HOLT

Two days after my conversation with Amber, I do the one thing I vowed I never would after becoming the acting CEO of Cal-Mart.

I show up at my father’s home in Johnson’s Ranch to get some advice.

He is watching a football game in the den when Carlotta, his long-time housekeeper, shows me in. However, he merely glances at me before telling Carlotta she can take the rest of the day off.

“Thank you, Mr. Calson,” Carlotta answers. She gives me a tentative smile before she leaves and closes the door behind her.

Leaving me to stand there awkwardly, like a dog with its tail between its legs. And as my dad takes his time turning off the game, I can just about feel the burden of my presence on him.

It’s the same not-wanted feeling I’ve been silently fuming about for years, even after he decided I should be named acting CEO when he stepped down. Not because I was a better fit for the job, Dad informed me when he called me into his office to discuss the possibility, but because it was time to start grooming me for the position anyway.

But oh, what a difference a few years make. Now, it’s not my father calling me into his office to inform me it’s time to step into the role for which I’d been groomed, but me seeking him out. And my past resentments are all but forgotten as I wait for him to give me some much-needed advice.

“Might as well sit down, I suppose,” Jack says, indicating the leather wing chair where some of the nation’s greatest business leaders have sat while Big Jack poured them a drink from our private barrel Rushton whiskey.

I take the seat. But he doesn’t pour me a glass of whiskey.

Instead, we sit in silence, and though we don’t talk, I notice we’ve never looked more like father and son. We are both “out of uniform.” In polos and jeans like we discussed our clothing before I came down here. Though we didn’t. Of course, we didn’t. We’ve never been that kind of team.

Until now. When I need him.

The den sits right beside the gravel driveway at the back of the house where the servants are expected to enter, so we know when Carlotta leaves. Tires roll over gravel. It’s clear to talk.

As usual, Dad gets the first word in—“first and last word belongs to me.” That’s his policy, even with his son. Especially with his son.

“Ain’t going to ask why you showed up here unannounced. Already know it’s because of this custody agreement you been trying to keep from me.”

I regard him for a second, considering how best to respond. But since he’s not beating around the bush, I decide I won’t either. Like father, like son, in more ways than I ever knew…

“I thought I could handle it on my own,” I admit. “Keep it a secret so it wouldn’t interfere with my chances of being named the Cal-Mart CEO. But now…” I shake my head miserably. “Everything is falling apart and I need you to help me out of this one.”

I wait, bracing myself for one of his southern tongue lashings that the New York Herald relayed in stark detail in an article that not only went viral, but was responsible for my father’s sudden decision to hand the reins over to a son many thought was still too young to be the CEO of a multi-billion dollar international corporation.

But instead of looking disappointed in me as he so often does, even when I think I’m doing a good job, my father sits forward in his seat. Obviously waiting to hear more.

And that’s when I get it. What I never got when I was killing myself to be the perfect son. In the years preceding my drugged out summer and the years after. He never wanted me to be perfect.

This. This is what he wants. For me to fly too close to the sun. For me to need his guidance the way he needed my grandfather’s even after he died. Which was part of the reason his tenure as CEO went downhill so fast, with him stepping down just four years after my grandfather’s funeral.

I think about the days after my overdose. The one time he showed up for me… after all the times when he didn’t. He had been kind to me by his standards. No yelling, just swooping in for the fix. Because for once, I needed him. Truly needed him. And only then could he be the father I’d always wanted him to be.

But after Sylvie, I vowed to never be the needy son again. I’d been so busy trying to prove I wasn’t like my mother. Trying to prove to him and the board that I was not only the right man to turn the company around, that I never understood why Big Jack seemed to hate me more and more with each increasingly successful day.

But now I get it. Now I understand in a way I never could before.

“Dad, I know Calsons aren’t supposed to apologize. I know you want me to stand strong against any obstacle like Grandpa. But I am not you. I am not Grandpa. And I am sorry I ever thought I could be. I am so sorry…”

I trail off but my father picks up the thread easily enough. “You should have come to me sooner. As soon as you found out what that black bitch did, you should have come to me instead of letting me find out about it through the lawyers.”

I shake my head in miserable agreement. “I know. I know that now. But I thought I could handle it,” I tell him again. “It should have been an open and shut case…”

“Should’ve been but it wasn’t,” Dad says, curling his lip.

“No, it wasn’t,” I agree with my own bitter sneer. “It wasn’t enough to get that reporter fired. Now it turns out he was colluding with Sylvie’s lawyer, and who knows how much she knows? Now Sylvie might tell everyone I have a black son.”

Jack visibly startles. “Hold on, I thought you were suing for custody because you wanted to keep this boy and raise him as your own.”

“No, of course I don’t! I’m actively searching for a new wife right now. But Sylvie is a wildcard I cannot afford. I needed full custody so I could send the kid away to some boarding school in Europe, or maybe Africa. Someplace where reporters won’t dig him up.”

Now my father is the one shaking his head. “You should’ve told me…if I’d known—”

He stops, as if thinking better of whatever he was going to say next.

And in the next silent moment, I visibly lose all pride. “I’ve fucked it all up…I’ve fucked it all up,” I say on a cracked whisper, clasping my head in my hands and rocking back and forth in a way I have never allowed myself to do in front of him, for fear he would think I was like my mother. “And now I am going to lose everything. All because I was thinking with my dick instead of my brain.”

“Son…” my father says in a stunned tone. But then, instead of telling me to man up, he gets out of his chair and comes to stand over me, placing a hand on my shoulder like he did the day he said I needed to go to rehab. “Listen to me, son. Listen! We are Calsons. We do not get taken down by the help, cuz there ain’t nothing we can’t fix. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t understand,” I answer, shaking my head frantically. “This can’t be fixed! The reporter’s dead—killed by some mugger—but Luca’s ex-wife is still representing Sylvie. They’re going to tell everyone about the boy and try to pin the reporter’s death on me!”

My father grits his teeth. “No, they won’t,” he insists. “I’ll take care of that. Sylvie and her lawyer, too. Same way I took care of your reporter problem.”

I stare up at him with shocked eyes before choking out, “The mugger. That was you?”

Dad turns his back to me as he looks up at the portrait of his father, Hank Calson, that hangs above the den’s unlit fire place. “You know, it wasn’t just you he was after. That little prick reporter was sniffing around me, too. He came to my home, pretending to want an interview for the Sun’s Sunday section. Sat right where you’re sitting. But then he started asking me questions…about a few side deals I’d made, and some harassment suits I settled with female employees who knew better than to open their mouths. But still…”

Dad’s eyes go dark with remembered anger. “I know his kind. Grew up on stories about Woodward and Bernstein, but settled for working at places like the Arkansas Sun. He thought he’d be the one to Harvey Weinstein me out of the legacy I deserve. But it wasn’t going to happen. And it ain’t ever going to happen because I made sure of it.”

Dad turns around to face me, his expression twisted with righteous fury. “And if that black bitch thinks she is going to fuck over your life cuz she squeezed some half-nig out between her legs, she’s got another thing coming. No more negotiating. She is going to meet the same fate as the reporter, and that Helen Keller lawyer of hers, too. Because Calsons don’t get taken down. Not by reporters. Not by lawyers. And especially not by overstepping Jamaican bitches. You don’t need to worry about it, son. I am going to take care of all of this and make sure don’t none of it blow back on you.”

“You really mean it, Dad?” I ask, still sniveling. “You had that reporter killed and you’d do the same to Sylvie and her lawyer. For me?”

Big Jack gives a gruff shrug. “Well, it ain’t going to happen all at once, but yeah…yeah, I’ll do it for you. I know I didn’t turn out the way my dad wanted, but you did. I couldn’t shake my accent, but you…? You’re everything he ever wanted me to be. You even got his business brain! But the one downside of me letting that softheaded gal he made me marry raise you is you’re weak as shit. You might talk good, and Della told me you’re a natural at branding. But you ain’t got what it takes to preserve our legacy. But that’s okay, because I do. So, you go back to them New York offices and sit tight. I’ll get Arman on the phone and he’ll find someone to take care of it.”

At the mention of using his personal bodyguard to take care of my Sylvie problem, I finally stop sniveling and stand up from the chair. I am so relieved that my eyes glisten as I say, “Thank you, Dad.”

He smiles, broader than I have ever seen him smile. And he might have even said something sincere back…if men in dark coats hadn’t come rushing through the door of his study, throwing up badges and yelling “FBI!” before two of them pressed Big Jack into a wall and pulled his hands into plastic cuffs.

I watch as the FBI agent reads off a list of charges they will be holding him on until further notice.

In the coming days, more charges are added. People with and without NDAs will come forward with tales of extortion, sexual harassment, and lots of good old-fashioned racketeering. By the time his victims are done with him, Jack will have enough charges brought against him to spend the rest of his life in a minimum-security prison. But as it turns out, thanks to the freezing of his assets and my own suit against Meier, Swath, & Crane, the firm that did such a shitty job maintaining lawyer-client confidentiality, he’ll have no way to secure stellar representation.

But I don’t know any of that for sure as I watch him get carted off, showing all his glossed over hillbilly roots as he curses the FBI, that damn reporter, and his nigger-loving son.

Right then, I am feeling all sorts of mixed emotions. Regret…sadness…and the kind of bone-deep disappointment that comes with discovering how small your bigger-than-life parents really are.

But most of all, I feel resolve. Resolve that I will never be like him.