Chapter Twenty-Nine
“You cannot get on an airplane for at least three months,” the neurologist told Jack first thing in the morning. “The changes in cabin pressure during a long flight can cause intracranial bleeding. Do you really want that to happen at thirty thousand feet over the middle of the Pacific Ocean?”
It meant Jack couldn’t fulfill his obligations in Japan. He had never walked out on a contract in his life—a point of pride for him. The Japanese investors had been more than patient with him, but they couldn’t wait forever, and he had to let them down.
Then the physical therapist arrived, delivering a boot for his bad ankle and a new set of forearm crutches he’d have to use for the next month.
She had been prepared to teach him how to strap on the bulky plastic boot and use the crutches, but there was no need.
Jack spent most of fifth and sixth grade in a plastic boot with geeky crutches.
The aluminum poles with arm cuffs and wrist handles would make it easier to protect his ankle, but he’d always hated them.
He walked like a praying mantis and felt like crippled.
Alice showed up at noon with lemon cookies and a sunny smile. “You got your neck brace off,” she cheered, beaming.
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “The neurologist gave with one hand and took away with the other. I can’t get on a plane so I can’t go to Japan.” Would the wrenches thrown into his life by hemophilia never end?
Alice sat on the bedside chair. “I’m sorry about that. I know you were looking forward to seeing Japan.”
He kept his face immobile, refusing to let Alice know that the real problem was that he needed the money.
“They’re renovating a golf course at Camp Lejeune that I can make a bid for,” he said. It would be a four-hour drive from here, but at least the plastic boot was on his left foot so he could still get himself to North Carolina to assess the golf course and submit a proposal ahead of the deadline.
He met Alice’s gaze. “I’m supposed to be discharged tomorrow.”
“You can stay at my place,” she said. “Your suitcases are already in my guest bedroom. I didn’t know where else to put them after I moved you out of the hotel. You’ll be more comfortable at my place than there. I’ll even cook for you.”
He glanced away, even as temptation clawed. “I’ll head back to the Tucker Inn,” he said. It would be easier on them both. The convenient, impersonal touch of a hotel was exactly what he needed.
“Jack … when I packed up your room from the Tucker Inn, I couldn’t find the signet ring anywhere.”
He blinked. “It’s gone?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I did a pretty thorough search, but maybe you have a hiding place? Like in a hidden compartment somewhere?”
“It was zipped up in my laptop case. It wasn’t there?”
“No, we checked there. I worried one of the hotel staff stole it because of the gold. If it gets melted down …”
Her phrase trickled off. They both knew the real value of the ring was its history, not its gold, but that wouldn’t be obvious to someone unfamiliar with the ring.
“The good news is that we’ve got a lot of pictures of it,” Alice continued. “I’ve sent them to the College of Arms in London.”
“I remember. Any word back from them yet?”
She shook her head. “I gather that it can take several weeks. Are you sure it was in that laptop case?”
“Certain,” he bit out, anger beginning to gather anew.
A lot of people had access to his hotel room while he’d been laid up, so it could have been stolen by any of them.
That ring meant a lot to Alice. The gold alone was worth a few thousand dollars, but it was the history of the ring that mattered more than anything.
A nurse tapped on the open door. “Are you up for a visitor?”
He sagged against the pillows. He was broke, sick, and now he’d disappointed Alice by failing to protect that ring. All he really wanted was to be alone, but it could be important. “Who is it?”
“He says he is your father. Frank Latimer?”
Jack recoiled. The last time he saw his dad had been in a Dairy Queen for a supervised visit when Jack was fourteen years old.
Dad bought him a chocolate milkshake. It had been hard to drink while watching his dad battle tremors from alcohol withdrawal.
Jack should have been grateful his dad sobered up enough for the visit, but all it did was disgust him.
“Mr. Latimer?” the nurse asked. “Shall I let him in?”
“No,” Jack said. “My dad and I said our goodbyes a long time ago.”
“Jack,” Alice said. “I think perhaps—”
“It’s a hard no, Alice.” He met the nurse’s eyes. “I don’t care what you tell him. Tell him that I’m sleeping or too sick. Or that he’s had twenty years to see me if he wanted, but just don’t let him in here.”
Alice stood. “Could you give us a few minutes?” she asked the nurse.
“Of course,” she replied. Alice crossed the room to close the door, but not before shooting a quick glance down the hallway.
Jack folded his arms across his chest and slanted her a surly look. She was probably going to appeal to his softer side, as if he had one of those. “Don’t waste your breath, Alice.”
“I dropped Sebastian off at the airport yesterday.”
“Yeah? He’s finally gone, then?”
“Yeah,” she said with a little laugh. “We had a nice talk in the parking lot. He feels really lousy about everything that happened and did his best to apologize.”
“Kind of the least he could do, isn’t it?”
“Jack, he asked for my forgiveness, and that was nice . . . but letting go of my hurt and anger at Sebastian was a gift to myself. Bitterness can corrode the good inside of a person. By mending fences with Sebastian, I’ve been able to let go of the resentment and reclaim the good memories I have of him. ”
The gentle compassion in her face moved him as she sank into the chair beside him and reached for his hand. Hers was cool and soft and felt perfect as he curled his big palm around it.
“Jack, you will never regret seeing him. Don’t let a person’s bad actions stop you from being a good person. Your dad is right outside. He’s in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank, and he looks terrible. He’s using a few of his last hours on this earth to come see you.”
He turned his face to the wall and blinked at the pinpricks behind his eyes. The worst thing would be for Alice to see how hard this was.
Her voice was soft as she spoke. “Maybe your dad came here for selfish reasons, but he’s also giving you the chance to speak your piece.
Tell him whatever you’ve got festering inside that you’ve been wanting to tell him for years.
Getting it off your chest might help. Or perhaps you can forgive him.
I don’t know what you’re capable of on such short notice .
. . but if you turn him away, I think it’s going to be something you will regret for the rest of your life. ”
Cracking open the door into his past was terrifying. He barely survived it the first time and didn’t want to risk opening up the avalanche of painful memories. It would be so much easier to keep on hating Frank Latimer.
He reached for the hospital bed’s remote control, pressing the arrow to raise the back of his bed. He wanted to be sitting up for this, not lying down like an invalid.
“Yeah, you can let him in,” he said.
The first sight of his dad was a shock. It had been twenty-two years, and Frank Latimer had shrunk into a little old man bundled in a nubby wool sweater with a scarf around his neck.
He looked barely able to sit up in the wheelchair and was hooked up to an oxygen tank.
A strong-jawed woman with chestnut hair pushed the wheelchair.
“I’m Sophie,” she said, extending her hand. She was well-dressed in a sporty blazer and ankle boots. Jack felt underdressed in a hospital smock, but at least he didn’t have to wear the plastic collar around his neck anymore.
He shook Sophie’s hand, but merely looked at his dad.
“Thanks for this,” Frank rasped out.
“Sure thing, Dad.” The words weren’t genuine, but it seemed to set the other two at ease. An awkward pause lengthened and grew.
Frank glanced at the bag of clotting factor hanging on the IV pole. “How are your numbers?”
“They’re good. I’m getting out tomorrow.”
Frank managed a smile. “Good!”
Then another long and torturous silence. Alice had stepped outside to grant them privacy, but he wished she’d stayed because she could always keep a conversation going. He scrambled for something to say.
“How long have you two been married?”
“Eighteen years,” Sophie said.
“And I’ve been sober for nineteen,” Frank added.
It made sense. That was around the time Frank and Sophie started bombarding him with Christmas cards and notes of congratulations each time one of his golf courses opened. They’d always been sent to his lawyer’s office, and he never responded. Why had they kept sending them year after year?
“We’ve got two daughters,” Sophie said. “Want to see? They’re your half-sisters.”
She started scrolling through her phone before he could answer. Jack managed a polite smile as he took the phone from Sophie.
“That was from last summer,” she said. “Jessica is our oldest and volunteers at a rescue center for horses.”
They were nice-looking girls, young women, really …
but looking at them made bitterness well up inside, threatening to choke him.
Frank raised a second family and shed the problematic sick kid from his first marriage.
Those girls had riding lessons and summer camp.
When he was their age, he worked pulling weeds on a golf course and visited soup kitchens.
He clenched his fists as Sophie kept talking. It was easier to hate than forgive. Forgiving would crack the thin veneer of his strength and expose a world of hurt feelings underneath.
Frank drew a breath that sounded painful. “I love that you design golf courses,” he said. “I’m so proud of you. I watched every one of them from afar.”
“I know,” Jack said. “I got the cards.”
“Son, I let you down, and it’s the biggest regret of my life. I held on to sobriety enough to walk your mother through her final years of cancer treatments, but it broke me. I wasn’t able to take care of you after that. I figured the state could do a better job than I could.”
Jack clenched his jaw and looked away. The state probably did do a better job. The fact that he was still alive was proof of that. He had survived. So had his dad. He ought to be happy, right?
A lump formed in his throat. Actually, he was happy. Alice was right. He’d been carrying the weight of resentment his entire life; letting it go would free him.
It was time to forgive his father. There was no need to pick apart every old scar or dig through the wreckage of all he’d endured. Jack could let go of it all, not to absolve his father, but to clear his own path forward without the baggage of the past.
He’d never been good at this sort of conversation and struggled to find a way to move forward.
“Do you still root for the Baltimore Ravens?” he asked his dad.
Frank’s eyes widened in surprise. “They’ve had a great run. You?”
“Yeah. I thought of you when they won the Super Bowl a few years back.”
Frank’s face lit up, fragile but unmistakably pleased. “Maybe we’ll be able to watch them win it again this year. Together, maybe.”
“Yeah,” Jack choked out. “That would be really great.”
Over the next hour, as they carried on a stilted conversation, Jack silently vowed that no matter where he found himself—Japan, Scotland, North Carolina—if the Ravens made it to the Super Bowl this year, he would show up and watch the game with his dad.
Heck, maybe he should just show up in Baltimore on any given Sunday to watch an ordinary game.
Win or lose, it would be the best game in the world.