25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Leo
I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet.
It took me this long to figure out that Juliet’s mom passed away. I should’ve asked about her the first day that I arrived, but my mind is always on me .
My career. My reputation. My troubles. My desires.
So much of my life must pass me by without me even noticing. What have I missed out on? What have I ignored so that I could focus on myself instead?
I almost don’t want to know because it’ll just disappoint me .
Being back in Evergreen Heights has weighed heavier on me than I expected. Of course, what’s happening with Dad sucks. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go through what he’s going through.
I’m sure there was a time when I did consider him my worst enemy, though.
I don’t know if that still stands. He’s obviously not the same man he used to be before I left town, and I’m different now too.
But what really gets me is that I think he got better, and I got worse .
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve encountered a situation that made me feel like shit for one reason or another. I didn’t help enough. I didn’t sacrifice enough. I didn’t care enough to ask about someone who treated me like I was her son.
And I deserve to feel bad because it’s my doing.
I disconnected myself from my family and my community here when I left. Now that I’m back temporarily and hold the fate of one of the town’s most important companies in my hands, I need to put some more effort into deciding what to do next .
If I make a quick, lazy decision, I’ll just regret it, and I’m drowning in enough regret.
My rental car slightly rocks side to side as I take the gravel road that leads to the family business’ logging facility.
Multiple large buildings for processing, storage, and maintenance fill the huge plot of land, along with towering stacks of logs waiting to be processed. Logging trucks and other machinery cross the property, going from location to location to transport materials.
A huge forest where the logs are harvested stretches out for miles and miles behind the buildings.
I slow down as I approach the front gate, drinking in the sight of a place that I used to visit all the time with Dad when he went to work. Before I started being treated solely like a successor, I actually enjoyed coming out here and watching everyone work.
I liked the controlled chaos. Everyone had a job to get done, and it felt like I was watching a well-oiled machine perform in real time.
Things look like they’re moving slower now, though .
The number of stacked logs looks smaller than usual, and there is less equipment present. Like everything has been scaled down.
I park in front of the closed gate and roll down my window. There’s a box with an ID card reader waiting for me.
“Damn it,” I mutter, completely forgetting how sealed off and protected this entire facility is.
“Mr. Galloway?” A confused voice sounds from the box’s speaker.
My brow knits as I lean my head out of the window more. “Stuart? Is that you?”
He laughs, the old speaker crackling. “I can’t believe my eyes. And ears. Come on in!”
A loud buzz echoes throughout the air before the metal gates slide open, allowing me farther down the road that eventually splits in multiple directions leading to different buildings and areas of the facility.
I take a slight right and park in my dad’s reserved spot in front of the processing building. The door pops open the moment I step out of my car, and Stuart, one of the workers who has been here since I was a kid, appears in the doorway with that same toothy grin of his.
“The boy returned a man!” he says before embracing me and patting me on the back.
“Good to see you. I’m surprised you haven’t retired yet,” I tell him once we break apart.
Stuart chuckles. “This place still needs me. It still needs all of us.”
“The same crew is here?”
“Just about,” Stuart says as he leads me inside. “Some have retired. Others are close behind. It’s a lot of labor, you know? It’s hard on your body as you get older.”
I nod as we enter the main area. Large conveyor belts filled with logs fill the space, and workers monitor the belts and transport equipment and materials around the building.
My eyebrow raises. Things are moving slower inside too, and there are less employees than what I’m used to seeing.
“How have things been running since my dad stepped away? ”
Stuart pauses at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the catwalk overlooking the room. He turns to me and has that same sympathetic look on his face that everyone does. “We think about Frank every day. He was always here working alongside us until the day he couldn’t.”
There are things that I don’t like about my dad, but I have to acknowledge the fact that he was a good, respectable businessman.
He didn’t drop the whole workload on his employees and fly off to somewhere sunnier to relax and spend his money.
He stayed here and worked because this company meant a lot to him.
“I’m sure he wishes he was here.”
“We wish he was too,” Stuart sighs as he runs his hand over his thinning, brown hair. “Things just haven’t been the same since he stepped away.”
I can tell. I’ve seen the business reports. Now, I’ve seen the facility.
Things are gradually dying.
“What’s going on? Why is our production half of what it used to be? Why have we lost multiple vital business contracts? ”
Stuart turns and leads me up the stairs to the catwalk, the metal clanging as our shoes hit it. “We have no leadership. Well, we do. Brandon stepped up to handle all the high level affairs.”
My eyes widen. “Brandon was a heavy equipment operator last time I checked.”
“Well, that was a long time ago. He became lead forester,” Stuart tells me.
“What does a lead forester know about running a logging facility?”
Stuart stops in the middle of the catwalk and leans his arms on the railing.
“Only so much. No one else really wanted to step up and take on that much responsibility. Like I said, so many are close to retirement, and we knew your father wasn’t coming back to pick things back up.
No one wanted to be stuck in that position. ”
“He could’ve hired someone outside of the company. Someone with business experience to take his place,” I tell him as I stop beside him.
“He wanted someone who knew the company to run it. I mean, I can’t blame him. This business is your family’s legacy,” he replies with a small shrug. “But we are struggling.”
“You haven’t told him this?”
“He’s dying of cancer, Leo,” he says in a quiet voice.
“We don’t want to stress him out. We’ve just been trying to figure things out on our own.
We stay late. We come early. We try to negotiate contracts and hire more people to increase production, but they eventually stop coming because leadership isn’t what it needs to be to keep them from looking for something better. ”
I look down at the conveyor belts full of large logs, my shoulders sinking. The workers here are drowning in responsibilities that they can’t handle. They don’t know how to, and I don’t blame them for that.
They didn’t sign up to run the business side.
“Why didn’t any of you just quit? This is beyond the responsibilities that you’re supposed to have.”
He frowns. “We respect your father, and we love working here. We get great benefits and pay. We’ve all worked here together for years, so we’re pretty much family. If we can turn things around, we will. ”
This logging facility used to be the town’s biggest employer. There were hundreds of employees, and contracts with other companies had to be turned down because we wouldn’t be able to meet the demand.
It was all my father’s work. It was going to be mine, but things just fell apart.
And it looks like things crumbled here too once he stepped away.
If this trend continues, the company will have to shut down. Hundreds of people will lose their jobs, and the town could very well suffer from its biggest industry taking a massive hit.
“I know about your company out in the city. You’ve done a great job, Leo,” Stuart tells me with a small smile. “I figured you’re not back here to take over, but if there’s any way that you can help us, it’d be greatly appreciated.”
If I took over, I could turn things around. I could have this place running like it used to in about a year, but that’s a year of my life spent here in Evergreen Heights. I can’t change things here if I’m back in New York City, and I’d be insane to step away from my business for that long .
But I have to do something with my family’s company. I can’t just let it collapse into nothing.
“I’ll figure something out,” I tell him.
Stuart pats me on the back. “I knew we could rely on you.”
Can they?