Page 493 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“This might seem out of the blue to you, Chadwick, but it’s something I have spent a great deal of time thinking about.” He sipped his wine, set it down, and rested his forearms on the table. “I’d like to sign the title of the estate over to you.”
I blinked. “Pardon?”
He chuckled. “Merry Christmas.”
“Dad,” I said, leaning toward him as if this were a private conversation I had to keep between us, even though nobody else was around. “This is your home. What do you mean you want to sign it over to me? Where are you going to go? What am I going to do with a house the size of a small hotel?”
His eyes danced with mirth. “You’ll figure it out. It’s the perfect place to raise a family.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, a family of which I have nothing to speak of. I’m a man for the women, Dad. You know that. Sure, the ladies will be impressed by the place, but can you imagine if Mom knew I was bringing women here to hook up? She’d be mortified.”
My father chuckled some more.
“I don’t know what’s funny about this,” I said.
He waved off my concern. “You have always been out of touch with your own capabilities, Chadwick. You are not the same man you were a mere month ago. And your mother? She’d be proud of you whether or not you decide to continue… sharing yourself with the women of New York City,” he said carefully.
“You can say whoring around, Dad. She’s not here.”
He laughed. “The point I’m trying to make is there aren’t conditions for me to sign the house over to you. It’s yours to use as you see fit. I want to travel. I want to do what your mother and I always dreamed of after my retirement. I wish she was still here to do all those things with me, but I don’t want to be old and gray and withering away with a heart full of regrets. I still have plenty of life left to live, and I intend to find joy where I can. I know for certain that I won’t find it here, alone in this house full of reminders of your mother, regardless of how much I am grateful to feel her in the bones of this house every day. I need to move on.”
We held our tongues when the kitchen staff came out with our plates of food under silver lids. They lifted them and left us to our meals, and the rich, deep flavor of the gravy tasted like nostalgia on my tongue.
It was exactly like how my mother used to make it.
“I’m happy for you, Dad,” I said finally.
“So, you accept?”
“If this is what you want, then it’s what I want, too. Besides, I’ve always thought your study would make a great sex room.”
His eyes widened and he sputtered on a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
I flashed him a grin. “Kidding.”
“You’re a menace.”
“I had to. There will always be a room here for you. This house will always be yours, too. When you’re not traveling, stay here with me. What do you say?”
My father’s eyes crinkled in the corners with a big smile. “That sounds like a deal to me.”
We finished our meals and talked of other things, mostly laughing about memories of my mother and what she would think about me making this place my own. The distraction felt good, but in the back of my mind, my thoughts were still drifting to Tinsely.
Tinsely lying on a bed of towels in front of my fireplace while I moved inside her. Tinsely laughing at my jokes and rolling her eyes, pretending to find me insufferable. Tinsely sharing love with everyone around her and doing everything in her power to make people smile. Tinsely sobbing her heart out in my arms on the side of the road in the cold.
“Are you ready to talk about it now?” my father asked after dinner as we bundled up in velvet house robes and stepped outside to smoke cigars. His breath fogged on the air while he chopped the ends of the cigars off and passed one to me. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how glum you were when you arrived.”
I let him light my cigar with his Zippo and took a few quick pulls to get it burning. I held the smoke in my mouth and decided that talking, perhaps, wouldn’t be the worst thing. “It’s been a rough week,” I admitted. “I thought I had something special with a girl, but it all sort of blew up in my face. It got to a point where I realized being with me might have been too much for her, so when she expressed some doubts, I called it all off.”
My father puffed on his cigar and gazed out onto the property. The pine and fir trees held snow on their branches and bowed to the ground from the weight. Overhead, a few stars sprinkled the night sky. “You’re talking about Tinsely Miller, right?”
I coughed on cigar smoke and he patted my back.
“How did you know?” I croaked.
“For starters? You haven’t entertained any female company in weeks, and you’ve been happier than I can ever remember seeing you. Tinsely, too. I put two and two together. The pair of you weren’t as discreet as you thought.”
“Apparently not,” I muttered.
