Page 53 of Sapphire Sunset

His hands shook as he opened the letter.

Hey Buddy,

If you’re reading this, it means I’ve left thepicture. I can only hope it happened in a manner that spared you and yourmother any undue pain or suffering. But that’s me, trying to manage theworst-case scenarios even from the great beyond.

If you’re reading this, it means something else too.It means your Uncle Rodney’s best self has lost the battle with his worst self,and he’s done something to violate the morals clause your grandfather and Iinstalled in the trust after you left.

I won’t dwell too much on this now, but I do wantyou to know this, regardless of whatever Rodney has done to trigger thisunfortunate event, there was goodness in my brother once. There’s still goodness.But his relationship with your grandfather was a complicated one. Theyquarreled and fought in ways your grandfather and I never did. In some sense, theywere two halves of the same person, and each one of them felt like he got thewrong half and was madly jealous of the other. Your grandfather wishes he couldbe more a pit bull like Rodney. And Rodney wishes he could be more loveablelike Dad. But neither one of them quite knows how to pull it off, and so theyfault themselves for what they lack and resent the other for what they possess.

If your mother’s the one who gave you this letter,then she’s probably told you that your grandfather and I figured out youoverheard us talking about your graduation party that night. Shame doesn’t comeclose to describing how I felt when I learned this. And an apology will neversuffice. That’s why I didn’t bother with one. And that’s why I want this momentto be something more.

Let me come clean about a few things.

Part of me didn’t want you working at Sapphire Cove.Not because you’re gay or because of any of the things you heard Rodney saythat night. I didn’t want you to go through what I went through for years andsuffer with Rodney as I’d done. There are things about Rodney you didn’t know.Maybe they’ve surfaced now and that’s why you’re in an office with a bunch oflawyers asking you to run the hotel. These things involved drugs and variousother crimes your grandfather found a way to cover up over the years. The pointis, I didn’t defend you during that meeting because part of me thought this wasgoing to be your chance to get free. Free of a family conflict that had made meso unhappy in my later years, more unhappy perhaps than your mother everrealized.

So why didn’t I call you and apologize to you?

Simple. I was in awe of you. The whole family was.When you threw off the shackles of our money and struck out in New York on yourown, when you made a career for yourself on your own, out of your own naturaltalent and skills, it was one of the most impressive things I’d ever seen. Andso I made a choice, possibly the wrong one. I thought if I apologized, I mightpull you back into our orbit and away from the challenges you were facing inNew York. I didn’t want you to abandon your glorious path, even if it was angerat me that kept you on it.

You may have gone all these years thinking I didn’twant you to run Sapphire Cove, and your grandfather didn’t too. Nothing couldbe further from the truth. We both wanted you to run the hotel someday, but wedidn’t want Rodney to tear you down before that day came. So we came up withthis solution. If Rodney somehow turned into the person we always feared hemight become, then you were in, or the Harcourt name would no longer be associatedwith the hotel at all.

So there’s the whole story.

I hope you’ll forgive me for doing it this way. ButI also know I don’t have any right to your forgiveness. Just know that you weremy pride and joy. That when I first held you in my arms in the hospital I felta sense of completeness rivaled only by the day I married your mother.

Know that you could never disappoint me, not then,and not now, whatever you decide. There are two memories that have brought memore happiness than any other in life. The first, when we opened the doors ofSapphire Cove and let in the first guests. The second, when I held you in myarms for the first time.

Please accept the gift that comes with this letter.Back when we first opened, every room had a brass key. When we finally switchedover to a card system, I saved the first one we ever had made, always intendingto give it to you on the day the hotel became yours. And it’s still yours, evenif you decide not to take the job.

But know before you do, that we wanted you to havethis opportunity, dreamed of you having it. Not because we need for you to makeus proud. No, son, we’re offering you Sapphire Cove so that we can make youproud.

Love,

Your Dad

He won his fight against the tears until he’d managed toshake the brass key, with its bronze tag bearing the hotel’s original andgroovier logo, into his palm. Then, to cover the coming burst, he handed theletter to his mother so she could read it while he walked to the plate glasswindows, cupping the key in his hand, and cried before his own reflection.

When his mother was done, her sigh was deep. “That man.” Heheard the tears in her voice. “That strange, wonderful man. You know heproposed to me like this? In a letter. With bullet points about all the ways hethought he could make me happy for the rest of my life. I have to say, itwasn’t the romantic proposal I’d always dreamed of, but by the third time Iread it, I realized no man I’d ever been out with had ever spent that much timeon the topic of how to make me happy. I’m not sure anyone had ever given it thatmuch thought.”

She was next to him now, curving an arm around his back.

“I should have said something,” Connor said.

“You didn’t need to, darling. I think that’s the whole pointof this. Sometimes it’s a parent’s job to know, and to get out of the way.”

“But he died thinking I was mad at him,” Connor said.

“No, he didn’t, honey. He died thinking you were happy, andthat’s what mattered to him most. He died proud of you. Nothing will changethat ever. No matter what you decide to do now. Same goes for me.”

For a while, he rested in her comforting embrace until thesniffles subsided and he could breathe normally again.

“Maybe we should get something to eat, talk things over.”

“Or,” Connor said, “I could just go save the hotel.”

She would have been fine either way, he knew. But this waybrought joy to her expression.

It was amazing, Logan thought, that so manyof the remaining guests were still honoring traditional checkout procedure.

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