Chapter 26
Harry
There’s something uncomfortably nostalgic about the helicopter rotors cutting through this patch of sky, with these lakes and mountains beneath me. It forces me back into a time when I used to plan these weekends just to make my son smile.
Back then, it was about early mornings and freezing fingers, George swearing under his breath when he thought I wasn’t listening as he tried to tie a fly just right.
Geraldine would pack us both thermoses, mine for coffee and George’s for hot chocolate, and she’d watch from the front porch as we boarded the helicopter, hand raised in that languid, gleeful wave of hers.
She always looked like she belonged in a painting. Even when she was dying.
George sits beside me in the cabin of the helicopter, his legs stretched out, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets.
His sunglasses are perched high on his bandaged nose, hiding his gaze from me even as he faces the window, and I can smell alcohol clinging to his clothes even with the wind whipping through the space.
He didn’t say a word when the chopper landed at Highcourt Hall this morning. I’d told him to pack a bag and get in, and he’d followed the instruction, walking out with his jaw set like this was a court-ordered retreat and not a peace offering.
I don’t know what I expected.
Maybe I thought the sight of the water would soften him, or that I could hit the nostalgia button until I could pull him back to the version I used to know. But when we land, it’s a different story.
“Can’t believe you dragged me here,” he mutters, and heads off toward the lodge without waiting for me.
There’s no thank you. There’s nothing except a single request: separate rooms, which is fine by me.
The staff at the private lodge know better than to ask questions anyway, so when I request it from the front desk, a simple nod is given back to me from the host and they lead us to our suite.
It’s rustic, over-decorated, with lines of antlers on the walls and the faux scent of tobacco and musk hanging in the air like someone lit a strange candle.
Geraldine used to hate these kinds of places. I don’t need a beaver pelt on my pillow to enjoy nature, she’d once said when I’d asked her to come with us one weekend. Her nose had wrinkled, scrunching up her whole face. Just give me trees and leave me alone.
I change into waders and a fleece-lined vest. It’s chillier here by the river, the late autumn wind nipping through the trees and setting my hair on end.
I pull on a jacket as I watch the water, the sun hanging over it and sparkling like glass beneath the mountains.
For a moment, just one, I remember why I used to love coming out here with George.
It’s not the quiet. It’s not the solitude. It’s the simplicity, the ritual of it.
I’m halfway through tying the first fly when George finally shows. He’s still wearing his sunglasses, and he’s wearing the wrong kind of boots. The jacket he’s got on is likely worth more than the rod I handed him two years ago for his birthday. I’m fairly certain he never even opened it.
But he’s here. That’s a positive, even if a part of me still wants to throttle him for what he did to Elena.
“You remember how to do this?” I ask, keeping my gaze locked on the line I’m working on.
George shrugs. “I remember you showing me how. Doesn’t mean I was good at it.”
“You were decent.”
“I was bored out of my skull.”
“You used to like it,” I counter, glancing up at him.
“Yeah, when I was ten and still thought you were the best dad a kid could ask for,” he snaps.
I turn, watching as he stares out at the water, his glasses pushed up into his hair now. His eyes squint against the mid-evening sun, and there’s something there, something human, not just the cocky and bitter shell he’s been since his mother died. Since I let him drift.
“You’d beg me to come out here,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t respond.
I sigh and flick the line, letting it settle in the water. The current is slow this time of day, the river still thick with runoff from last week's flash storm. We fish in silence for nearly half an hour before George breaks it.
“So,” he says. “Are you planning on lecturing me, or are we genuinely pretending this is a vacation?”
I don’t take my eyes off the water. “I’m not here to lecture.”
George snorts. “Really? Because last I checked, we hadn’t done this in years and it’s come right off the heels of your wife breaking my nose—”
“I brought you here to talk.”
He rolls his eyes. “Well, that’s disappointing.”
“You can leave anytime,” I offer.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
I reel the line in slowly, already exhausted by this. “George—”
“Go on,” he urges. “Say it.”
“I just want to understand.”
He knocks back a few slugs of his bottle of water, the plastic crunching in his hand. “Understand what?” he asks, taking a deep breath. “Why I didn’t want to marry her? Why I bailed on a wedding no one asked me if I actually wanted?”
“You abandoned her on your wedding day,” I correct.
“I spared her.”
I stiffen. “You humiliated her in front of her family,” I say. “You jeopardized the contract. The press had a field day with the news that I was marrying her. And now—”
“Now she’s yours,” he finished. “Yep.”
My jaw clenches. “That’s not what I meant.”
“You fucked her, Dad,” he laughs.
“Watch it—”
“You can’t pretend like you aren’t. You knocked her up.”
I don’t flinch. But I don’t respond either.
“Christ,” he mutters, casting his line finally, but there’s too much force. It flies, but it snags on a branch the second he tries to start reeling it in. He doesn’t bother fixing it, just stares at it in irritation. “You think this is some kind of fairytale? You think she actually loves you?”
I clench my jaw. “I think there’s a chance she could.”
“You don’t know her,” he mutters.
“I know her better than you ever tried to,” I say, trying to keep my head instead of getting angry.
“She’s twenty years younger than you.”
“Eighteen, actually. But I’m aware.”
“She’s not your wife. She’s your son’s leftovers,” he spits.
“Stop,” I hiss, shoving the rod into the holder and turning to face him. “I want to talk to you, not sit and listen to you attack her.”
George scoffs. “What is it about her? Does she make you feel alive again? Does she let you forget?”
My jaw ticks. “Forget what?”
“Mom.”
I stare him directly in the eye, holding his attention. “Nothing, and I mean nothing, could ever let me forget your mother.”
“You’re not playing your fucked up part very well anymore, Dad. You had me believing you for a while—”
“You always blame me,” I mutter, grabbing his pole, giving his line a harsh tug to get it free. “Always fucking look at me like I was the reason she took those pills. Have you ever genuinely stopped to think that I’m not to blame?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he stares off at the water, adjusts the bandage on his nose, and lets the silence hang uncomfortably long. “You trust Elena?”
I blink, trying to catch up with the change in topic. “Yes.”
He tilts his head back and forth. “Even though she works away from you?”
“Obviously. Do you think I’m insecure?”
“Even though she takes phone calls that you’re not in on?”
My brows furrow. “What the fuck are you trying to say?”
George smiles like a wolf, wide and unapologetic and wicked. “Ask her who Ross is.”
My stomach drops immediately. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”