand, and with a ridiculously hard thump, I found that I’d landed on my hands and knees beside the chair I now thought was cursed. I teetered a few moments, before the alcohol completely took over and I fell, ungracefully, the rest of the way.
“Ugh,” I groaned, as I reached up to the couch trying to pull down a blanket. I didn’t want to even bother getting up. I just wanted to sleep. I unfolded the blanket and laid it over myself — probably less over me than off of me, actually — and laid my head down flat against the hardwood.
I reached up and grabbed hold of the crystal whisky bottle, not even bothering to pour it out into a glass anymore. I was already on the floor. I’d hit rock bottom. Who gave a shit if I drank out of the bottle?
I leaned up to take another large gulp, hoping to drown the terrible thoughts that had been bouncing around my head for hours. I was hoping to numb myself against the maelstrom of emotion that was wracking my entire brain and causing my mind to go into overdrive.
In all honesty, I was sick of continually taking one for the team; I wasn’t sure if I even had it in me anymore.
My dad had taken one for the team — every single day of his entire career. Everything he did was for the good of the company. And, well, he wound up dead. So was it really the best choice?
I wanted to hide from my life, but I knew that wasn’t an option. The only option I felt like I really had was to lie here, or get up. That was the only thing I had control of.
So I lay there, eyes open, blinking heavily. I should have just gone to sleep. That might have stopped me from thinking on it all too much. Well, might have. It also might have plagued me with dreams that I couldn’t stop—dreams about her.
First it was Kate. Now it was my Dad. The emotions were never ending.
I clenched my eyes tightly as I fought to not let the tears fall. I refused to be weak. Not now. Not over this, and not because alcohol made me into a big whiny asshole.
I used to find comfort in the fact that my dad had had so much faith in me being able to do the job. Because hell, he knew more about me than I’d ever wanted him to. I always thought if he still thought I could do the job, then maybe he was right.
But now I wasn’t so sure. Maybe he hadn’t known me as well as I thought he did. Maybe he just knew more than I wanted him to, but he still hadn’t really known me.
Maybe I couldn’t be a good replacement for him. Maybe I didn’t have it in me. The only thing I knew for sure, was that after that night with my dad, I came away with a new sense of clarity: my dad was human after all. He made mistakes, and he felt emotion.
Whatever it was that he was holding onto burdened him more than I’d ever known him to be burdened. It burdened him even more than this job burdened me.
I sighed, ashamed that I couldn’t be just a little more of what he thought I was. I was ashamed that I still wanted Kate, and ashamed that I didn’t give a fuck about the stupid lawsuit that had seemed like everything to him.
I hated that I didn't give a damn like he gave a damn when he was alive; and more than that, I hated feeling like I wasn’t good enough to sit in his chair and look out over the city like he once did. And I hated, most of all, that the all-of-a-sudden half empty bottle of whisky wasn’t making it any better.