Ghost Writer (Raven Maxim Book 1) (37 page)

Sloan looked at
his son coolly, a crooked grin on his face. Curls of smoke escaped the side of his mouth. He was ready to put this shit to rest, once and for all.

“So, your mom says it happened differently? So does the Devil when asked about what
really
happened between him and God…”

His son’s face went pale, his eyes widened, yet no words departed from his lips.

“Son, I have no reason to lie, but she has every reason to. She’s good at it, too… had years of experience. I tell tall tales in books.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Your mother’s words have been nothing but distorted truths, and I’m being generous…especially when she said, ‘I do’ to me, and ‘I love you.’ Those were the biggest lies of all.”

“Did you do anything to try and save your marriage, Dad? Please… I need to know.”

“She asked me for more time. I cut my hours. She then complained I wasn’t making enough money after I cut my hours. So, I started doing contract gigs, ghostwriting for others and writing my own stories again. I’d get up early in the morning, just me, my coffee, and my cigarettes. The sun would be still sleeping, and I would sit there with my dreams, my private thoughts, and start to type on that clunky, old computer. Before I knew it, I had written a full novel.”

“Yeah.” Joel looked at him with a solemn smile. “I remember those days.”

The memories continued to unveil themselves from the recesses of Sloan’s mind, filling him with sadness.

“It was a good time for me. I’d reconnected with my passion. I’d always loved writing stories, but your mother was thinking maybe it was a silly hobby, then changed her tune when I got the big deal with Royal House Publishing. When I told her I wanted to quit the paper completely and write my novels full time, that’s when she had a damn fit. At the time, the paper was still paying me more than I made with my side gigs, and it was secure. It was stable.”

“Yeah, I could understand her concern but I saw it from your point of view, too, Dad. Really.” He looked him in the eye. “I knew you weren’t happy at the paper. I did.”

“I know you did.” He tapped the cigarette butt into the ashtray. “But your mother didn’t trust me. I would never put us in a financial situation where we didn’t have a roof over our heads, just so I could live out my dreams…that’s selfish. I wouldn’t have done that, put you guys in jeopardy like that.”

“I know, Dad…”

“I had a plan, a two-year contract, and we’d have more money, but first I needed to be able to write the books. That’s all I asked for. I even told her if, after a year, things weren’t working out, I’d get a regular ol’ nine-to-five again. She knew I could get one any time I wished; I had job offers all the time. We had money saved up. Her lifestyle wouldn’t have drastically changed, just tightened a bit. I never cheated on that woman either, not once.” He waved his finger at the phone screen. “And believe me, the opportunities were there.”

Attractive women had practically thrown themselves at him many times, and every time he’d given the same tired line,
‘I’m flattered, but I’m married…’

“Let me ask you something, why are you still so angry with Mom, Dad?”

“It’s not anger, it’s disgust at how she keeps lying. Let me tell you something, Joel, if karma was real, totally legit, if it was this invisible fairy waving glittery justice dust, your mother would have gotten hers by now, believe you me.” He sank his upper teeth into his lower lip and hung on to the sting. “Instead, I’m positive she smiles every time she receives an alimony check from me. If
that’s
this alleged karma fairy at work, then she’s lousy at her job and needs to be shot dead and put out of her misery.”

“Why did I have to drag this out of you? Why didn’t you just tell me this was how you felt?!” Joel’s gaze zoned in on him.

“Because you’re my son and no matter what she’s done, she’s
still
your mother. She brought you into the world for me. I thank her for that, can’t take that away. She was a good mother… and I…” He exhaled, flopped back against his chair and closed his eyes. His fingers twitched as he held onto his cigarette, the scent of the smolder consoling him during the rotten confessions he made for his son’s peace of mind. “I tried to watch speaking bad about her to you and Michelle. I did sometimes anyway, slipped up…and I shouldn’t have. It didn’t help anything.”

Joel glanced away and cleared his throat, as if things were getting a bit too close for comfort, pulled at his heartstrings.

“Dad, Mom asked you for a divorce, but you are the one that filed once you realized there wasn’t anything to salvage. You moved on; you made yourself clear on where you stood. I love you and Mom both so much that I could never…I just… I don’t know. I’m here for you, please believe me, but—”

“I’d never make you choose, Joel. I know this has been bothering you—you feeling like I wanted you to choose between your mother and me. I can’t talk about this with just
any
one.” He glanced down at the kitchen table, feeling rather sorry for himself. Silly and ashamed, too. “I don’t want Mike and anyone else to know how messed up I was after your mother and I split, all right? I don’t talk about things like this. I just… I just don’t.” A muscle twitched at his jaw. “My communication with you and Michelle wasn’t always the best, either. It’s like I get tongue-tied if things get too…”

“Close,” Joel finished for him. “Dad, I’ve tried to talk to you in the past about how sometimes you’re kind of… blocked off.”

Sloan swallowed hard, then sucked a fresh cigarette with vigor, delicately tapping off the glowing ash. “Alright, tell me what you mean.”

“Well, you don’t really express yourself to me and Michelle and sometimes we feel like we don’t really know you. We’ve discussed it privately.”

Sloan looked at Joel long and hard. The words hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut, but he maintained his composure, didn’t blink, and for a brief moment, he didn’t say a word or move a muscle.

“I think it was because of the way you were raised, I suppose,” his son continued. “I’m not sayin’ you never hugged or played with me and Michelle. You did a lot actually… and you were a good father overall; you still are. You told us you loved us all the time, did things with us, showed up to my games and stayed active in my life but… I don’t know.” Joel dropped his head and shook it before looking back at him. “Something was missing. The most I’ve learned about you, as of late, has been from reading your books, Dad. There’s pieces of you in those words that tell the truth. And I look for them, try to hunt them down. I shouldn’t have to treat getting to know you like some scavenger hunt.”

“I never wanted you to feel this way. I think I convinced myself you were all right, that it wasn’t as bad as you made it out to be.” He looked at the ashtray filled with the evidence of his killer habit. “But it was.”

“Dad, to me you were larger than life. Some of it was my own insecurity, I suppose. I always felt like your expectations of me were so high that I couldn’t reach ’em… that I’d never be the perfect son for you or be half the man you are. I felt like I was always a disappointment to you.”

Joel’s eyes brimmed with moisture but he quickly blinked them away. A huge wave of guilt engulfed Sloan as he stared at his son, sitting there vulnerable and wanting… wishing, even.

It wasn’t the first time Joel had confessed to such a thing, but usually this happened while they were in the midst of an argument, at which time none of them listened, but wanted to do all the talking. In this context, it sounded so different—painful, yet sincere. Not an unkind word to win a debate, but one created from the need to bridge a gap, one the existence of which he’d refused to fully acknowledge, until now.

“Joel.” He took another draw from his cigarette and rested the thing inside the ashtray. He stared at the waving smoke for a spell, then turned to his son, face to face. “My father, your grandfather, never showed any emotions. Matter of fact, you could barely tell when he was happy. He might have rarely been, in all actuality.” He stared down at his folded hands and gave a sad, little, broken chuckle. “I told myself that my kids would have a dad they knew loved ’em, but…” He shrugged as he hung his head. “All I did was repeat history. I fucked up. I failed.”

“You didn’t fail…”

“I know you and I don’t always see eye to eye, and it hurts me to say it, but I think it was because we were so much alike, Joel. I, too, always felt like I couldn’t measure up when it came to my father. He always seemed big to me, even when I surpassed him in height. He intimidated me almost up until the day he died, and I felt so small around him…so very small…” His voice drifted into almost a whisper. “But then, I guess those tapes in our mind start playin’, you know? The ones from the past.

“The ones that mess us up and turn us into all we’d promised ourselves we’d never be. Joel, I know I’m hard on you sometimes. I just want you to reach your potential, but I’m sorry for
any
thing I’ve said to you during your formative years—and hell, even now—that made ya feel you weren’t good enough. And that kills me a little, to know I hurt you like that, but I’m sure it killed you more.” A tear rolled down his son’s cheek. “You’re good enough, Joel. You’ve
always
been good enough.”

He turned away as the boy’s tears continued to fall. No, not boy, but a man. From time to time, he had to remind himself that this son of his was truly an adult, and adults cry, too. Sloan forced himself to face Joel once again, for he refused to shy away from him one second longer.

“I needed to hear that,” Joel choked out while sliding the back of his hand across his eyes, smearing a watery trail across his face.

Sloan fought to keep his composure, to not fall prey to his own torn up heart, but he almost came undone when he bore witness to Joel’s emotions. His son’s lower lip trembled uncontrollably.

“I
really
needed to hear that, Dad.”

“I want to tell you, son, how much I love you. I’m sorry that I’m like this. Cold and hard sometimes… I didn’t want things to be like this. Please believe me.”

“You don’t have to apologize anymore. And you’re not cold and hard… just distant sometimes, removed.”

Sloan nodded in agreement. “And I alienate. You probably know me better than anyone else in the entire world, despite feeling that I don’t open to ya.” He realized that truth more than ever at that moment. “Son, you need to understand something. I’ve been evolving over the past year, you know? When things were happening to me, I’d make changes. I felt like complaining didn’t change anything, so I just became hands on.” He struggled to explain.

“But Dad, then you missed the lessons. You were too busy trying to fix stuff, so you never took the time to find out why it was broken in the first place…”

Sloan smiled. The young man smiled back at him… He rolled in his thoughts, thinking about how Joel was one of his many inspirations for finally looking at himself in the mirror, and getting himself together. He was grateful even for the divorce, for this became the catalyst to him moving on for good. He was determined to make it this time. Joy had eluded him for so long, but then he prayed he had it cornered and it would submit to him, allow him to get a taste of some of the love his fictitious characters swore undying loyalty to…

And it did. And her name was Emerald.

Emerald hadn’t prepared
brown shrimp jambalaya in several years, yet she stood over her stove, doing just that. The previous night had left her so exhausted, she barely recalled driving back home. Sloan spent more one on one time with the medium and investigators, surveying footage to help corroborate their claims just in case he got it in his thick skull that this was something to once again deny and stamp as pure foolishness. She knew that even her man wouldn’t be so bullheaded—the writing was on the wall, almost literally. As she’d settled in for the evening, she realized she’d missed a voicemail, and when she played it back, she damn near died of happiness.

Nikki was on her way home for a quick visit and would be arriving sometime that evening. Her daughter had been granted this break, with no advance notice. She was supposed to come in a month or two, but the date had been pushed forward much to her surprise, so Emerald wanted to make sure Nikki’s favorite meal would be ready by the time she arrived—enough to feed three.

The scent of the Andouille sausage and savory seasonings filled the kitchen of her townhome while the sounds of, ‘Sara’, by Starship played on her radio. She’d piled many of her tools, necessary equipment, stripers, paints, varnishes, sealants, saws, lacquers and the sort in various closets, making room. She’d been up most of the morning preparing the guest room, fresh linens and towels, giving the place a good dusting. She’d even set a welcome basket of fruit on the guest bedroom nightstand. She stirred the large chrome pot slowly with a ladle, counter clockwise, and then in reverse. A bottle of Riesling was chilling in the refrigerator and a bowl of tossed salad, seasoned with pink sea salt and a dash of cayenne pepper was waiting to be set on the dining room table.

Her cell phone rang and she snatched the thing on the first ring. “Hello?”