“Gracias por todos,” his father said to the nurse. “Mi hijo es protector.”
The nurse finished his work with the IV and left, muttering something about other, probably much easier, patients.
Victor adjusted his position on the bed. “Help me get up. I want to take a walk.”
“Did you ask the nurse?”
“I can walk whenever I want. They say it’s good for me.”
“But they just took you off that blood pressure medication.”
“Son. Either help me or go back to Alaska.” His irritation made Tristan jump. His father usually kept his frustrations to himself. “I’m not a child. Still got life in me.”
After he swung his legs over the side of the bed, he grabbed onto Tristan’s arm to come to his feet. Tristan hooked the IV onto a wheeled stand that allowed his dad to go mobile.
“A lot of life.” He helped his father pad away from the bed in the felted slippers Mama had made for him. He was even taller than Tristan, a barrel-chested burly man who’d always seemed like a giant to his children. His formerly blond hair was mostly a silvery white now, and he’d lost some weight. But his presence still had the same imposing effect. “You’re not even seventy. You could come back and crew on the Desperado with me.”
He chuckled. “I never was a very good crew member.”
“That’s because you were the best captain in Lost Harbor. You were the leader of the fleet. They all looked to you when big issues came up. Remember the time the cruise ship companies wanted to expand their dock and take out half the harbor?”
“I do.”
“You organized everyone to stand up against it. You got a TV reporter to come down and do a story on it. You saved the harbor.” The pride of that event still hadn’t left Tristan. His father had done that. Victor Gammelgaard.
“It was all of us, standing together. They didn’t expect that.”
“But you were the leader.”
Tristan nodded to a doctor hurrying past them. She was attractive, around his age and single, she’d let him know. But he hadn’t made even a hint of a move. He told himself it was because of the situation, that he was here for his dad, not flirtation, but it wasn’t that. It was Lulu. Or should he say, Fufu.
“Someone has to be the leader,” his father was saying. “You know how it is.”
“Me? No. I dropped out of the mayor’s race. I endorsed Malcolm Crow.” Hadn’t he told Papa about that? So much had happened right around that time, it was hard to remember.
“He’s a good choice. He’ll be good for Lost Harbor.” They turned the corner and passed a pretty glassed-in room filled with greenery in pots. It was billed as a respite room, and Tristan had spent a fair amount of time in there. “You’ll do something else.”
“Yes, I’ll do my own thing and not worry about everyone else.” Tristan tossed off the comment lightly, in a half-joking way meant to mask the fact that he meant it. Maybe once he’d seen himself as a leader. But no more.
“No, you won’t.”
Tristan jerked his head around to catch his father’s frown as he shuffled down the hall. “Why won’t I?”
“Because you won’t be happy that way. You’ll be lying to yourself.” He stopped to take a short rest. “Remember when you first bought the Desperado? You were twenty. Asking men ten, twenty years older than you to follow your command. And they did.”
“Because it was their job.” Tristan remembered the stress of that first trip very clearly. Managing a crew in which every single person was older than him had kept him up nights.
“They could have gotten jobs on other boats. No, son, they saw something in you.”
“Money. I was a crazy kid hell-bent on making my mark.”
“You had a record-making catch that year.” The pride in his father’s voice echoed the pride he’d felt, reminiscing about the cruise ship battle. “And those fishermen on your boat, with maybe sixty years’ experience combined, they knew you were going to be something special. You’re a leader, Tristan. Where you lead, people will follow. You can’t pretend you aren’t who you are.”
Tristan blinked at him. Since when did Victor Gammelgaard talk about this kind of stuff? Besides, he had it all wrong.
“I led my crew into a bad situation on that sandbar. People are better off not following me. I learned that the hard way.”
His father waved his hand, nearly dislodging the IV bag from the stand. “Accidents are part of the job. You kept it from getting worse. In a crisis, you did what a captain does. You led.”
Tristan wanted to protest, to argue. To say that he’d fucked up and other people had paid with their blood. That it didn’t matter what happened after they hit the sandbar. Because everything after that moment was on him.
But he didn’t want to upset his father, so he held his tongue.
His father took another step forward, leaning on his walker, his large body tilting forward. Even while recovering from surgery, Victor Gammelgaard was a man you listened to. Even if—or maybe especially if—you were his son. “You led in the mayor’s race too.”
“I have no idea if I was leading before I dropped out.”
“No, I mean that you led. You gave your support to Malcolm. And he won.”
Tristan laughed. “He almost got beat by that rooster.”
“That damn Cockles,” muttered Victor. “He belongs in a stew pot. And you belong wherever you decide. But you won’t be happy unless you accept who you are. That’s true for anyone.”
“Fair enough.”
They walked a few feet more, but Tristan could tell that his father was tiring. Not that he’d ever say so.
“Ready to turn back?”
Victor nodded wearily, and they turned back to retrace their steps, more slowly this time, with more frequent breaks. Love for this normally taciturn man, the giant of his childhood, his inspiration in so many ways, swept through him.
“I’m sorry I let you down,” he said abruptly. And as soon as he said it, he knew he’d been feeling that way for a long time. His father was his role model. Victor had never gotten divorced. He’d never led his boat onto a sandbar. “The accident. My surgery.” He ran a hand across his scar. “The divorce.”
“Ja?” His father swung his head to glare at him. “Did I say that? Did I say you let me down?”
“No. You didn’t have to. Divorce…” He shrugged. His mother had been raised in the Catholic church, so she’d struggled with that news. Dad had never said much about it. “It didn’t win me any points.”
“What points? There are no points. How’s Julie now?”
“She’s remarried with a kid,” he said. “I check in with her now and then. Her husband’s a good guy. They live outside Chicago.”
“Son, my feet are starting to hurt so my patience is low. I cannot stop you from blaming yourself about Julie. But don’t accuse me of doing so. I never had an opinion about it. Other people’s marriages, even your son’s…” He shrugged. “Best to stay out.”
They reached his room—Cuarto 212—and Tristan helped him through the doorway. He wished he’d brought this up with his father long ago. Maybe he would have stopped beating himself up. Because that was exactly what he’d been doing—and assuming that his father felt the same way.