Chapter 24 – DAMON
DAMON
Curtis let himself in on a Sunday. He didn't call first. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen and took in the cereal bowl in the sink and the unopened mail and the radio talking to no one, and his face did something I'd never seen it do at me, which was pity.
"Sit down," he said. "I'm only going to say this once, and you're going to let me, because I'm the only person in this world who both loves and hates you enough to be honest."
I sat down.
"Maddie is the best thing that ever happened to this family and to you," Curtis said.
"Mom knows it. Quin knows it. Even Dad knows it, even if it's only by the numbers.
I've known it for eight years, and I watched you treat her like the thermostat, something that kept the house comfortable and you never thought about unless it broke.
We all watched. We all said nothing, because that's what this family does, we let the man with the most leverage have his way and we call it respect.
So this is partly on me too. But it's mostly on you. "
"I know I—" I started.
"I'm not finished." He didn't raise his voice but his words were enough.
"The thing at the investor event. It's made the rounds.
Taylor was there. Half the board was there.
You stood in a room and let your researcher humiliate your wife and then you walked off with the researcher to make a phone call.
But that's the sanitized version, isn't it?
Because Emily isn't just your head of Research and Development, she's your ex. "
I grimaced, because when he said it like that, it sounded… like exactly what it was. What I'd been pretending it wasn't. And the worst part was, I'd expected—demanded—my wife to do the same.
"People saw it, Damon. And here's the part you need to hear with your whole chest, because you've spent your life not hearing things that didn't flatter you.
Nobody is on your side. Not Mom. Not Quin.
Not me. Dad might understand, but if I were you, I'd take that as a wakeup call rather than reassurance.
We are all, every one of us, on Maddie's side, because Maddie is the one who's earned it. "
I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.
"You want to fix it," he went on. "I can see you wanting to fix it, you've got that look you get before a deal but there's no deal here.
This isn't a thing you fix with a trip or a necklace or a good month while you wait for the next crisis to turn you back into who you actually are.
And like it or not, what you're becoming is our father.
Some things you break stay broken. You may have broken this all the way.
You have to make your peace with the real chance that the answer is no, forever, and that it will be the correct answer, and that you'll have earned it. "
"Then what do I do." My voice came out hoarse and broken because he was right about that, too.
About all of it. Me becoming my father. The very real possibility that I had ruined the best thing in my life and she was never going to walk through that door again. "If I can't fix it, what do I even do?"
Curtis looked at me for a long moment, and the pity turned into something harder and more useful.
"You become a man worth her forgiveness," he said.
"Quietly. With no audience and no expectation.
You do the work whether or not it ever buys you a single thing, because it's the right work and you're eight years overdue on it.
And then, if you ever get the chance, you tell her the truth, and you hand her every bit of the leverage, and you let her decide.
No pressure. No closing argument. You let it be the one thing in your life you don't control.
That's it. That's the whole of what's left to you.
I'm sorry. You did this, but I'm still sorry. "
He stood. He didn't hug me. We're not built for it. He squeezed my shoulder once, hard, and let himself out, and I sat at the island in the quiet she used to fill and finally, fully, with nothing left to bargain with, understood what I'd done.