“That’s a new look in decorations.” Charles gestured to the overturned tree and the broken ornaments scattered around it. The realtor had wanted to clean it up, but Brantley had told her no.
“That’s Rita May’s handiwork,” Brantley said. “She always was volatile.”
Charles sat down beside him on the couch. “Seems you left her alone with your phone,” he said.
“Yeah. I told you she broke it. I had to get another one.”
“That’s not all she did. Lucy called and she answered the phone.”
What? “Lucy called me? How do you even know this?” More importantly, had she called again? If so, how many times before he’d had time to replace his broken phone? Had she given up? No, wait, she wouldn’t have called again because she thought he was with Rita May.
Brantley reached for his phone.
“Son, don’t do that,” Charles said.
“I’ve got to tell her—”
“You made a mistake when you proposed marriage to that girl in front of half of Merritt without ever telling her that you love her. I have stayed out of your personal business, apparently too much. But you and I are going to talk. And I am going to keep you from making another mistake if I can.”
There was a lot going on in that short little speech but what snagged on Brantley was without ever telling her that you love her.
He opened his mouth to deny it, but maybe it was true. He was so in sync with Lucy that he must have assumed that she knew what he knew. Still, women liked to be told. He ought to know. Enough of them had tried to get it out of him over the years. That hadn’t happened since he was fifteen and thoroughly confused about the difference between love and the contents of Cindy Baker’s bra and underpants.
But he wasn’t confused now. He started to dial the phone.
“Brantley.” Charles resurrected the daddy voice from Brantley’s childhood. And it worked.
“I need to tell her,” he said. “I need to make sure she knows Rita May is not here with me.”
“I told her,” Charles said. “She knows what happened about that.”
“You’ve talked to her?” Though, come to think of it, that was a stupid question. How else would Charles have known Rita May answered his phone?
“I have. We had quite the little chat.”
This was mind-boggling. “I expect that from Missy. Even from Big Mama. But I’ve never known you to mess in my business.”
“It’s time someone did, someone who knows what he’s doing, meaning me. Missy and Caroline love you and they mean well, but they have no idea what they are doing most of the time. Lucy thinks you don’t love her, that you are a runner, and she’s just a refuge for you.”
“It’s not true.” A runner? He’d never run from anything in his life.
“I know. I can see that you love her.”
“I have to call her. Right now.” He began to dial.
“Brantley. You are a grown man. Do not make me take that phone away from you. What you need to say to her needs to be said in person. But you and I are going to talk right now. This is a talk we should have had a long time ago.”
“You’ve got my attention.” If they got this over with he could get on with his call.
“I knew I had made mistakes but after talking to Lucy I realized how bad they were. I taught you to be a runner when I took you to Ireland after Eva and Alden died.”
No. Not having this conversation. Not now.
“I am NOT a runner. I don’t even know what that means. What am I supposed to be running from? Or toward? That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. What do you think you’ve been doing ever since it happened? Refusing to come home for more than a few days at a time.”
“I am an adult,” Brantley said through clenched teeth. “I don’t live there anymore!” Or he didn’t. He did now. Maybe. Oh, hell. He was homeless!
Charles went on as if Brantley had not spoken. “Having a job that takes you all over the country.”
“That’s my job—how I earn my money! I am a restoration architect. People can’t pack up buildings and bring them to me!” Good thing his dad couldn’t ground him anymore for his tone of voice.
“Never coming home for summer when you were in college, or holidays if you could get around it.”
“I worked! I went skiing! That’s what college kids do! You should be glad I didn’t lie around all summer. No matter what you think, Merritt isn’t the end all and be all!”
“No?” Charles met his eyes. “You were pretty satisfied with it for a while there—until things didn’t go like you wanted. Then you ran again.”
The wind went out of his sails. And it was too bad too. He’d love to sail away. If he knew how to sail a boat. Which he did not.
Charles closed his eyes and shook his head. “Son, I am sorry it took Lucy to make me see that you are in crisis. I should have taken better care of you back then, and maybe you wouldn’t be going through this now.”
His heart rate picked up. And he began to sweat. He could not hear this.
“I’m not going through anything except losing Lucy.”
“That’s not true and you know it. You went warp speed on the girl because you needed safety among all your memories and you found it with her.”
Lucy was comfort and sanity. But she was more than that. She was everything.
“I love Lucy,” he said.
Charles nodded. “I know you do. But you can’t hide in her.”
“Look, Lucy is making complications where there are none and apparently she has sold you on it. This is simple. It should be easy. There are no problems.”
“Then why,” Charles asked, “are you and I sitting in a townhouse in Nashville on Christmas Eve, where neither of us wants to be? Son, it’s time you faced your grief. I failed you once, but I will not fail you again.”
Failed him? His dad had failed him? Oh, God. That was almost funny.
“No,” Brantley said. “You didn’t.”
“How can you say that?” For the first time Brantley saw how upset his father was. “You were eighteen and had lost two of the most important people in your life. I am your father. Did I get any help for you? No. I took you out of the environment where you should have been adjusting, that should have been your comfort. Home. Then I took you straight to a dorm room at Vanderbilt. No wonder you were never comfortable at home again.”
Brantley’s mouth went dry and every muscle in his body tightened. It was one thing to hide the truth, but to let his father blame himself was unthinkable.
“Brantley,” Papa had once told him, “be a boy as long as you can. It’s good training for when you have to be a man.”
He had certainly taken that to heart. But it was time to be a man, no matter what else he lost.
“Dad,” he said carefully, “you are wrong. Nothing was your fault. It was a hard time for all of us.” It was now or never, and it had already been never too long. “And none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for me. If I hadn’t done what I did, we’d all be in Merritt right now doing what we used to do at Christmas. Nobody would be grieving and nobody would be buried.”
Good; it was out. There was no turning back. Even if Charles never wanted to see him again, at least that would be honest.
Charles looked thoroughly perplexed. “Son, I have no idea what you are talking about. You didn’t do anything.”