Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
A rcher
I take the stairs two at a time, my heart beating out of my chest. I know I should calm the hell down before I barge into my dad’s bedroom, but today is the day his nurse called me to say he’s somewhat lucid. If I’m going to get anywhere with him, I need to strike while the iron is hot.
I’m holding a report from the marshal and there’s no way to interpret it other than as tangible fact—the fire that burned part of Buttercup Hill and Graham’s land was arson.
Investigators have no leads because the cameras on our property just happen to have a blind spot in the area where the fire started, but I have my suspicions. After the big Napa fire a few years ago, my dad made an offhand comment to me about that blind spot.
“Not bad to have a corner where you can do a little dirty work if you need to,” he’d said. At the time, I didn’t make much of it. But now that the dirty work has been done…it’s hard not to ma ke a connection. It’s hard to imagine my dad setting fire to the vineyard he grew into a three-generation family fortune, but none of his actions in the past year make sense. Even being non compos mentis—not of sound mind—doesn’t explain it to us, his kids, who are trying to keep the place running.
Betsy, Dad’s nurse, hears my feet on the stairs and opens the door to his room, already shushing me before I make it down the hallway. “He’s resting.”
Normally, I take everything the nurse says as gospel. I tiptoe around the house I grew up in and only come up to the wing of the house where my dad lives when she tells me he’s lucid. But I need answers. It makes me less patient with his current state.
“Can you wake him up, please?”
The nurse, a gray-haired woman in her fifties with the patience of a saint, shakes her head and rests a hand on my forearm. She never overreacts, never yells. Just calmly attends to my dad’s needs, just like she has for the two years since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He gets confused more and more, forgets my name, mixes me up with my siblings. And then there are the business mistakes that have cost our family millions of dollars and jeopardized the very land this house was built on by my grandfather.
Betsy studies me, her cool gaze not bothering with any part of me except my eyes, judging my level of seriousness. And annoyance.
“He’s awake, just resting. Having his breakfast. I don’t want you to agitate him and you seem…frazzled.”
“I’m fine. Can I see him, please?”
I shouldn’t have to ask for permission to see my own father. I hear her talking to my dad in hushed tones, and then I hear his booming baritone barking at her, mostly complaining about how the newspaper is from the wrong day and that there are no sports on the TV. He loves sports, always has, and one of the few positive memories I have of my childhood is him coming to watch me play hockey.
That was a long time ago.
She peeks her head out and motions me inside. I find my dad sitting at the desk at the far end of his room, where a breakfast tray sits untouched with toast, berries, juice, and eggs. He has the New York Times and the Financial Times spread out on the desk, and he sits with his hands holding down the pages as if they might fly away.
“Hi, Dad.”
He looks up and squints at me, and I wait for signs he recognizes who I am. “Jackson?”
I sigh and look at Betsy, who nods, bright-eyed, as though my dad calling me by my younger brother’s name is a positive sign. She ushers me closer to my dad with a wave of her hand and goes about straightening up the room, fluffing pillows on the bed, emptying trash cans that aren’t full.
“No, Dad. It’s Archer.”
“Who?” The harsh rumble of his voice hits differently today. I realize how much we sound the same, accusing and irritable, no matter who’s on the other side of the conversation. His brutal stare says that no matter what I’ve come to say it will only irritate him and create more problems. Again, it’s familiar. Guess he succeeded in making me in his image despite my efforts to be different.
“Your son. Jackson’s older brother.”
He wags a finger. “Don’t try to trick me.”
My heart sinks, watching my own father insist I’m someone else, not the son who’s dutifully taken over his job for the past two years. “Dad,” I say, taking a step closer. He reacts like a frightened animal, holding his hand up and shaking his head.
“You’re not Jackson.”
“No. I’m Archer, your older son.”
For a split second, I see a flicker of recognition. “Take care of the business, Arch. Take care of the family.” It’s the same refrain since I took over, and the source of the weight I carry on my shoulders.
“I will, Dad. Don’t worry.”
Just as quickly, the sharpness in my dad’s eyes disappears, and I watch the vein of confusion settle in. “Worry? About what?”
I shouldn’t have come. I should have waited for “a good day,” but I fear there won’t be any of those. Maybe not ever again.
He looks off into the distance like the information he’s seeking is somewhere in the wallpaper design. Then his eyes scan the room, and I watch the confusion take over. My dad’s brow furrows and his mouth turns down into a scowl as he searches for a touchstone. Betsy moves toward us and his eyes flicker with recognition. “Judy, I’d like a glass of water.”
Betsy pours a glass of water but doesn’t correct him when he calls her by my mother’s name. Maybe I should’ve let him call me Jackson. Either way, I can see that he’s not in any state to give me the information I’m seeking, but I figure I don’t have anything to lose by asking.
“Dad, someone set fire to Buttercup Hill.”
Slowly, his gaze returns to me. “Really?” His face bears a tiny trace of a smile.
“Yes. Do you know something about that? The blind spot?”
The smile evaporates and his brow furrows again. “Judy, I asked you for water.”
Betsy pushes the still-full glass toward my dad and wraps his hand around it. “Here you go.” He doesn’t drink it. She tilts her head toward the bedroom door, her signal that I’m just agitating him and I’m probably not going to get what I want. But I’m a determined son of a bitch, so I try once more to make small talk. Sometimes when my dad relaxes, his cognitive function returns.
“It’s a pretty day today. Do you feel like getting out?”
He shakes his head. “I need some water. That’s what I want.”
I blink hard and nod. “Okay.”