Chapter 24
Davian
The Protégé
Beth’s Story
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Joseph handed me a cup of coffee, as he always did when he wanted to have a conversation with me in which he needed to win me over to something.
Even if it was just a small favor that I would have done for him anyway – such as picking up documents from the local law firm, making a phone call to one of his former lawyer colleagues, or passing on a message to his son – I would get coffee.
“Let me guess...” We began to stroll through one of the small parks of Maplecrest University. “Troy already snatched your preferred candidate right out from under your nose, and I'm supposed to get him back for you?”
The selection of debate candidates had turned into a silent war.
While Thadd?us repeatedly emphasized that he would take his own son, Tony and Troy argued behind his back over that very same one.
Unlike Joseph, they didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that word had gotten around that Quill had made him cry.
It didn't bother me either, but I didn't feel like getting involved in this war. Of course, I had given it some thought, especially after yesterday's debates. But I would take my time, up to two weeks, to find a suitable candidate.
A strange gut feeling wouldn't leave me. Troy seemed to be planning something. Every evening, I saw students disappearing into his office, and during our morning jog Tony had told me Troy was interviewing his main candidates.
This guy was going completely nuts.
“Don't remind me of Arnold's pathetic snake son,” Joseph snorted morosely. “This is about something much more important.” Silently grateful, I pushed the topic out of my mind. “Your daughter is all grown up now, already studying.” ...only to make room for the next uneasy gut feeling.
I just nodded.
“Dilara grew up way too fast.”
Last night, I had found a newspaper clipping with local apartments on her nightstand next to the bat stuffed animal I had given her eight years ago. And it preoccupied me.
Had I done something wrong? Was I invading her privacy? Was there someone she wanted to move in with?
Something inside me tensed.
She was far too young to move in with someone.
Did Quill know something? Did the two of them perhaps want to move in together?
The urge to ask her grew irrationally fast. Part of me needed confirmation that my daughter had no secrets from me or was rushing into a relationship with some stranger.
Another part wanted to be close to Quill, and I slowly began to hate myself for this miserable need, even though we were now friends.
Friends. What did that even mean?
When she had first said it, it had felt like a kick in the gut, even though that decision had been the smartest and most mature thing either of us could have done.
And yet I began to doubt it, because yesterday afternoon it had felt as if this friendship was a gray area in which we were helplessly floating, both trying to hold on to something we needed to ignore. An undeniable connection that I wished didn't exist just as much as I wished I could explore it.
Torture. That's how it felt not to be able to give her the pages I had written for her after the gala night.
Pressing my lips together, I pushed the thought aside. Those pages belonged burned.
Be grateful that you can now talk to her whenever she needs it, that you can hold her hand when she feels bad, that you can hug her when she cries.
Without the stamp of friendship, none of this would be possible.
And yet I hated it. Because every time I did those very things, my innermost being begged for more, made me weak, made me get close to her, until I did something stupid like opening up completely to her and confronting her with my most vulnerable side.
With those three bullets, I had placed my goddamn heart in her hands because I had been too weak to take care of it myself.
What had I done?
I was fragile, burned out, lifeless, making rash decisions when I was around her, because every touch, every word, every smile, every tear... reminded me to breathe, to feel how corrupted my lungs were.
I knew what had to be done. This friendship was supposed to help us. It was my responsibility to make it work by pushing all these thoughts aside and acting like a grown man. We were friends. Nothing less. But also nothing more.
“I can imagine you feel lonely.” Joseph successfully pulled me out of my spiral of thoughts. “After all, I haven't seen you with a woman once in all these years.”
I had tried. But it had only been since Lara had become a teenager that I had really had the time and the mental energy for something like dates.
However, most women had only been interested in my money, and I had neither desired to end up like all the Maplecrest lawyers with their trophy wives, nor had I simply wanted to bring a woman into Lara's and my life who wasn't interested in seeing us as a family and who would destroy everything I had built up for my daughter over the years.
The truth was, there had never been any chemistry. Except for a few sobering one-night stands – which in retrospect had caused me more problems with angry husbands that none of these women had warned me about – nothing had happened.
“And the last thing I want for you is that after years of hard work, you don't get the chance to live the life you've worked so hard for.”
The penny dropped.
“Joseph, if you...”
“You know I only want what's best for you,” he interrupted me. “Brittany too. A connection between the two of you would not only bring our families together. I also think that a bigger family, with everything that comes with it, would be good for you.”
How had I not seen it coming? Maybe because Anthony usually warned me about these conversations?
“Lorette still wants grandchildren?”
Joseph laughed, and it sounded rather frustrated. I knew he had had his hands full with his own children and that grandchildren were not high on his list of priorities.
“Brittany wants children too,” he deflected.
I suppressed a frustrated sigh.
Sometimes I wondered if he wanted me to marry his daughter because he didn't trust other men, or if he really wanted me to be part of his family.
After all, he had trained me for almost twenty years, teaching me things he hadn't even taught Anthony, and I could consider myself lucky that Anthony hadn't turned into a second Troy.
“Brittany is twenty-six.” I bit my lower lip as the thought of someone significantly younger than Brittany – even though she acted much more mature – began to haunt my mind. “She should find someone her own age who wouldn't hesitate when she wants to start her own family.”
“What makes you hesitate?” Joseph inspected me from the side. “You raised Lara well. She has grown into a lovely, hard-working, and considerate young woman.”
And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had missed something with her. That there was something I hadn’t been able to give her, apart from time.
“I owe it to Monica that Lara turned out the way she did. I don't know if I would be able to raise another child of my own.”
I didn't mention that I had already feared that Lara would be overcome by the urge to write and, like me, be drawn into her own destruction.
This world was no place for quiet dreamers like me. It consumed us, either dragging us into the destructive floods of creation until we realized too late that we were drowning, or we suffocated this urge to create until we realized that we had killed ourselves in the process.
Quill was the only one who understood that.
She wasn’t afraid of drowning, but I would hold her hand and pull her out of the waves at the last possible moment, again and again, if it meant I could watch her passionately surrender to the flood. If at least she could have the chance to become the author I would never be.
“Oh,” Joseph waved it off. “All it takes is a decent woman who raises the child properly while you provide for the family, and a big house. You know the kids would have plenty of space to run around in our gardens.”
The subject weighed heavier and heavier on my shoulders, but I couldn’t say no to Joseph. In all those twenty years, we had been through a lot, but I had never stood up to him, never shown him my limits. I owed him too much for that.
“When was the last time you invited me over?” I joked, trying to distract him from the subject of children, hoping he would drop it at some point. “The semester opening gala?”
Joseph stared across the park. The lightness drained from his expression. And something told me it had something to do with his daughter. Not Brittany. No. But the little girl Tony had told me about. He was hiding her at his house. He was hiding her from me, as if he couldn't trust me.
“You...” His carefree expression returned.
“You’re right. How unfriendly of me not to have invited my esteemed student over this entire summer.
” I watched his every move, but he was good at lying.
Too good. “In two weeks, when all the selection stress is behind us, I’d like to invite you and Dilara over for dinner. ”
I wouldn't go exploring his house like Quill had done at mine yesterday, but I would look for clues. Clues that would give me permission to talk to Joseph about all the things that could finally get him out of his alcohol addiction, if he was willing to accept help.
Mexico City Invitational 1966
Carlos Rafael Rivera
I had just tidied up my office, packed my things, ready to leave, but my gaze lingered on the blue tulip.
Quill had simply taken it and put it in the inkwell without asking me why it had been there in the first place, and I gave her full credit for that.
She would have understood me, but the fact that she had made me pick that flower was already hanging heavily between us. To say it out loud...
Taking a deep breath, I stepped closer, placed my fingers on its delicate petals, now filled with ink, and gently stroked them.
I quickly pulled my hand back, trying not to take the flower and throw it out the window.