Page 45 of Chasing the Horizon

Victor stumbled, his hands on his knees. Nobody passing by paid him any mind. To them, he probably looked like a drunk old man, somebody nobody had ever loved.

Why had he thought Max would give him answers?

Why had he thought—privately, in the back of his mind—that he could get Max on the right track?

When Victor reached the stop sign on the corner, he leafed through his pocket to find his phone. It read 2:42 a.m., long past his bedtime.

He felt bereft. He felt terrified.

Before he knew what he was doing, he dialed Dr. Frank Gallagher.

But as soon as Frank’s name came up on the screen, Victor realized what he’d done and hung up. He gasped for breath, the freezing-cold air stabilizing him.

Everything came rushing back: Catherine’s baby shower, Valerie’s gratitude, followed by Victor’s insane belief that meeting Max and talking to him would help Victor understand himself better.

He didn’t think he needed a psychiatrist. He thought he could cure himself.

But as Victor walked the streets, vaguely searching for a cab, he was struck with a horrible thought. He needed help, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be strong enough to ask for it.

Chapter Eighteen

It was the morning after the night her father had spontaneously left the restaurant, telling nobody in the family where he was going nor when he’d be back. Everything felt off. Valerie and Alex were in the breakfast hall, eating sparingly, as Valerie went over the notes she wanted to cover in the interview she still assumed was going to happen. But Victor hadn’t been in contact. Neither had Esme.

“I can’t do the interview on my own,” Valerie muttered under her breath, her eyes still on the doorway, waiting for her father and mother to appear for a late breakfast and an explanation. “They only booked us because he’s Victor Sutton. They don’t care about me.”

“I’d argue that they only care about Victor Sutton again because of you,” Alex said softly. “They want to know how he’s grown and changed as a result of his children. You know, how his own teachings have worked within his own life.”

Valerie groaned and took a bite of her croissant. “You know they’ll send me away if I arrive by myself. There’s no book without him.”

Alex didn’t seem to know what to say. He reached over and touched her hand.

It wasn’t till ten minutes after the breakfast closed for the morning that Victor appeared. He looked withdrawn and vaguely ill, but he was in one piece, and he was already dressed in a suit jacket and a pair of slacks for the interview. Esme was nowhere to be found.

“She went to the workout room,” Victor said. “She’s upset with me and wants to sweat it out.”

“Why would she be upset with you, Dad?” Valerie asked sarcastically. “Is it because you went out on some wild goose chase without telling us where you were going?”

Victor closed his eyes and walked across the dining room to get the last cup of coffee on offer. He sipped and kept his eyes closed as though he were trying to prepare something to tell Valerie but came up dry. Valerie and Alex stood where they were, watching him as though he were a wild animal at the zoo.

Valerie told herself that nothing bad happened, so it was all okay.

When Victor did return, he said under his breath, “I’ll be fine. You ready to go?”

Victor, Alex, and Valerie shared a cab to the Brooklyn-based radio station and didn’t talk the entire way. Valerie felt consumed with anger. Why was he being so secretive again? She thought they were past that. Valerie wondered how they would manage to have an entire interview—which usually involved conversation—when they struggled to speak at all right now.

But when they entered the radio station and met the hosts, Victor turned on his charm. Valerie shouldn’t have been surprised. This was Victor Sutton’s way.

Was Victor’s entire life a performance?

How exhausting, Valerie thought.

But mostly, her anger mounted. How often was her father performing a version of himself that wasn’t true? How much of the book they’d written together had any bearing in fact?

With Valerie’s emotions all over the place, she began to think of the baby, how she’d read that the baby experienced every emotion she experienced and how she’d promised to try to avoid stress. She squinted at her father, wanting to yell at him for putting them through this.

He was my dad! He should be thinking about all of us instead of himself! He should be thinking about all of us rather than some “patient” he had to run out and help!

Maybe Valerie’s anger wasn’t fully sensical. But it was rooted in the past, in her trauma, and had the effect of setting fire to every good emotion Valerie had had surrounding her father the past few months. She eyed the door and wondered if she should get up and go.

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