Page 8 of Grump Hard
As a grown man, I pretended not to know her, clearly hurting her feelings.
Why the hell did I do that, I wonder as I trudge through the snow toward the town square where Arthur is already waiting.
Why did I lie?
The question needles at me as I cross the bridge, my breath fogging in the frigid air and my toes slowly going numb. My shoes are soaked through—of course, I would wear Italian leather loafers to get drunk and commit theft in the wilds of Vermont.
It’s been one stupid decision after another since the moment Elliot picked me up at the train station in Bellows Falls earlier today.
I could have simply said, “Yes, of course, Holly. I remember that we played together as children. I hope you’ve been well.”
Simple. Polite, but impersonal. Done.
Instead, I stood there scowling and grunting at her like something worse than a Grinch.
But then, admitting I remembered would have opened the door to all those things I’m doing my best not to think about. About the boy I once was. About the innocent, naïve version of myself that existed before my father decided I was old enough to learn that there are no heroes in the real world.
There is only the bottom line and ravenous corporate greed, and people scrambling to hoard as much for themselves as they can before the earth is barren and the riches all gone.
Sentiment is a chink in your armor, Lucas. It’s a weapon your enemy will use against you. Stiff upper lip, son. You’re too old for Santa Claus anyway.
I can still hear his voice in my head, how much he seemed to enjoy cutting short what was left of my childhood.
I’d wanted to shoot back—Which is it, Dad, a chink or a weapon? Stop mixing your metaphors and prove you’re actually smart enough to tell me what to do.—but I didn’t have the courage. He was still a lot bigger than I was back then, when I was first told that I wouldn’t be going to Vermont anymore.
He insisted I couldn’t spare the time away from my “education.”
I was eleven. Elliot was eight. Bran was six, and Ashton was barely four.
“They’re babies, and all of them look so much like your mother,” he’d said, as if that explained everything. “You’re the oldest. It’s time you learned what matters.”
What mattered, apparently, was spreadsheets and profit margins and never, ever letting anyone see me give a damn. What mattered was learning that I wasn’t one of his children anymore—not really. I was the firewall, the one standing between my siblings and all the ugliness Dad brought into our lives.
I was the one who had to learn the hard way that our father wasn’t the brilliant businessman he pretended to be.
Before I took the reins in my early twenties, he was, in fact, quickly running a highly successful company that our ancestors had spent generations building into the ground.
I hid that from the others, of course. I spared them the stress and fear.
And in exchange, I became even more of an outcast, the brother they always sensed wasn’t being honest with them, even if they never knew why. It drove a wedge, one that remains to this very day.
I shake my head as I reach the square, banishing the thoughts.
Ruminating is what got me into this mess.
No more rumination.
At least, not tonight.
As I cross the deserted lawn by the gazebo, my gaze is inexorably drawn to the giant tree and its twinkling lights. I look up, up, to the very top where that fucking peg leg will be mounted tomorrow night, a season-long reminder of my loss of control.
Or of my pending arraignment on felony theft charges…
My jaw clenches.
I’m going to have to go along with Holly’s cheery version of blackmail. I don’t see any way around it.
But I don’t want to think about that, either. I just want to get home, drink a giant glass of water, pop an ibuprofen to ward off the headache I can feel coming on, and sink into a deep, hopefully oblivious sleep.
