“Truce?” Uncle Bill says with a wry smile.
“I’ll leave you two to talk.” Winona spins away in an exaggerated pirouette and heads for the bar. I miss the feeling of her warm body pressed against mine, which makes me doubly pissed at my uncle.
“You want a truce, you can start by apologizing to Winona.” I bite out each word with venom. “She hasn’t done jack shit to you, and you used her as a pawn to try to get a reaction out of me in front of the other board members.”
My uncle’s face contorts with anger, then smooths. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s the Hudson way. We do what needs to be done. That’s why we’ve grown more successful with every generation.”
“Hudson’s is successful because my father was willing to sacrifice everything to save the company from a thief who, as I recall, was hired on your recommendation.”
Again, that flare of fury swells, but this time it only shows in his eyes. A long moment stretches uncomfortably between us, and I see a muscle twitching in his jaw. Finally he says, “That’s fair. I hope you also recall that I sacrificed quite a bit as well. I sold all but one of my properties and gave up my car collection and lived like a monk for a decade to help repay that debt.”
Oh, poor Uncle Bill, down to only one mansion, two cars and a yacht.
My father’s loyalty prevented him from bitching about Uncle Bill too much, but I overheard a couple of arguments between him and my mother. My mother felt Bill wasn’t putting in his fair share.
“I could stand here and reminisce about the good old days all night, really I could, but you know me.” I tap my watch. “I’m on a schedule. What do you want?”
He sighs. “Peace with my brother’s son. I guess I’m feeling a little sentimental right now. I was cleaning out my home office the other day and I found this.” He hands me the envelope. “I know I can be an asshole, but I’m an asshole who wants what’s best for Hudson’s. We don’t agree on the issue of going public, but whatever happens, there’s no reason for us to hate each other.” He lifts his shoulder in a gloomy shrug. “I don’t have much left in the way of family. You know my son barely speaks to me these days. Calls me when he wants more money, curses me out when I won’t give it to him. At least your father had someone to pass on the legacy to. You and Alice… We were close once, remember? We had some good times?”
“We did,” I concede.
“Remember after the accident, when I brought you to the club here and taught you how to play golf?”
“Yep. Sure do.”
I remember I hated every minute of it. I went exactly three times before I pretended that I’d sprained my wrist. Alice helped me wrap up the fake bandage. What fourteen-year-old wants to hang out with a bunch of old men who spend their time slurping gin and tonics, telling mortifyingly lewd jokes, and swapping stories about their mistresses?
But at least he made the effort. And he put me through private school at a time when he was tight on funds himself. And he is my father’s brother.
With a wry smile, I shake hands with him. “Truce. I’m going to go find Winona,” I say.
Once I’ve walked away, I open the envelope. There’s a picture inside, a very old one. A publicity photo, taken around Christmas. We were in the thick of the financial crisis. My parents, Alice and I stand in front of a pile of wrapped presents. We’re squeezed in with Uncle Bill and his then-wife, and his son Harry, a sullen, spoiled little shit of a bully who I happily haven’t spoken to in years. He got fired from Hudson’s for sexual harassment eight years ago and is banned from setting foot on our property.
In the photo, we’re in the toy department, and I’m holding a baseball bat and grinning wide enough to split my face open.
Something twists in my stomach. I’m sure my uncle meant well giving this to me, it’s just that the picture doesn’t tell the whole story. And that particular story didn’t have a happy ending.
After the photo shoot that day, we went home, and I wanted my dad to play baseball with me. It was right in the thick of the financial crisis, when he was trying to sell our “big happy family” image to help reassure the public and our investors. He was working twenty hours a day trying to keep us afloat; I don’t know why I was so demanding. He said he had to go back to work, and I snapped something about caring more about the company than he did his own son and stormed off to my room.
My throat goes thick in sorrow at the memory. I’d give all my wealth to be able to build a time machine and go back to that night, to swallow my selfish, bratty words.
I slide the picture back into its envelope and make my way through the crowd. Dinner’s starting soon, and Winona’s nowhere in sight. I check by the bar, wander through the crowd, and finally locate her on the patio, smiling and chatting with a couple of the society wives. When she sees me, she detaches herself from them and comes over to link her arm through mine.
“I thought I’d lost you there.”
She grins. “I tried to go over the wall, but I couldn’t make it past the barbed wire and guard dogs. What did your uncle want?”
“Supposedly to make amends.”
Her tone goes carefully neutral. “Yeah, he just came over and said that he was sorry if he offended me the other night.”
“He gave me some family photo he found in his office. Went on about how his son doesn’t speak to him and blah blah blah. So what do you think?” I look at her. “Is he actually sorry, or is he just trying to get past my defenses? I trust your judgement.”
“You do?” Her genuine smile tugs at my heart. I want to earn more of those.
“I know you’ve got my back, whether I deserve it or not. Uncle Bill, I’m not so sure about.”
Her smooth forehead creases in a tiny frown. “Okay. Keep in mind, he didn’t give me the best first impression. And I know he’s family, and I’m trying to respect that.”
“No, don’t worry about that. There are larger issues at stake here. As CFO, he holds a very important position in our store. It would be helpful for me to get an outsider’s perspective.”
She shakes her head. “After his quote-unquote attempt to make amends, I trust him even less. When he says ‘I’m sorry if I offended you…’ that’s one of those ‘sorry not sorry’ apologies. They’re the worst kind of apologies. It takes no responsibility for the person’s actions. It’s manipulative. Tries to make you feel as if you were too sensitive and you should feel bad that he made you feel bad.”
Manipulative. Dodging responsibility. Dumping the blame on someone else. She’s summed my uncle up perfectly.