26. Charlie #2
"I promised myself I'd be different," my father continues. "More present. More encouraging. But somehow..." He shakes his head, a rueful smile on his lips. "Somehow I became him anyway. Pushing you and Jane to achieve, to succeed, to be perfect—just like my dad pushed me."
My throat tightens unexpectedly. "Dad, you don't have to?—"
"I do," he interrupts, his voice firm but not unkind.
"I thought I was teaching you to be successful, but I was just passing down my own fears.
I'm sorry I've made you feel like you're a screw-up and you needed to lie to me about your relationship with Tess to attempt to look like you have your shit together. "
The profanity sounds strange coming from my father's usually formal mouth. I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard him swear.
"I didn't know how to tell you that you were enough just as you were," he says, his voice dropping. "Because no one ever told me that. All I knew was how to push and I thought that's what love looked like."
I'm speechless, staring at this man I've known my whole life and somehow never really known at all. My critical, demanding, impossible-to-please father looks vulnerable right now. And I’m shocked.
"Why are you telling me this now?" I manage.
He meets my eyes directly. "Because you're about to become a father yourself. And I don't want you carrying my mistakes into your relationship with your children."
Children. Plural. Twins. The reality of it hits me again. Hard.
"I'm afraid I'll mess them up," I admit, the confession slipping out before I can stop it.
"I said the exact same thing to my father," he replies. "Do you know what he told me?"
I shake my head.
"He said, 'Just don't be like me.'" My father's laugh is short, without humor. "That was his only advice."
"That doesn't exactly help," I say.
"No, it doesn't." He leans forward, elbows on the table, which is also so unlike him. "So I'll give you better advice: Love them. Show up for them. Tell them they're enough exactly as they are. And when you mess up—because you will, we all do – apologize and try to do better."
I try to swallow past the lump in my throat.
"It’s simple advice, I know. But it's not always easy." He straightens, and I can see him struggling to maintain this unusual openness. "You and Tess will figure it out. The fact that you're worried about being a good father already puts you ahead of where I was."
"You always seemed so sure of yourself, Dad, like you had all the answers."
His lips twist into a wry smile. "The best act I ever put on. Inside, I was constantly second-guessing myself. Still am, sometimes."
This admission, this glimpse behind the infallible facade my father has maintained my entire life, rocks my world. Bill Astor, unsure? Doubting himself? It's like finding out the Earth isn't round after all.
"So you're not...disappointed? About how Tess and I started?" I ask, still not quite believing his reaction.
He shrugs. "People find each other in all sorts of ways. What matters is where you end up, not how you got there."
I laugh, surprised by his pragmatic take. "That's one way to look at it."
He cuts another piece of steak. "Now, tell me more about these twins. Do you know if they're boys or girls yet?"
As I begin to answer, I realize I'm having a real conversation with my father for what feels like the first time in my adult life. Not a business discussion, not a lecture disguised as advice, but an actual exchange between two men. Two flawed, imperfect men just trying to do their best.
And that is more valuable than any business lesson he's ever taught me.
When lunch is over, I step out of Meridian into the unexpected sunshine of a Seattle afternoon, blinking against the brightness.
The walk back to Emerald City Coffee headquarters will take twenty minutes, time I usually can't spare in my tightly packed schedule. Normally I would have called a car. But today a walk is exactly what I need.
I pull out my phone and earbuds, scrolling to my Sinatra playlist. The algorithm seems to know exactly what I need, queueing up "My Way" as make my way through downtown Seattle. I breathe in the crisp air that smells of saltwater from the nearby sound.
The familiar opening piano notes wash over me as I navigate through the lunchtime crowd. Sinatra's voice—confident, unapologetic, yet somehow wistful—provides the perfect soundtrack to the jumble of thoughts swirling through my mind.
" And now, the end is near. .."
My father's face swims into focus. Not the stern, critical mask I'm used to, but the vulnerable, uncertain one he revealed today.
For thirty-eight years, I've been trying to impress a man I thought was infallible, only to discover he's been winging it all along, carrying his own father's ghost on his shoulders.
" I've lived a life that's full, I've traveled each and every highway..."
I stop at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. Across the street, a father carries a toddler on his shoulders. The kid has an enormous smile on his little face and he’s giggling at something.
I can do this. I know I can. I’m going to fuck up from time to time but that’s okay. I just have to keep showing up.