Page 58 of Once Upon a Beast

“It means that he said I had to go and talk to him or he was going to start talking to someone else.”

“I thought my dad stopped that. There isn’t anything for him to say.”

“Apparently not,” Nic said and continued pacing.

“What are you going to do?” It was the million-dollar question and one that Nic didn’t want to answer. It still had to be asked.

“I don’t want to give in to my father. I haven’t for years and I’m not going to start now. If he thinks he can pressure me to do his bidding, he’s wrong. That isn’t how I operate. He should know. He was the one who taught me to never let anyone see your weakness.”

“Maybe he’s showing you his?” I suggested.

“What are you talking about?” Nic growled.

“Your father is showing us that you are his weakness.”

“My father doesn’t have any weaknesses,” Nic shot back.

“I think you’re his weakness. He loves and cares about you. He wants to have a relationship with you. He’s trying to do that. He’s showing his vulnerability, not looking for yours.”

“My father is nothing but a sad, shrewd man who destroyed people’s lives. I’m not going to let him ruin mine any more than he already has.”

“He keeps calling. He keeps finding ways to be involved in yours. I don’t think that he’s going to go away. The best way to deal with him is to talk to him. You’ve said you have things you’d like to say to him, maybe you should think about doing it.”

“You keep talking about this closure and how good it would be for me. I’m not so sure.” Nic went back to pacing but it wasn’t as intense. He wasn’t running his hand through his hair in frustration. He was still annoyed and didn’t know what to do but he was thinking clearer now.

There was something about this call that was making Nic jumpy. I knew there was a reason but he wasn’t telling me. I wondered if it was because I had gotten him to start thinking he might need to talk to his father. I could tell he wasn’t ready to admit it yet so I tried another tactic.

“Maybe there’s something he needs to tell you. Maybe he wants to confess and he needs you to be the one to hear it. You could give people some justice that they weren't able to find. Maybe he’ll tell you where the money is.”

“He has always maintained that he wasn’t the one who scammed everyone. Why he thinks that anyone would believe him now much less when it happens is beyond me. He’s the only one who could. There was no one else in the company.”

“But he never had the money, he never told anyone where it was. He could have gotten a lesser sentence if he had, but he didn’t. Don’t you find that odd?”

“No, it just shows that the man wanted everyone to believe he was the victim and that he was innocent, when he wasn’t.”

“Or he doesn’t know where the money is,” I suggested.

“Are you saying that my father is innocent?” Nic looked at me like I was crazy and I might have been. There were parts of the story that had never rang true with me. The evidence was extensive against him. He could have spent less jail time if he had given up the money. The fact that he never did made me think there was more to the story.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said. “Go and talk to him. Hear what he has to say. Once you do, you can decide if you want to see him anymore. He might want to tell you good-bye. He might want you to move on from him and he’s giving you that chase. He might want you to be able to say all the things you want to but hadn’t. He might be thinking about you.”

“The man had never thought about anyone else but himself,” Nic said but there was no venom behind his comment.

“Your father might be a crook but he cares about you. He loves you. I understand your view of him was tainted by him being arrested and going to prison. I get that. But he’s still your father. He’s still the man who raised you and cared for you and helped to make you the man you are.”

Nic didn’t say anything. That he didn’t immediately contradict me or try to come up with some excuse as to why it wasn’t true made me think that he was listening. He had been eaten up with what his father had done. It had affected him so much he had cut ties with me, from everyone. I could still see there were some scars that needed to be mended. He had questions that needed answered.

“It’s hard for me to contemplate the man that I knew, the father that I had, that the person who raised me would do these things. I convinced myself that what he showed me was a lie. How could he love me and do all those things?”

“One has nothing to do with the other. He loved you, even if he did those things. He might have been caught up in something he couldn’t get out of. He might not have thought it would go as far as it did. He might have wanted to find a way out but he never could. You don’t know.”

“Because I never talked to him,” Nic finished for me.

“So, the question remains, do you want to?”

Nic stood in front of me but I could tell he wasn’t really seeing me. He was thinking of how he would answer the question. It was a loaded question and I knew not to push him.

“Do I want to? Not really? Should I? Probably. Will I? I don’t know,” he said after a minute.