Page 20 of Just for Tonight

I like him.

I also appreciate him making time to review the big plan with me now, when I’m in town.

I’m packing up my files when I realize Richard is watching me. I glance up and he takes that as the invitation it is.

“He was proud of you, you know,” he says quietly. “I doubt Patrick ever told you as much, but he was.”

This is too much. “You don’t have to add storytelling to your services, Richard, but thanks for the thought.”

“He was.”

I look him in the eye because I cannot stand when people feel compelled to pretend the dead were better people than they were. “No, he wasn’t.” There isn’t a shred of doubt in my mind. “He was never proud of any of us, because none of us measured up, in his view, and he never tired of telling us so. It’s no accident that most of us put as many miles as possible between ourselves and Empire as soon as we could.”

“It’s also no accident that you’re the most ambitious group of siblings I’ve ever known.”

“I suppose that’s the polite spin to put on it.” I hear the bitterness in my own voice. I usually hide it better, but I’m not going to stand by – much less salute – as dearly beloved Patrick is celebrated as a fine father.

He was an asshole.

I learned from the best.

“Is it so wrong for a father to want his children to strive?” Richard asks mildly and I know he doesn’t have the first understanding of what it was like to grow up under my father’s influence.

I’m glad he doesn’t know that. I don’t think anyone should experience what we did.

“Of course not.” Even though I’ve agreed, Richard waits and despite myself, I continue. “I could argue that it is wrong, though, for a father to find fault with every single achievement, no matter how large or how small. I could argue that it scars a child to be criticized constantly, to be berated and belittled and mocked for his failures every single day of his life.” Oh, clearly, I’m annoyed by the very suggestion that my father was a good man.

“Surely it wasn’t that bad.”

“Surely you have no idea.”

He invites me with a gesture, and such is my state of frustration with myself, the universe and everything that I break my silence. “Any one of us could bring home a test with a 99% grade and he would demand to know what we had screwed up this time. There was always a sigh of forbearance. We always knew that we were great trials to him, and possessed of none of his brilliance.”

“And a perfect score?”

I quote with my fingers. “It’s about time you made an effort.” I shake my head. “No, there was no winning with him. No one ever had a success worth celebrating. No one ever was told that he or she had done well, or was praised in any way. It was hell growing up in that house.”

“But you moved out almost twenty years ago.”

“Of course. Who wouldn’t? But it didn’t change anything with him. I could win the Nobel Prize for literature, make the Top 30 Under 30 List, be the first astronaut to visit Saturn, be the richest entrepreneur in Canada and have five adorable kids, and he would ask when I was going to stop wasting my time.” I give him a hard look. “No one could win.”

Our gazes hold for a long moment and I think he sees my conviction of this truth.

“I wondered,” Richard says finally, putting his file away. He glances at me and his expression has changed. He looks curious. “And what’s different now?”

“He’s dead.” I say this with more vehemence than it deserves, but we’ve moved beyond polite chit-chat and social platitudes at this point.

“But is his influence gone?”

I almost laugh. “My father hasn’t had any influence over me for a long time.”

“Really? When was the last time you congratulated yourself on an achievement? When was the last time you celebrated your own successes?”

I want to say something quick and dismissive, but I can’t – because Richard is right. I might have left Empire and my father behind, but his whisper has lived on in my thoughts, insisting that nothing is enough, that nothing will ever be good enough, that the only way forward is to earn more, achieve more, stretch harder for the brass ring.

That would be the one that keeps moving further away.

The one that will always keep moving beyond my reach.