Page 69 of Love You Anyway

He shakes his head. “I know. I told Jackson the same thing. He knows what I mean.” My dad’s blue eyes pierce the space between us like lasers. He looks absolutely certain of what he’s saying, so I nod and tell him I’ll speak with Jackson about it.

Dad picks up the toast and takes a bite. Chewing slowly, he watches us. Then he slides a plate of strawberries and sliced peaches toward us. “Hungry?”

I nab a slice of peach, its juices dripping down my chin when I bite it in half. “Mmm, they’re perfect right now.”

Beatrix sits in the armchair opposite my dad and tells him about the upcoming events at the restaurant. “We have the big fundraiser at the end of the month. Should do gangbusters for the new arts center.”

My dad nods and engages her in chitchat about the menu changes at Butter and Rosemary, and for a moment, it feels like a normal conversation between a father and daughter. A waveof calm washes over me, and I almost get a little teary because I know the feeling won’t last.

I’d love to use this opportunity to get some advice from my dad about how to handle Trevor Stagwood, but I know the mandate for these visits—all of us need to capitalize on any moments of lucidity to find out where and why our dad spent so much of the winery’s money.

“We’re pulling together paperwork, and we don’t have anything on the investment you made last year. Do you have records of the money you spent?” I grab another peach slice and sit on a couch at the foot of the bed. It too has several yellow throw pillows. I know for a fact that my dad doesn’t give a fig about throw pillows, so I wonder who chose them. They can’t be left over from when he was married to our mom, but this isn’t the time to ask about it.

“Records?” He squints in confusion, but he still seems lucid.

“Yes. Did you invest in something, buy something, pay someone off in a lawsuit settlement? I need any documents you have.” Each of my siblings has come to our dad with different versions of the same request and sometimes we get a new crumb of information. Here’s to hoping.

He scowls. I know he doesn’t like this subject, but it’s best to be direct. I don’t know how much time I have before the veil will fall, and he’ll usher me from the room. It’s happened too many times to count with each of us. “I told your brother what to do with the money. He knows.”

But my brothers don’t know.

“Are you sure? Can you remind me what you told him?”

He throws a dismissive hand my way. “Talk to him.”

“Dad…what is your connection to Duck Feather Winery? Did you tell someone there about our finances?” With his deteriorating mental state over the past few months, there’severy chance the leak came from him. And who knows who he might have told if Trevor got wind of it.

“I said talk to your brother.”

“Why can’t you just tell me? If you talked to people about selling, we need to know.”

“I feel fine, thanks.”

My heart aches because right here, right now, I’m sure he does feel fine, but that wasn’t my question. I move to where he’s sitting and hug him fiercely. I meet my sister’s eyes and she nods. “Okay, Dad. It’s good to see you. Love you.”

“Going so soon?” His voice is gruff, but I doubt he’s annoyed, mainly because he’s already moved on to the stack of newspapers on his desk and is fanning them out, studying them intently. He’s read three papers a day for as long as I can remember, and it’s still part of his daily ritual, even if half the time he doesn’t know what he’s reading.

“Bye, Dad,” Beatrix says, leaning in to give him a hug and kiss his cheek. He barely acknowledges her, now absorbed in meticulously turning the pages of the newspaper one by one. His eyes look a bit less sharp, and I tell the nurse to keep us posted on how the rest of his day goes. She nods.

Beatrix follows me down the stairs, and I gaze at the shiny banister, wondering why anyone bothers to polish it to its current sheen when my dad only leaves his room for the occasional walk, and even then, he takes the elevator.

“Why’d you ask that?” Beatrix asks as soon as we’re outside. My face feels hot from the combination of hope and despair I feel each time I see my dad. I wish there was a way out of this for him, but his symptoms are only going to stay in a holding pattern or get worse, so we’re told.

“What?”

“Why’d you ask about selling? Do you know something?”

“I just wanted to see what he remembers.”

“Who else knows about our finances? Did more people approach us besides Trevor?” The suspicion in her voice hits me like an out-of-tune instrument.

“Relax. No one knows anything. Paranoid?”

“I don’t like being left out of important decisions when we each had to take out loans to keep us afloat.”

“No decisions have been made about anything. Stop worrying.”

She starts walking faster, as though it will get her someplace where important decisions are made. Instead, she just kicks up little bits of gravel, which inevitably end up in her low-heeled pumps. She growls and stops to take her shoes off and shake them out.

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