Brady was a good guy. I didn’t doubt that at all. But that didn’t change the fact that he was planning on doing something that would turn my whole world upside down, would take away the one place I’d felt secure and happy and wanted and…neededfor the past few years.
I didn’t expect Brady to understand, didn’t even know if it was worth it to try and explain how I felt. Because no matter how vivid my imagination was, the truth was that he was never going to put things back the way they’d been when Henry had been alive.
Back when my life had finally seemed like it was on the right track.
The question was—if thingsweregoing to be different—was there any way I could ever recapture that feeling?
Chapter Fifteen - Brady
My mind was racing when I left Joanne’s house. I sat in the driveway for a while, wondering and sort of hoping that she might come back, that we might be able to have a conversation that didn’t get so… emotional.
Not that I wasn’t used to people raising their voices. Yelling in the NFL was just a way of life. But there, the people who were doing the yelling weren’t actually upset with me. They weren’t yelling at me because I’d ruined their lives.
That was what Joanne had implied, though. And that was what had shaken me to the core.
I hadn’t set out to ruin anyone’s anything—especially not someone like Joanne. But there reallywasn’tany other way to do things, was there?It would be ridiculous for me to keep the flower shop, wouldn’t it?I didn’t know shit about flowers, or customer service, or running a business. Sure, I could read the reports Joanne had shown me easily enough, but the actual day-to-day business bullshit?
No, thank you.
Besides, even if I did want to keep the shop, would it ever really feel like it belonged to me? Would I ever be able to walk through that door without picturing my dad behind the counter?
And then there were the bills. The stack of unpaid medical bills. The credit cards. The funeral expenses that by themselves added up to more money than I could possibly come up with on my own.
Ihadto sell. But I wanted Joanne to understand why, too. She hadsaidshe understood, but she didn’t. If she had, she wouldn’t have been so upset.
I found myself in front of the shop—and in front of my dad’s old apartment—without even realizing I’d been going there. I put my truck in reverse, intending to pull away and go… where, exactly? Not back to Joanne’s house. And I didn’t really want to go back to my depressing little hotel room, either.
Aside from driving around aimlessly, those were my only options. So…fuck it.
I shifted my truck into park and got out before I could change my mind again. In just a few moments, I was inside the shop and on my way up the back stairs to the little apartment above. I only paused for a moment when I unlocked the door, and then I was inside my dad’s living room again.
No, it was impossible to think of the place as my own. Not while it was still full of my dad’s stuff, his papers, his furniture, hisclothes.
I turned around and put my hand back on the doorknob. I felt just as overwhelmed as I had the first time I’d stepped foot into the small space, like the memory of my dad—like the veryairI was breathing—was closing in around me.
“No,” I said out loud, closing my eyes for a moment as I scrubbed a hand over my face. Jesus, I was evensweating. I was going to have to calm the fuck down if I was going to get through the ordeal in front of me.
I took a deep breath and looked around.
Okay.Okay. I could do this. I just needed a… process. A system. Something to guide me, something I could do slowly and methodically.
My eyes fell on the small desk in the corner of the room.
“As good a place to start as any,” I mumbled to myself.
After all, judging by the random receipts and hastily scrawled notes that littered the desktop, it was just a bunch of papers. Just the everyday junk that everyone accumulated as they went about their lives.
Nothing too intimidating. Nothing too personal. Nothing that was likely to bring back memories and emotions I’d rather not deal with.
I sat down on the creaky, wobbly-wheeled chair and shifted my weight to make sure the thing would hold me upright.
Jesus, did my dad own anything that wasn’t at least twenty years old?
It was as if every piece of furniture had been plucked from a rummage sale. And maybe it had, for all I knew.
Looking around again, I didn’t really recognize much of anything from the childhood home I’d grown up in. The home my parents had shared and worked on and furnished together, back when they’d both been alive and relatively happy.
Maybe moving into this place had been my dad’s way of getting the same kind of fresh start that I so desperately wanted.