I grabbed the file I had been ignoring moments before and tore it open, as if I was really reading through the pages.

“I see you’ve closed yourself off. I know when I’m being dismissed.”

I grunted.

“This conversation isn’t over.”

I stared at the papers in my hands for a moment before looking over to my right. When I did, she was gone. I mulled her words over for another minute but then pushed them out of my mind. I was doing the right thing. Patience would eventually get on board with my decision.

Without even realizing what I was doing, I pressed the button to talk to the one man I owed my life to.

“Didn’t you just hang up the phone with my wife?”

“Good morning, Father,” I responded.

“Morning, son. You’re headed to the breakfast meeting with Truth Financials?”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me through the phone. “Yes, I’ll have a full report to the board by the end of the week.”

“I’m certain you will. But you didn’t call to discuss business.”

“I didn’t.” I paused. “When you were courting Mother, was there anything or anyone that stood in your way?” I didn’t understand why I wanted to know the answer to that question but I did.

“Have you met me?”

I let out a small chuckle.

“There were a few that tried, however.”

Raising my right wrist to my face, I saw that I had another twenty minutes before we would arrive at the restaurant. With that knowledge, I sat back against the seat and began listening, undistracted, to my father’s story.

****

Then

Robert

“This is not the best time to be doing something like this, son.” My father’s voice was thick with agitation.

I gave him a deadpan expression, refusing to allow myself to give into the anger that consumed me whenever he dared to speak of my and Deborah’s relationship. It was, after all, our engagement party, and the last thing Deborah would want is for me to make a scene.

“Something like this?” I questioned, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yes, this.” He nodded, looking around the expansive space of the foyer we stood in. We were in Townsend Manor, the home I’d grown up in and that my parents currently lived in. The Manor, as it was often referred to, was a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion which resided on over six acres of land. My father’s father had purchased the property when my father was still a teenager, and began building Townsend Manor once my father took over Townsend Industries. It was the only home I’d ever known before moving away to go to college. And while it had been large enough, I refused to move back in once I returned to Williamsport, much to both of my parents’ dismay.

Townsend Manor hadn’t been my first choice to host our engagement party, but my mother had insisted. And Deborah had been pleased at her invitation, thereby practically twisting my arm to agree. Now, here we were, two months after announcing our engagement and my father was in my face about it.