107- Suspections into a box

I can’t help but sigh. After settling down behind my desk, I lock my hands together and face her fully.

She walks forward and places a letter on the table. I don’t need to look at it to see what it is.
Then she begins her speech, “Sir, I truly appreciate the opportunities that I have been awarded here, especially the privilege of working as your personal assistant, but I think it’s time for me to move on.”
I don’t miss the slight tremble in her tone.
She goes on, “I will properly assign my project before I leave so the clients will be thoroughly taken care of.”
“Sir?” I say. “You’re handing in your resignation and you’re calling me sir? As if there’s nothing more between us? Or do you plan to break the news in private to me later on and then call me by my name?”
She doesn’t respond and the silence between us stretches endlessly. She does however hold my gaze and I can see the redness and slight dampness in her eyes.
“I truly apologize for this. I didn’t know that things would turn out this way but they have and I need the time away to sort it out.”
“Then take a leave,” I snap. “Why are you quitting? Is it because you got the job so easily, so it can just as easily be of no value to you?”
Her eyes widen in alarm at the statement. “Nothing has changed for you since Sunday has it? The fact that your father was responsible for my father’s death… it doesn't mean much to you, does it?”
I don’t have a response.
“Well, Grady, it means a lot to me and because of that I don’t want anything to do with you or your father. Because your presence in my life will always remind me that it came at the cost of my father’s life. You can have your own opinion about this stance and I don’t care. I am entitled to be hurt and furious and to deal with this in the way that I want to.” With that, she turns around, and walks away.
I watch her, but then at the last moment I jump to my feet. “What about us?” I ask.
She halts, and inclines her head to the side to glance at me. “What ‘us’? You made it clear from the very beginning that there can’t be an us. You said you don’t do relationships. Remember? Or do you think that after this, I’m still going to subject myself to not even being worthy enough in your eyes to be committed to?” With a glare, she continues on her way and slams the door behind her.
I remain standing in that spot for a long time, refusing to take a seat until I make some sort of plan... until the turmoil currently wreaking havoc in my chest is sorted out.

When I eventually decide, I grab my phone and hurry out of the office. I dismiss Andrew and get behind the wheel myself.
About an hour later, I arrive at my father’s trailer home and meet him weeding out the overgrown shrubs in his tiny yard out front. This is a first, by this time he’s usually sitting in front of his television with some liquor in hand.
I stand behind him for a while and neither of us speaks.
“I owe you an apology,” he suddenly begins. “I didn't have the courage to admit it but I realize now that I didn’t really want you to join the military because I believed it was the most noble of pursuits. It was because the guilt that I thought I could carry was killing me, and I was looking for a way out. To somehow ease my conscience and the only way I could think of was offering you to the military with the buried and twisted hope that perhaps something would happen to you. And you would die a hero. Then as a result, those fathers, sons and brothers that I snatched from their families would somehow be appeased, because I had offered up my own son to serve and lost him too. Instead, you went your own way and I lost my bargaining chip. And I resented you for it.” His laugh is bitter.
I’m seething, with anger and frustration and a deep seated sadness for the father that I had lost a long time ago and for the woman that I’m about to lose.
“I am one hell of a man aren’t I? I sacrifice the life of my unit for my ego and then I am just as eager to sacrifice the life of my own son to ease my conscience. I should have taken my life a long time ago.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “You should have.”
He goes still, the hand holding a hoe stopping in midair.
“I just turned twenty when you were discharged and more than at any other time in life, I needed you then. To guide me and direct me and to support me. But instead, you did all you could to push me down a path that I had no business going down and when I didn’t conform to that, you made me feel like shit and more or less disowned me. You left me alone, to find my way on my own and I did just that. But even afterwards, you still couldn't celebrate me, when the world did. After all the shit I went through to make something of myself, strangers patted me on my shoulder, instead of my own father. I have wished a million times that I could completely look away from your existence but I’m not as cold blooded as you are, so when you’ve needed help I have always made myself available.”
He went utterly silent.
“But today, I want to make something clear to you; I don’t want your apology and I don’t suddenly want any sort of concern from you. What I want right now is for you to fix the damage that you have

done. The woman you spilled your guts to, she matters to me. I don’t know how much yet but I suspect that it’s going to be a whole lot, so the last thing I want to do is lose her. I don’t care if you have to get on your knees to beg her. I don’t care if you even offer your head to appease her, but you’re going to get her back. She now wants nothing to do with me and I won’t allow you to once again take away someone that means the world to me. If you don’t somehow fix this, then I just might kill you with my own hands and I swear it. And don’t think either that I need to be a Navy Seal to know how to do that effortlessly. I’m giving you today. After today, your conscience isn't what you should be afraid of anymore. In fact, maybe you should even be relieved because it will be gone, along with you.”
With that, I turn around and storm back to my car.