Chapter 14 Knox
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KNOX
Iwanted this trip to help prove that I could be responsible and am just as much an adult as she is, no matter the age difference. I wanted to prove to Lottie that I’m not some infatuated kid and that she could trust me with important shit. But no. I had to go and have a meltdown over my father.
My dad.
In all honesty, I thought I had everything together, but hearing Erwin say Walter had talked about me, that he’d mentioned me more than once…
The whole thing was too much to handle.
It takes some time, but after a few minutes of breathing and easy small talk with Lottie, I manage to pull myself together.
Even if I’m mortified and gutted that I may have ruined this thing with her (though after our conversation on the way here, I’m beginning to think my age or maturity level is not necessarily why she keeps pushing me away).
Eventually, we make it back to Erwin’s booth as cool as two cucumbers—business cucumbers, that is.
“You’re back,” Erwin greets us with a hesitant smile. “Thought you’d run off.”
“Not just yet.” I force a smile. “Sorry about that, by the way. I… I needed a second.”
“He’s gone, isn’t he? Walter, I mean. And not to Scotland.” Erwin frowns, brows pulled together.
“Yes, he’s gone,” Lottie whispers. “About two weeks ago.”
Erwin looks down at the floor and nods. “I am truly sorry to hear that. In all honesty, he hadn’t been looking great the last few times I’d seen him.”
After a brief pause, he lifts his head up and forces a smile. “Well, then. How about I introduce you to your father’s world? Get to know him a little better.”
And without another word, we follow Erwin, weaving through the crowd.
We let him guide us for the rest of the afternoon, during which I can feel Lottie’s eyes on me.
She watches as I’m introduced to my father’s old friends, how they greet me with the same kindness and pleasant surprise Erwin did.
She watches how I break the news of my father’s passing to them and, every time, I see her brace herself, ready to provide me with any kind of support I might need.
And whenever I feel my composure begin to slip, she squeezes my hand, reminding me that she’s right here. She’s not going anywhere.
“We’re meeting up for some drinks in a bit. Would you like to come?” Erwin asks. “It’ll be a group of your father’s friends. We can toast to his memory, answer any questions you may have?”
I wince, my control slipping just a bit. Today has been a lot. Enough that I’m not sure whether I could spend a whole night listening about more parts of Walter’s personality that I never got to meet.
“I don’t know…” I start, looking to Lottie for support. She shoots me an encouraging smile, threading her fingers through my own once more.
“It might be nice to get to know this side of Walter. I didn’t know it either.”
My eyes lock on hers, trying to read what’s in them: support, affection, strength.
She’s there, this woman I’ve known less than a couple of weeks.
There for me. And though she’s pushing her heart away, just out of reach, she’s still been more emotionally supportive and available to me in the past couple of hours than anyone has in my whole life.
Throughout this entire day, she’s never left my side, never been without a word of encouragement.
Throughout this entire day, Lottie has been my rock.
“Okay. Yeah. I guess it would be cool to know more about him.”
Half an hour later, we meet Erwin and a few people from the convention at a nearby bar, some we’d met already earlier in the day.
“He talked about you a lot, you know?” Allison, one of the traders, whispers to me.
She bought two books from us for much more than we expected and pointed us in the direction of three other buyers.
Thanks to her and Erwin, we sold the first editions in less than an hour, making more than six times the money we were hoping to come back with.
We’re officially going home with enough to cover the demo, electrical work, and some of the renovation.
Not enough to cover the full cost of the remodel, but now that we have an in with the rare book trade crowd, those last copies in Walter’s apartment will definitely help us get there.
I look back at Allison, her silver-threaded raven hair shining under the bar lights, in surprise. “He—He did?”
“Oh, yeah,” Broderick—another man from Walter’s gang—pipes in.
“He always bragged about his son, the photographer. Even told us about that award you won? The—the—” He snaps his fingers a few times.
“The World Photography Awards for travel photojournalism, right? Wouldn’t let us forget how talented you are.
” He smiles kindly at me, patting the back of my hand.
My jaw slackens, eyes dropping to the table.
That award was my proudest achievement. I had the privilege of spending five weeks at the Yutajé camp in the Venezuelan , photographing everything from the beautiful foliage to the most dangerous animals, and epic waterfalls and river banks.
It was more than I could’ve ever dreamed of, and to be recognized by such a prestigious award was life-changing.
It validated all of my hard work over the past couple of years. All of the bullshit assignments.
And Walter celebrated my win with me from afar.
“He bragged about it? And how did he even find out? It was a couple of years ago—we weren’t even speaking when I won the award.”
Lottie’s hands reach for mine under the table and I look gratefully back at her with a sheepish smile.
“Dad always said photography was stupid. That I was making a mistake by pursuing it as a career,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen, maybe because it’s the first time I’ve used the D-word out loud since this whole thing happened.
It feels monumental and pivotal to my relationship with Walter, even if it is posthumously.
She squeezes my hand again, speaking in a low voice.
“I’m sure most parents of children who choose to pursue the arts live in constant fear of their child’s success or lack thereof.
And I think everyone at this table would agree with you in saying that Walter was not one for being sensitive to others’ feelings.
He loved in his own unique way.” She treads carefully, as if trying to avoid detonating any minefields she might find.
And I officially hate myself for breaking down. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Am I some fragile kid to her?
I suppress a frustrated sigh as Walter’s friends continue to tell us stories of their time together, ordering another round of drinks and pub food.
By the end of the night, Lottie decides to drive my car back home.
Partly because I drove us to the convention and she thinks it’s only fair she take on the other half of the long drive home; partly because I had a couple of beers and she didn’t.
Mostly, though, I think it’s because I just had an intense day, and she probably thinks I need time to process it.
The drive is quiet, for the most part. I don’t feel like talking, and Lottie doesn’t pressure me into small talk. It’s like she can read me, can tell what I need most right now. She waits patiently as I open up to her.
After we’ve been on the road for over an hour, I finally break the silence: “That’s why we got in a fight,” I say quietly, apropos to nothing. “The photography thing. Kind of, anyway.”
She turns to look at me for a second, headlights from the other cars illuminating her solemn face in the dark car. She doesn’t speak, giving me time and space to continue should I choose to.
And I do. I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted her to know me.
So I keep going.
“God, it seems so stupid now, but it’s how the whole fight started.
Me telling him I wanted to go to an art institute and study photography; him disagreeing with me, telling me how stupid he thought it was.
And he did not hold back, let me tell you.
” I shift uncomfortably in my seat, remembering every cruel word exchanged, every ounce of resentment revealed.
“I know I shouldn’t have cared, should’ve just done whatever I wanted and ignored him.
But I needed him to be a cosigner on my loan for art school—Mom didn’t qualify—and he wouldn’t do it.
Not for his own financial reasons, but because he said it was a dead-end profession.
Of course, me being a teenager, I escalated it quickly.
Told him he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
He had an English degree—that he was a failed college professor who had conned his TA into falling for him.
Then I leaned into the savagery and pulled the abandonment card.
Told him he didn’t have much of a say considering our history and he owed me.
I told him how disappointed I was in him that he was never there, that he was a failure of a father and, subsequently, a man.
” I put my face in my hands, chest tightening.
In a second, the possibility of breathing becomes nearly impossible.
“He didn’t take that well. Said some vicious things.
So I said some more back. And then… Well, I said maybe it would’ve been best if my mother had lied and told him I didn’t exist after all. ”
“Jesus,” she mutters.
“And you wanna know what he said, Lottie?”
“No, because I have a feeling it will affect the impression I have of Walter,” she whispers. “It’s no secret he wasn’t an easygoing man, but I loved and respected him despite it. You should tell me anyway, though.”
“He said he wished she’d never told him either. He wished he never knew I existed.”
The memory of that moment slices through my chest, the pain so visceral I have to look away. The look on his face, the sound of his voice, his stance… It’s the same reel that runs over and over in my head every time I think of him. And it cuts deep.
I hear Lottie’s sharp inhale, followed by a soft whisper, barely audible to my ears. “What the hell were you thinking, Walter?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her bite her lip, holding something back.
I groan. “Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything. Now you’re going to feel all sorry for me and this isn’t exactly making me look too good, is it?” I feel my cheeks heat, for the second time today feeling like a child, embarassed out of my mind.
“No, no. I—I… Well, I feel utterly devastated. For you. For Walter, too. Especially since I know Walter wasn’t a bad man.
Was he the bad guy in your story? Yeah. I guess so.
But I know that deep down, he was a man who cared.
If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have offered me a job, wouldn’t have offered all those words of wisdom and advice.
He was cynical and jaded, snarky and sarcastic—yes, at times unrelenting when he disagreed with someone—but never bad. ” She pauses. “No, never bad.”
She blows a puff of air through her lips, mussing her bangs up in the process—but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“He made a mistake, which hurt you both deeply, and he didn’t know how to fix it.
I don’t know why he said the things he said, or acted the way he did, Knox.
But from what we saw today, it’s clear he regretted it.
It’s clear he wanted to be a part of your life, and continued to do so from afar.
He kept tabs on you, told his closest friends about you.
” She glances back at me, but I look away again, not wanting to meet her gaze.
“That doesn’t sound like someone who is disappointed in their son.
He was proud of you. He loved you. He just didn’t know how to. ”
It takes a moment before I can reply, my voice thick with emotion. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here. For holding my hand through it. Literally and metaphorically speaking.”
She reaches over the center console for my hand like she did earlier today, and takes it in hers, holding it for the rest of the ride home.
“This is me,” she says, pulling over close to the curb and putting the car in park. She turns the engine off, unbuckles her seatbelt to look at me, and waits for me to open my door and make a move to take over the driver’s seat.
Instead, I look up at the house and smile, taking in the two-story white Victorian with wide eyes and admiration. “It’s really nice.”
She snorts. “It isn’t mine. I live in the loft above the garage,” she mutters, cheeks reddening.
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t—”
“It’s fine. I rent it from Alejandro. He owns it.”
“Right,” I bob my head, uncharacteristically monosyllabic.
“So…” she drags the word out. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” I unbuckle my seatbelt, sliding out of the car.
Lottie does the same, rounding the hood, meeting me on the sidewalk.
I stare down at my feet for a moment before looking up into her eyes—whiskey brown, so beautiful I could get drunk off them.
The tightness in my chest, the one that’s been growing silently all day, suddenly expands to every inch of my body.
And I can’t just let things end like this today. I don’t want to.
“Okay, then,” she mutters right before she walks away. But before she makes it far, my hand wraps around her wrist, gently pulling her to a stop.
“You okay?” she asks when she turns to look at me.
The answer is clearly written all over my face, my body. The way my other hand shakes as I wrap it around her free wrist.
No, I am most definitely not okay. For so many different reasons.
“Can I come up?”
“Yes,” she says without a hint of hesitation. She loosens my grip on her wrists, threads her fingers through mine, and pulls me to her apartment. Together, we climb the stairs slowly, stopping only to search for her key at the bottom of her purse.