Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
ASHER
I'm driving Devon to my father's house to pick up more of her things. It's been three weeks since the funeral. Three weeks since I became responsible for a seventeen-year-old girl who lost her last remaining parent.
My father is dead. I’m in charge of Ancre.
The board is watching me. The investors are watching me.
The financial press is watching me. Everyone is waiting to see if I can fill his shoes.
I’m glad I’m in charge, but pissed that people are questioning things and making judgements. It’s fucking annoying.
And then there's Devon. A girl who just lost everything, looking to me for stability when I can barely keep myself together.
Julie tries to help. She makes dinner. She asks Devon how she's doing.
She offers to take her shopping or drive her to therapy appointments.
But between me being on edge and Devon needing attention, I can see the strain.
Julie didn't sign up for this. We've not been married for all that long and now there's a teenager living in our house, grieving and traumatized, and I don't know how to make any of it better. I glance over at Devon. She's so young. Too young to have lost so much. "Are you doing okay?" I ask.
She nods without looking at me. "Yeah. I'm fine."
"You don't have to be fine, you know. It's okay to not be okay."
"I know." Her voice is small. "I just don't want to be a burden."
"You're not a burden."
"I feel like one."
I don't know what to say to that. Because the truth is, she is a burden. Not in a cruel way, but in the way that all responsibility always is. I'm trying to hold everything together and I'm failing. The company. My marriage. This girl who needs more than I know how to give.
We pull into the driveway of my father's house. The mansion looks empty and colder without him in it. I cut the engine and we sit there for a moment, neither of us moving. "You ready?" I ask.
“I am.”
We go inside. The house smells like him. Expensive cologne and leather and the faint scent of cigars he wasn't supposed to smoke. Devon goes upstairs to her old room and I follow, carrying empty boxes.
She starts packing slowly. Clothes. Books. A jewelry box that belonged to her mother. I watch her move through the room like a ghost, touching things gently, like they might break.
"Take your time," I say. "We're not in a rush."
She nods but doesn't speak. I lean against the doorframe and watch her. I'm trying. I'm really trying. But I don't know if it's enough.
After a while, she sits down on the bed and looks at me. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Does Julie like me?"
The question catches me off guard. Of all the things she could have asked, this was not it. Julie likes everyone. She smiles at clowns, for fuck’s sake. If there’s a mean bone in her body, I’ve yet to see it.
"Of course she does. Why would you think she doesn't?"
Devon shrugs. "I don't know. She's nice to me. But I wonder if she's just being polite. If she's doing it because she has to, not because she wants to."
"Not at all. Julie cares about you."
"Does she?"
"Yes. She does." I sit down beside her on the bed.
"The one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that Julie is one of the best people I know.
She's kind and generous and she genuinely wants you to feel welcome in our home. She’s trying to give you space because she doesn't want to overstep. "
Devon looks down at her hands. "I guess."
"I mean it, Devon. You can trust her. She's solid. She's there for you if you need her. She’s good like that."
Devon laughs. It's a short, bitter sound that doesn't match her face.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing."
Fuck that. She’s not laughing at my wife, the woman who took her in when I was too dumb to realize I’d need to. "No, what does that mean?"
She hesitates, then shakes her head. "It's stupid."
"I'm not asking. Tell me."
She looks at me for a long moment, like she's deciding whether to say it. Then she sighs. "It's just funny, you know? That everyone thinks Julie is so great."
"That’s because she is great."
"I know. I'm not saying she's not." Devon picks at a thread on the bedspread. "But when I look at her all I can think is if it weren't for her, my mom would still be alive."
The words hit me like a punch to the chest. "What the hell does that mean?"
Devon looks up at me, her eyes wide and uncertain. "I shouldn't have said that."
"No. You said it. Now explain it."
She bites her lip. "After you and Julie left that first dinner, Dean told my mom something. He told her he never intended to get married again. That after your mom died, he was done. He didn't want to be tied down."
I tilt my head. "Okay."
"But then he said seeing you with Julie changed his mind. He said it made him realize there was a key for every lock. That men do better when they have good women at their side."
My chest tightens. "He said that?"
"Yeah. He said it wasn't that he wanted anyone like Julie in particular, because she wasn’t what he was looking for. But he said she made you better. That he was proud of you for locking that down. And that he realized you were better with a partner than you ever were alone."
I can't breathe. My father said that. About Julie. About me.
Devon keeps talking. "He said it made him realize he could be open to it again. To marriage. That if Julie could do that for you, maybe he could find that with someone too. So when he met my mom, he was open to it in a way he hadn't been since your mom died twenty-two years ago."
The room feels like it's closing in on me. Every word she says is hacking another piece of any good inside of me down to fucking nothing… and for a long time, I’ve thought there wasn’t much left to begin with.
"So if he hadn't seen you with Julie," Devon says quietly, "he never would have married my mom. And if he hadn't married my mom, she wouldn't have been in that car. She'd still be alive."
I stand up. I need to move. I need to do something with the rage that's building in my chest. I think about all the times he criticized me.
All the times he made me feel like I wasn't enough.
All the times he looked at me with disappointment in his eyes.
But Julie? Julie he liked. Julie he was proud of.
And because of her, he cracked open that black crypt he called a fucking heart to Caroline.
A woman who probably saw dollar signs and locked him down before anyone could talk sense into him.
A woman who could've taken everything. A woman who dragged her daughter into our lives and then died, leaving me to pick up the pieces.
And it all happened because of my fucking wife.
A thought hits me, so clear, so sharp, that it cuts through everything else.
If I hadn't married Julie, my father wouldn't have married Caroline. And if he hadn’t married her, I wouldn't be stuck waiting a motherfucking year to learn the details of his trust.
Devon wouldn't be orphaned. I wouldn't be responsible for a traumatized teenager. I wouldn't be drowning under the weight of all this guilt. Julie was the catalyst. Julie was the reason. I look at Devon. She's watching me with wide, worried eyes. She sees something.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"No." My voice sounds strange. Flat. "It's fine. I'm glad you told me. You need to get that shit out. I get it."
"Are you mad?"
"No. I'm not mad." I sit back down beside her and put my hand on her shoulder. "Listen to me. I understand how you feel. I do. But you need to be respectful to Julie. You’re in her house. She doesn’t deserve disrespect. Do you understand?"
Devon nods. "I understand."
"Good."
But inside, I'm thinking something else entirely. I am raging. I am spiraling. I am fucking beside myself. And if I were free, I'd go home and pack my bags. I'd leave. I'd get as far away from her as possible. Because knowing that she started all of this makes me want to get the fuck away from her.
In his entire miserable life he only genuinely approved of a handful of people I can think of. Julie. Ryan. My mother, before she got sick. Caroline when he married her. And, apparently, my wife being who she is provided that old fuck with a permission structure to get married again.
I chose wrong. I could have done the bare minimum, but instead I went all in and let myself lose sight of reality.
Julie was only supposed to be a small piece on the moving puzzle board my father turned my life into, not the fucking endgame.
I let myself forget that. That's on me. It won’t happen again.
I stand up. "I'm going to go to the bathroom and then we should finish packing. I want to get home before it gets too late."
Devon nods and goes back to folding clothes.
I walk out of the room and stand in the hallway, my hands shaking.
My father liked her. He was proud of her.
And because of her, he brought Caroline home.
I can't stop thinking about it. I hate that it matters and I hate that I'm standing here blaming my wife for something that isn't directly her fault.
But I can't stop. And I know, in a way I know the darkest parts of myself, that this is not fixable.
I will not get over this. This is a fatal wound.
Because if she hadn't been so perfect, so good, so exactly what my father wanted, none of this would have happened. It’s both her fault and also not. But the difference between the two is a canyon I don’t want to cross. She isn’t worth it.