Chapter 17 #3
Dad’s face does fractures. His mouth works like he’s reaching for a response and finding fog where the words should be.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says, but his voice has lost its force. ‘You don’t know anything about what happened.’
‘Then tell me.’ Brynn steps closer. ‘Tell me what happened. Tell me why you hate us so much. Tell me why my father spent his whole life broken.’
For a long moment, nobody moves.
Then Dad turns and walks out.
He’s not walking away in fury. I can see it in the stiffness of his shoulders, the slight hesitation at the door.
He’s walking away because he doesn’t trust what’s about to come out of his mouth.
Because the script he’s relied on for twenty years – business rivalry, territory, what they cost us – has just been blown apart by a woman standing in a pub saying, My father is dead, and whatever the real story is, it’s pressing against the inside of his skull and he can’t hold it.
The door swings shut behind him.
Brynn stands there, breathing hard, hands clenched. The whole pub staring.
‘Show’s over,’ Tilly announces. ‘Next round’s on the house. Ayo, get pouring.’
The noise resumes – forced at first, then gradually natural. But Brynn’s already grabbing her jacket, heading for the door.
I follow without thinking.
She’s halfway down the harbour before I catch up.
‘Brynn. Wait.’
‘Leave me alone, Harding.’
‘Just – will you stop for one second?’
She stops. Turns. Her face is wet – tears or sea spray, I can’t tell – and her expression is somewhere between fury and devastation.
‘What?’ she demands. ‘What do you want?’
‘I didn’t know. About your father.’
She laughs – short, bitter. ‘No one knows. No one cares.’
‘That’s not true—’
‘He was a good man.’ Her voice cracks. ‘Before. When I was little, before we left, he was a good man. He used to take me out on the boats, teach me the knots, tell me stories about the sea. And then everything changed, and he just … disappeared. Into a bottle. Into himself. I spent my whole childhood trying to reach him, and I never could.’
The wind is pulling at her hair, and she wraps her arms around herself.
‘What happened?’ I ask. ‘What made him—’
‘I don’t know.’ Her shrug is heavy, the weight of the universe slumping her shoulders. ‘Something. Maybe someone.’ Her gaze narrows. ‘Someone like your father, perhaps. Running them out of town, all because of some insane rivalry over an ocean that’s more than big enough for everyone.’
‘My father’s not—’ I stop. Because I don’t actually know what my father is or isn’t capable of.
I’ve spent my whole life taking his word for things, believing the cover story – the Trelawneys threatened our business, Walter undercut our contracts, poisoned the well.
But standing here, looking at the wreckage of that story in Brynn’s face, it sounds exactly like what it is: a man repeating a script he wrote twenty years ago to cover up a history he doesn’t want to share.
‘Brynn—’
‘Don’t.’ She holds up a hand. ‘Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer. Not tonight. I just need to not feel like I’m drowning in my father’s secrets.’
Secrets. Plural.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘We don’t have to talk about it.’
‘Good.’
‘But you should know – whatever happened between our families, I don’t carry his grudges. I never have.’
The air between us shifts. Charges. We’re standing too close again. I can see the pulse in her throat, the slight parting of her lips.
‘Jude.’ My name, low and warning.
‘Brynn.’
‘This is a bad idea.’
‘I know.’
‘We’re colleagues.’
‘I remember.’
‘And our families – whatever’s between them.’ She huffs out a laugh that scrapes like sand on skin. ‘Your dad really hates the Trelawneys.’
‘I know.’ I push my fingers through my hair. ‘And I have no idea why. Not really. Not the truth of it.’
She takes a deep breath and I find myself holding mine with hers.
We’re inches apart. I can feel the warmth of her breath, imagine I can see the stars reflected in her eyes, even though they are covered by dense cloud and I’m sure I’m losing my goddamn mind. Then she steps back, and cold air rushes through me.
‘I can’t,’ she says.
‘Can’t what?’
‘I can’t let this happen.’ But she doesn’t walk away. ‘Whatever this is between us – it’s going to end badly. I can feel it. We’re standing on a fault line, Jude, and when it cracks—’
‘Maybe it won’t crack.’
‘It will.’ She reaches up, and for a moment I think she’s going to touch my face. My whole body goes still. But her hand stops an inch from my cheek and drops back to her side.
‘Go home, Jude,’ she says softly.
The echo of my own words from Thursday. Go home, Trelawney. She’s throwing them back at me, and it hurts more than it should.
I don’t follow. Can’t. My feet are rooted to the cobblestones.
I watch until she disappears around the corner towards the shed, and then I stand there alone, listening to the waves slap against the harbour wall.
I walk home in the dark, and think about Brynn’s hand stopping an inch from my face. The way she looked at me.
Go home, Jude.
I’m home. I’ve been home my whole life.
Maybe that’s the problem.