Chapter 9

9

HAWK

O n Sunday morning, I was eating breakfast and goofing off with my nephews when Emery and Dad walked in. My sister sat down with us, but before she’d even poured cereal into her bowl, my dad reached for his jacket.

“I need to get to the port,” he declared as he slid his arms into his sleeves. “Has anyone seen my hat?”

“On the stand by the door, Daddy,” Emery said, both looking and sounding exhausted.

When she made to get up, I handed over the box of cereal and stood up myself. “I’ll go. Eat something.”

Flashing me a small but grateful smile, she took the box and left me to go talk to our dad, who really didn’t need to go to work. I caught up to him at the front door as he was pulling on a woolen cap.

“Why do you need to go to the port, Dad? You just got out of the hospital again this morning and it’s pretty cold out today. It’s probably best to just stay home. Rest up.”

Dad scoffed. “I gotta pay the hospital bills somehow, boy. I’ve got a boat going out to guide a barge in early tomorrow morning and I need to make sure it all goes smoothly.”

“You’re in no shape to pilot the tug, Dad. You failed your last physical. I saw the papers in your office.”

His features dropped into a deep scowl as he glared at me. “You shouldn’t have been in my office, and someone has to do it, Hawk. There is no one else, so it’s going to have to be me.”

“What about one of your guys?”

Dad shook his head as he buttoned up his jacket. “I can’t keep up with payroll. Especially not after seeing that useless specialist and the other doctor yesterday in just one week. It’s just going to have to be me today.”

With that, he grabbed the door handle, opened it, and walked out. Sliding his shaking hands into his jacket pockets, he walked toward the port. My eyebrows shot up when I realized he actually meant to do this.

He was genuinely going down to the little commercial office building he’d had since we’d moved into town. He genuinely intended on piloting the damn tug the following day. Anyone with a lick of sense would take it easy after health issues like his, but the old man’s pride kept him chugging away like one of the old tugboats he loved.

Finally seeing what Emery had been dealing with, I blew out a heavy breath and wracked my mind for an alternative option. When I got back into the dining room, I glanced at the boys’ bowls and saw they were all empty, so I didn’t feel too bad about what I was about to do.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “Do you mind going to play upstairs for a bit? I’d like to have a quick chat with your mommy. Boring adult stuff.”

Logan got up first and gave me a high five as he strode past me on his way out of the room. “Good luck, dude.”

I laughed. “I don’t need luck, but thanks.”

“Hey, watch who you’re speaking about that way,” Emery called out to him, but the usual sharp edge in her tone when she was disciplining them wasn’t there. Frankly, I had a feeling she just didn’t have the energy to lay into him right now.

Duncan and Sawyer followed their brother out of the room, and my sister arched a questioning eyebrow at me. “What’s up? If you’ve got any problems, today is not the day to expect me to help you with them.”

“Not my problems,” I assured her. “I just need to talk to you about Dad.”

To my surprise, she gave her head a firm shake. “Can we please not talk about that right now? I’ve called my babysitter and I’m going out tonight. I just want to enjoy at least one night of the festival before it’s over and I desperately need that night to be tonight.”

I frowned. “A babysitter? What am I, chopped liver?”

She finally managed a soft smile. “No, but I can’t keep expecting you to watch them. Besides, they love Susie and she’s a high-schooler who needs the money. She lives nearby too, so it’s never a problem for her to come over.”

“Right,” I said.

She went back to her cereal and ate it all, but it kind of looked like she might as well have been eating cardboard for all the enjoyment she was getting out of it.

When she was done, she made to clean up but I stopped her. “I’ll do it. Seriously, you don’t have to do everything by yourself. I’m starting to understand how things have been going around here, and I want to help however I can.”

Her gaze held mine for a moment. “Thanks, Hawk. Seriously. It’s been a lot, dealing with all this on my own. Just having you here is a huge relief, but you’ve also been helping out plenty. And don’t worry. I’ll find more stuff for you to do.”

I chuckled and nodded. “Just say the word.”

“I need to run an errand, but I’ll be back in a few, okay?”

“I’ll keep an eye on the monsters,” I said, grinning. “Free of charge.”

She laughed. “Damn right, Mr. Money Bags.”

While I cleared the table and washed the dishes, I decided to buy them a dishwasher. I didn’t know why they didn’t have one yet, but I’d only been here for a week, and already, I was over doing it all manually. Once I was done cleaning up, I grabbed my phone and ordered one to be delivered. Then I went to build Legos with the boys until Emery got back. The youngest was making a wall made mostly of little yellow heads, which was creepy, but I had to applaud the creativity.

Upon her return, Emery still looked exhausted but she got started on lunch almost immediately anyway. I sighed when I walked into the kitchen to find her standing behind the stove. “We could just make sandwiches, you know?”

“Not with three growing boys in the house,” she said listlessly. “Besides, this is good for me. It keeps me busy and my mind off all the things I want to keep it off of.”

I leaned against the counter and grinned at her. “Go see what Sawyer is building for his Halloween castle. That ought to distract you.”

She shook her head and smiled. “He’s been really into spooky shit lately. I hope I haven’t already failed him as a mother.”

“No way,” I said. “You’re doing great. It’s just a phase. I used to draw skulls on everything and I turned out just fine.”

She shot me a look. “Did you, though?”

We both laughed.

“Hey, do you mind if I take this opportunity to go down to the docks?” I asked.

She absently waved a hand toward the front door. “Go for it. Just don’t be surprised if he doesn’t like you showing up there. He has a lot of strong opinions and he’s not afraid to share them.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I already know he’s a grumpy old cuss, but I need to talk to him. I just don’t get why he’s doing all this.”

Emery sighed. “He’s stuck in the past, unable to accept that he’s getting on in years. It’s who he is, but be my guest. Talk to him till you’re blue in the face. As long as you don’t expect me to go with you.”

I took off and found my dad working on something in his modest office near the port. He barely looked up when I walked in. “What are you doing here?”

“Telling you that I’m paying for your hospital bills,” I said. “You could’ve just told me if it was about money, Dad. You know I’ll pay your bills.”

He sniffed, eyes rooted on the paperwork in front of him. “You shouldn’t say that, boy. There are going to be a lot more coming.”

I inhaled deeply and invited myself into his office, pushing away from the door to take a seat across the desk from him. “What did the doctors say?”

“Fucking Parkinson’s is advancing,” he spat, frustration thick and heavy in his tone. “I have maybe a year or two left before I’m completely useless. Means I’d better work while I still can.”

I watched him swallow, his features twisting like he tasted something bitter. Pain seared through me. I hated seeing him like this.

“It’s probably a good thing you left for greener pastures out west,” he said. “Better than being stuck here with a company that’s going down the drain anyhow.”

For the first time ever, I felt bad. For leaving. For all of it.

Guilt coursed through my veins like hot lava, eating me up from the inside out. There had been a time when my dad had been so proud of me. After I graduated the training program to be a boat pilot and when I’d become a second captain, he’d practically beamed with pride.

My sister had even joked that he’d never fit into our house again because his chest had been so puffed up. When I’d gone to California to pursue piloting barges, his chest had nearly burst at the seams again. Back in those days, it had seemed like I could do no wrong.

Dad and I had been in the same game and he’d loved every second of it, but then I’d found a way to start my own shipping company, leaving the trade and opting for life in an office over the bridge of a boat, and things had changed.

I was convinced my dad had seen that as an affront. A personal attack on his way of life.

All these years, I’d thought that he and I had drifted apart partially because of that and partially because I’d just been so damn busy, but I was starting to think that it ran deeper than that. In fact, it was starting to feel like my father was disappointed in me, which was the opposite of what I wanted.

During my childhood, we’d been pretty well off. Nothing like I was now, but still. Dad had provided for Emery and me, and he’d done so freely and generously by working his butt off all his life. Yet now that I was the one with the money, what had I done with it?

Bought bottle service and gone to Nobu instead of taking care of my ailing dad, my single-mom sister who’d gotten screwed over by her ex, and the company my dad had built from the ground up. Maybe he is disappointed in me. Shit, maybe he even has reason to be.

While I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—take back the fact that I’d left the trade when I’d started my company, I knew I could’ve handled it better when I’d told my dad. I also knew that I hadn’t needed to let that get between us.

Years ago, I should’ve pushed him to have it out with me so we could’ve had the damn fight and moved past it, but no. It’d been easier to just let it go and tell myself that I didn’t have time for his bullshit.

Now, however, I stared at him from across that desk and saw him struggling to turn the pages of the paperwork with his shaking hands, a deep scowl still on his features and frustration about it all practically radiating from him, and I knew that I had fucked up.

I should have made sure that my family was okay all these years since I’d been gone, but I’d left them to their own devices and let myself off the hook about it because I called Emery once a week. Running my hands through my hair, I decided that maybe I needed a night off and a drink too.

These were some pretty shitty things to realize about oneself, and I would change all those things I’d just identified, but I needed a damn minute to get my head wrapped around it all.

So far, coming back to Portsmouth had a been a mindfuck a minute, and something told me this town wasn’t quite done with me just yet.