Chapter 14
ETHAN
At the end of March, I found the canceled dinner in my calendar again, an empty Saturday where the restaurant’s name had been. That evening, I’d shaved and changed my shirt before remembering I had nowhere to go.
Claire had said she didn’t regret our dinner. I held on to that, even when our messages were only about Nora. I checked her latest confirmation for Wednesday pickup, then put on my coat and went to my parents’ house.
My father sat at the dining table with an untouched drink in front of him. My mother had someone set my plate in its usual place. As soon as I sat down, she reached over to smooth a turned-up corner of my shirt collar.
“You’ve lost weight.”
“No. I’ve barely been to the gym this month.”
She gave me a disapproving look and served me soup. My father waited until the bowl was set down before bringing up the overseas arrangements.
“If you’re based there, you’ll continue to lead the group, and the chairmanship will pass to you as planned.
If you stay, Lucas takes over day-to-day operations and the overseas projects, and he’ll eventually take the chairmanship.
Your shares stay as they are. We can leave you a limited advisory role here. ”
“I know.”
“The role and its authority come together. We can’t send someone out there and leave the authority in your hands.”
“I understand.”
He nodded and picked up his glass. There was no third option, and he had nothing more to add. But my mother hadn’t picked up her spoon.
“Claire has already divorced you,” she said. “Has she agreed to come back?”
“No.”
“Then what are you still waiting for?”
I looked at my soup. Driving over, I’d imagined all the questions my father might ask about work. Now that this one had come, none of my prepared answers were any use.
“I still want a future with her.”
My mother gently set down her napkin. “But she won’t even have dinner with you again.”
I looked up.
“You told me yourself last time,” she said. “I asked if you had plans for Saturday, and you said you’d had some. Did you think I couldn’t tell?”
I couldn’t remember how much I’d said, only that whenever anyone asked about that evening, I hadn’t wanted to answer. I put my spoon back in the bowl.
“She had dinner with me. We had a good time. Afterward, she said she wanted to take things more slowly.”
“Ethan, you can’t plan the rest of your life around one sentence like that.”
“I haven’t asked her to plan it.”
My mother’s mouth tightened. I left my spoon in the bowl and waited. She pushed my plate closer.
“Eat before it gets cold.”
I picked up my knife and fork. She still hadn’t touched her soup.
“It’s not that I don’t want things to work out for you two,” she said after a while. “But you can’t keep living like this. You used to come home and talk about the hotels, about what you wanted to do next. Now you never want to tell us anything when we ask.”
I glanced down at my plate. She’d saved me the piece of meat with the darkest roasted edges, knowing I liked it.
“I don’t want to keep hurting either,” I said.
“A change of place might help.”
For a moment, I wanted to nod. Somewhere else, there would be no cupboard missing a mug, no intersection that reminded me Claire used to wait for me there. Work would keep me busy enough that I could leave checking my phone until bedtime.
But I remembered her standing just inside the restaurant, unfastening her coat and looking up to talk to me. I wanted another evening like that.
“I don’t want to move farther away from her just to make things hurt a little less,” I said.
My mother looked at me, then slowly withdrew the hand she’d rested beside my plate.
My father had been watching me the whole time. He rarely raised his voice when he was displeased. Usually, he simply waited until I realized for myself what was wrong with what I’d said. I was forty, and as I picked up my knife in front of him, I still felt the urge to give a better answer.
“I thought you wanted this position,” he finally said.
“I do.”
Saying it almost brought a little relief. At least I didn’t have to pretend losing it would be easy.
I wanted the chair in his office. I wanted to remain responsible for the decisions I’d made.
I knew the difficult people at every hotel, knew where we could do well and what still needed that final bit of work.
I was even reluctant to give up those few seconds each Monday morning when I walked through the door and everyone waited for me to speak first.
“Then don’t throw away everything you’ve done over the years.”
“Handing it to Lucas isn’t throwing it away.”
“I’m talking about you,” my father said. “I always thought you would carry on.”
I cut an already sliced piece of meat into smaller pieces. The tip of my knife clicked softly against the plate.
Over the years, the praise I’d heard most often from him was, “I’m leaving this to you.
” When I was younger, hearing it made even several nights of poor sleep feel worthwhile.
Tonight he sat across from me, waiting for the answer that would reassure him.
I knew how to make the rest of dinner go just as it always had.
All I had to do was say I would go. My mother would relax first, and my father would ask when I was leaving. However difficult things became after that, there would be a familiar path to follow.
“I need tonight to think it over,” I said.
My father looked at me for a moment, then nodded. My mother asked if I wanted more food, and I said no. The meat I’d cut smaller was still on my plate. I couldn’t taste anything anymore.
Before leaving, I put on my coat in the entryway. My father came to the door and rested a hand on the handle without opening it for me right away.
“I know you’re hurting,” he said. “Don’t lose one thing trying to get another back.”
I looked at the gray at his temples. As a child, I’d always thought that if he could tell me what would happen, he must also know how to spare me from it. Even now, I hoped he would go on, if only to say he was willing to change the terms a little.
He didn’t.
Back home, I opened the information about the overseas house in my study.
The photographs showed a large terrace, with the sea beyond the glass railing. When someone first sent me the details, I’d forwarded them to Claire, saying the second room could be a study. Before she’d even said whether she wanted to go, I’d chosen where her desk would stand.
I stared at the photograph of the empty room and took my hand off the mouse.
Every move had begun with my father saying he needed me. I’d brought the opportunity home to Claire, assuring her she could find work once we were settled. I’d thought it would be easy to take her time. I wasn’t the one doing it.
She had colleagues now, early shifts she liked, books waiting on her desk. I wanted more evenings listening to her, more chances to kiss her. Yet I’d still been studying photographs as if the right overseas house could make her willing to pack again.
Nora’s little bell sat at the edge of the desk. She’d used it on her last visit to remind me something in the oven was ready, then forgotten to take it back to school. I picked it up and tried it. The sound was soft, but perfectly clear in the quiet room.
This week, she’d complained that her seat had been changed and she couldn’t read what her friend wrote on notes.
I told her she shouldn’t pass notes in class.
She said it was during lunch break. I’d responded too quickly, and my next sentence had almost been to ask whether she needed me to contact the teacher.
She rolled her eyes and said, Dad, I’m just telling you.
Remembering that eye roll, I smiled and put down the bell.
If I were based overseas, I could still see her, still fly back, still listen to her on a screen.
But the next time she climbed into the back seat and complained about school in one long rush, whoever picked her up might simply tell me she’d been a little unhappy that day.
All the things she’d actually said would be gone.
I wanted to hear them myself. And if Claire wanted to see me one day, I wanted to be able to walk out my door and actually go to her.
My phone lit up with a work email. I read it as usual, my finger already poised to reply, before remembering that if I stayed, decisions like this would soon no longer be mine.
That hurt more than hearing the terms at dinner. I put the phone facedown on the desk, then picked it up and stubbornly read the email again. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the job. It wasn’t that I no longer wanted to. I had to be the one to say no.
I got up and walked around the study. My mother’s question followed me to the door.
Had she agreed to come back?
No. The dinner had been real, and so had the cancellation. Even if I stayed, next month she might still send me nothing but the times to pick up and drop off our daughter. At that thought, my stomach felt painfully empty. I went to the kitchen and ate half a slice of cold bread.
I badly wanted to call Claire and ask whether she could give me a little hope, even if it wasn’t a promise.
Her number was already on the screen when I remembered her pauses during the call to cancel our plans.
It had taken her so much effort to make herself clear.
If I asked her again with this hanging over her, she would have to manage my disappointment first, all over again.
I put down my phone and poured myself some water. After finishing the water and the bread, I returned to the study and called my father.
“I’m staying,” I said. “I’m handing Lucas control of the group and my place in the succession plans. He’ll be responsible for the overseas operations too.”
The line was quiet for a moment.
“Have you talked to Claire?”
“No. This is my decision.”
My father let out a breath. “Ethan, I hope you understand that once Lucas takes over, he’ll do things his way. He won’t be holding the position for you.”
“I know. He should have the authority that goes with it.”
As I said those last few words, I pressed a hand to my eyes. I didn’t know whether my voice had changed. I tried to get the next sentence out in full.
“Just define the scope of the advisory work here. I’ll hand over the rest.”
My father said Lucas was ready to go and that he would tell him the finalized arrangements tomorrow. When he spoke of my brother, his brisk tone finally returned, as though some part of tonight could now move forward.
I listened, wanting to say that I’d been ready once too. Everyone knew it. I’d spent so many years making him feel that as long as I took over, he wouldn’t need to worry.
“Dad.”
“What else?”
I opened my mouth. He was waiting, but I couldn’t say that I wanted him to praise me once more.
“Nothing.”
He didn’t hang up immediately as he usually did. I heard a door close at his end, then quiet again.
“Are you sure?” my father asked.
“Yes.”
But long after the call ended, I still hadn’t put down my phone.