Chapter 38
Eleanor
“Do you think he’ll like this one?!” Lorelai exclaimed.
The past week Lorelai had been spending extra time working in her craft room, creating new masterpieces to hang up in her bedroom, but the biggest project at that time was for Greyson.
Ever since Greyson’s night terror, Lorelai had been trying to think of a way to make her father feel better.
She’d been spending hours and hours creating a collection of drawings of family memories to give to him, and it was hands down the most thoughtful thing I’d ever witnessed.
That Friday, Greyson arrived back from his trip. He didn’t say anything but came in on his cell phone and went straight to his office and closed the door.
It was that afternoon that Lorelai finally completed her artwork. We had a bit of time before Claire would be over to pick up the girls for their weekend at her house, and Lorelai was more determined than ever, dead set on finishing the drawings before she headed out.
“Done,” she said, setting down her crayon. She picked up all of her drawings and stared at them with such pride in her eyes.
“They’re perfect,” I said softly, proud of the hard work the young girl had put into her crafts. There were so many memories with her, Karla, and her parents, and it touched my heart deeply. I was happy she still remembered.
After Mom passed, I had struggled to hold on to a lot of my memories.
She leaped up with the biggest grin on her face and hopped up and down. “I’m going to give it to him now!” she exclaimed.
“Wait, no, he’s work—” I started, but she was already dashing out of the craft room toward his office. “Lorelai, wait!”
I hurried after her and witnessed her barging straight into Greyson’s office. The door swung open so quickly it slammed against the wall, making me cringe.
“Daddy! Daddy! Look what I made you!” Lorelai squealed, her voice dripping with excitement as she bounced up and down.
Greyson swiftly turned around to face his daughter, his cell phone held up to his ear, obviously on a phone call. His eyes widened with shock as he covered the receiver with his hand. “Lorelai, not now.”
“But Daddy! I made—”
“Not. Now!” he hissed, sounding more annoyed than ever.
He locked his stare with mine, and there was such a look of anger there that I took a step back.
He looked at me as if silently commanding me to do my job before I no longer had a job to do.
He then turned his back to us and returned to his call. “No, my apologies. It’s nothing.”
No, Greyson, it is something.
It’s everything.
I moved over to Lorelai and placed comforting hands on her shoulders. “We should come back after he’s done working.”
“But he’s always working.” She sighed, shaking her head. She then bounced up and down, still hopeful. “Daddy, I made you these pictures!” she exclaimed.
Her hopefulness made me sad.
I used to hold out that same kind of hope for my own father.
“Lorelai, I am not kidding! Now is not the time!” Greyson snapped, immediately dissolving his daughter’s joy.
Her shoulders rounded forward, and her eyes watered over. “But Daddy, the pictures . . .”
Greyson mumbled and turned his back once more. “Leave it on the desk.”
Lorelai was completely defeated. She no longer danced when she moved, and her smile had faded. With slow steps, she moved toward her father’s desk and laid down the art project she’d been working on with so much care. Then she turned and walked out of the room, completely heartbroken and scarred.
Wow.
There was seriously no way I could bite my tongue in that moment.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let that slide. Lorelai was the sweetest girl alive, and the fact that her father had just treated her in such a disgusting way made my blood boil.
So it would be best if Greyson quickly hung up that phone, because I wasn’t going to leave until I’d given him every piece of my mind.
“Are you kidding me?” I hissed, still standing firmly in his office. He looked my way, his stare completely baffled.
He glanced once more before going back to his phone call. “I will have to call you back in a bit, Mr. Waken. Yes, I know, and I do truly apologize. There is a disruption I must handle immediately.”
“Yes, Greyson,” I stated, my arms crossed. “Handle this.”
And just like that, we hit episode six of the Greyson and Eleanor show: “The Fallout.”
He hung up the phone and narrowed his eyes as he turned to me. “What in the world do you think you are doing?”
“What am I doing? No, what are you doing?”
“Working, unlike some people around here. How dare you let Lorelai barge into my office? Do you know how important that phone call was?” he barked.
“Do you know how important that artwork was?” I barked right back, not backing down. I was done backing down. Greyson was lost and stuck and hurting and pained, but in all that, he was allowing himself to hurt the ones who meant the most to him. He was hurting his girls.
He huffed. “Eleanor, please leave my office.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no. I’m not leaving, because you have to hear me.” I swallowed hard, nervous but intent on getting my point across. “I get that it’s hard for you.”
“What?”
“I said I get it. I get that some days are tougher than others, but the way you just treated Lorelai is unacceptable.”
“I beg your pardon?” he hissed, his voice dripping with indignation. His chest rose and fell quickly as his fingers clenched together.
“The way you just blew off your daughter is unacceptable. She worked on those drawings all week long and couldn’t wait to show you.”
“Her timing was wrong.”
“And when was she supposed to approach you? Lately the timing seems to always be wrong with you. You’re never home, and if you are, you lock yourself in this office like some caveman.
You don’t engage with your daughters unless they are sleeping, to which I don’t even understand the point.
During the day you don’t even look at them, Greyson. You don’t even see your daughters.”
He shut his eyes for a second, almost as if he knew the truth behind my words, but he fought against them, not wanting to face reality. “She knows the rules about not barging into my office.”
“She’s five, Greyson! Screw your rules.”
He turned his back on me, again. That was his favorite move, turning his back on things. “If you can get back to your job, I’d like to get back to mine.”
“She worked so hard on that artwork, and you just tossed it aside. You owe her an apology.”
“You need to leave,” he scolded, taking a few steps toward me.
“No,” I bellowed, standing tall as I stepped toward him.
Chest puffed out. Head held high. I hoped he didn’t see the small tremble in my body.
It was no secret that he made me nervous.
He was so cold and hard that I never knew how close he was to snapping, and that was scary.
Still, I wouldn’t back down, because Lorelai needed me.
She needed someone to stand up for her, seeing how she couldn’t do it for herself.
So I planted my feet hard on the floor and stood my ground.
“Your daughter is crying in the other room because you didn’t even take the time to notice her artwork. ”
“Is that all, Eleanor? Because if you are finished I need to get back to work.”
“Not everything in life is about work,” I scolded.
“Maybe not for you, but it is for me.”
“You didn’t want to be him,” I told him, shaking my head in disbelief. “All your life, you didn’t want to be like your father.”
“My father was a hardworking man. I was a child who didn’t know the sacrifices he made to run this company in order to provide for his family.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Eleanor, stop,” he said, almost as if he were begging me to back down because I was tapping into sensitive territory, but I couldn’t do it.
I was going to push him. I was going to keep pushing until he woke up from this deep slumber he was in.
I was going to keep shoving him with my words until reality hit him.
“Your father abandoned you,” I told him. “He walked away, just like your mother, and they left you alone.”
“Eleanor.” His voice was low, and his eyes were intense. I was doing it. I was getting under his skin, and I wasn’t going to stop.
“You told me repeatedly how alone you felt after your grandfather died. You told me time and time again how you hated sitting in your house, because there was no one there for you. Greyson, this isn’t you. This isn’t the person you wanted to become. This isn’t who you are supposed to be.”
“You don’t know me,” he said, his face turning redder and redder each second that passed. “You don’t know who I’ve become.”
“Yes, but I do know who you were,” I promised. “And I can still see that boy in those eyes sometimes, fighting like hell to come back to life.”
“You don’t know anything,” he argued.
“I know you miss your wife.”
His jaw went slack, and he narrowed his eyes. That hit him hard. Those cold, gray eyes . . . “You should stop speaking.”
“Yes, you’re right, I should, but I won’t because I get it.
I know you miss her, Greyson, and I know when you look at your daughters, you see so many parts of her in their eyes, and that has to be hard.
I’m sure sometimes it feels as if grief is swallowing you whole, but you can’t allow it to consume you.
You have two beautiful daughters who are looking toward you for guidance and love, and the last thing they need is this, this monster version of you that randomly shows up and rocks their world sideways. ”
Even though my voice trembled, I stood tall before Greyson. I knew this wasn’t him, this ghost of a man. Sure, we’d missed a few years, but deep down inside of his darkness was the boy I’d once loved so much, the gentle boy, the kind boy, the boy who’d saved me.
I had to believe my Grey still lived inside of this man. Otherwise, the world was lost.
“Well, aren’t you a know-it-all,” he sarcastically remarked.
“No, but I know enough.”
He huffed at my words, obviously irritated that I had the nerve to speak to him in such a manner.
“Then, please, Eleanor, do tell me. It seems you have been sent to me to tell me about all my faults. You’re here to throw your truths into my face about me and my family, so tell me!
Tell me, what is it that my children need? !”
“Their father!” I cried, my voice cracking as I marched toward him.
I still wasn’t backing down, which somewhat surprised me.
Maybe because this felt personal. Maybe it was because I knew what it felt like to be those girls, because all the words I’d never yelled at my father were now pouring out of my soul.
So I couldn’t back down, because my heart was pounding too hard in my chest. I couldn’t back down, because my soul knew how important it was to help Greyson find his way home.
We were face-to-face, his breath heavy with annoyance, my chest puffing in and out from my irritation at him being so shut off.
His hot exhalations hissed against my skin, and each time he blinked, I waited for his stare to return to mine.
There was such a heavy tension in the space. Each inhale felt harder than the last, and my heart rate never took the time to slow down. I would’ve kept the intensity going, too, if it wasn’t for one small thing.
Every so often, he’d blink, and he’d look absolutely shattered. As if every single piece of his soul was being set on fire.
Out of all of the emotions that sat within Greyson, the one that shone through the most was his exhaustion. He seemed on the brink of exhaustion as he looked at me.
For the first time since I’d stormed into his office, I studied his face; the curves, the creases, the lines.
His lips . . . the way they turned upside down into sadness.
His eyes . . . the way they told the history of his past.
I backed down.
I was the one to break, because it was clear there was nothing left to shatter within him.
“It’s you, Greyson . . .” I looked away and brushed my thumb against my chin. My shoulders rounded forward in defeat and I shook my head gently. “They just need you.”
The room filled with silence as he kept his stare on me.
I took a step backward. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I was out of line.”
“Yes, you were.”
“I just wanted to say—”
“You’re fired,” he blurted out.
“Wait, what?”
“It’s clear that you have a problem with the way my household is run; therefore, this is not the right match for us all.”
My chest tightened as panic started rushing through my entire being. “But, I mean, I know I was out of line . . .”
“Exactly, and that’s all there is to it. Strike three.” He turned his back to me and lowered his head as he gave me one last order. “Close the door on your way out.”