Page 54 of Chasing the Horizon

Was it better to just call the whole book contract off?

After she met with Julia, Valerie left the coffee shop, bundling herself up as she hurried to her car. Rather than drive back to her house, she took the route to her parents’ place, squeezing the steering wheel with stiff fingers. Very suddenly, she was at the door, her heart beating fast. When she turned the knob, it gave and let her in.

“Hello?” Valerie called.

Nobody said anything back, not at first. It was clear her mother wasn’t home, because ordinarily Esme was downstairs, maybe in the kitchen or in the living room, doing an exercise video or reading a book or trying out a new recipe. That left her father. Was he in his study, working tirelessly on the worst book anyone had ever put to print?

Valerie crept up the stairs. She didn’t want to frighten her father; she didn’t want him to think there was an intruder. What was she doing, coming all the way over here like this? She should have called first. Was she reckless?

But what Julia had told her had alarmed her. It had forced her to reckon with the mess that she and her father had created.No, Dad created this mess. I stepped away from it, she reminded herself.

She put her knuckles to the door and knocked.

Within seconds, her father stood before her. He looked frankly awful, with a rough bearded face and red cheeks and a pair of sweatpants that looked like they hadn’t been washed in a while. There was a strange smell in the study, one that hadn’t been there during any of their writing sessions. It was like sour milk.

“Valerie?” He looked surprised, and then he looked rather angry.

Valerie held the folder of Julia’s notes out to him. “We have work to do,” she said. Her tone was harsher than she’d wanted it to be.

Victor stepped back and sat down in his office chair. He opened the folder and looked down at the list. For a long time, he read what Julia had written and didn’t say anything. Valerie turned to the window and opened it to let out the bad air. Her father didn’t say anything about that, either.

In the back of Valerie’s mind, she wondered,What if something happens to him? What if something happens, and we never mend our relationship, and I regret it for the rest of my life?

And then she reminded herself,It’s his fault for not getting help. It’s his fault for “therapizing” everyone and not bothering to mend his own heart and mind. It’s his family who suffers. It’s his family who falls apart because he can’t save himself.

“Julia already sent me this,” Victor said stiffly.

Valerie raised her shoulders. “So? What do we do?”

Victor closed the folder. “I thought you wanted to work separately.” His tone was like a stone.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.”

I want you to get into therapy. I want everything to be fixed.

“Have you considered trying to figure that out?” her father asked.

Valerie was taken aback. But then she remembered a core fact: her father wasn’t very nice. He never had been.

“Should we call off the book?” she asked. Anger made her stomach roil.

“Maybe we should.” Victor threw the folder to the side.

There was a long moment of silence.

“I thought you didn’t want me to be around you. I thought you didn’t want all this stress to affect the baby,” Victor said.

Valerie had never seen him so volatile.

She realized he was hurt and didn’t know how to tell her.

She thought,Men of this age don’t know how to take care of their emotional health.

She thought,I wonder if there’s any way past his ego.

And then, Victor’s phone rang. Despite Valerie being there, despite Valerie actually wanting to try for the first time in nearly three months, he took it right away.

Valerie felt it like a closed door between them.

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