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“She was faltering,” he thought to himself in wonder. Perhaps she had forgotten that the more she spread her darkness across the world, the more brightly the remaining points of light would shine. She might have legions of the benighted under the command of the Rushing Rider, but he had something better -- something that she couldn’t begin to understand. Connor Ridley, Shadows Fall
The lights had been left dimmed. It might have been an attempt to make the whole interlude seem less like an interrogation and more like a homey moment. It was not really working. Homey moments tended to require people to gather with some sort of common feeling or purpose.
The three members of the Ridley family present in his father’s home office had very little in common at the moment. His father appeared to be barely restraining himself from bursting into a tirade (possibly the reason that this interview had been requested at the private residence and not at RR). His mother looked agitated and confused. He was feeling rather calm and collected. In fact, he was feeling better than he had in ages despite the fact that he had no doubt that the about to begin dialogue between himself and his parents had less chance of ending well than it did of becoming an autograph session for his comic books.
“I don’t even know what to say to you, son.” His father began. “I can’t even begin.” Connor bit his lip to contain the laugh that was suddenly attempting to bubble up out of him. Something about his father beginning with not knowing where to begin struck him as funny.
“What your father means, darling,” his mother interceded in a far calmer tone than his father had used. He wondered (not for the first time) if she really believed that calling him darling actually softened any of the harsh words that generally followed her use of it. “Is that we would like you to explain for us. We don’t understand what you were thinking.”
Huh, they did have something in common after all. He hadn’t understood what they were thinking for much of his life.
“I was thinking that I needed to do whatever I could to stop the board from making a decision that would be a mistake.” It was the best explanation he could offer them. It was the truth of why he had handled the board the way he had. It just left out some of the deeper details. He didn’t see a reason to include those. They wouldn’t hear him if he did.
“Hogwash.” His father announced throwing his hands into the air.
“Travis, please,” his mother chided softly. She never found it necessary to raise her voice. The disappointed tone always hit far harder than his father’s annoyed, louder tones ever did. Except for today, today neither one of them was even registering with him. Maybe he had finally become immune. It was good to know that it only took twenty eight years. “We are very worried about you, Connor. This vendetta that you have against Meredyth is extremely unhealthy.”
“Vendetta?” They had never come out and used the word before (at least not to him). It tasted nasty on his tongue (probably because of the connotations it brought to mind and what it reflected about his parents’ thinking). There was something really off with him. Normally, he would be resigned but still somewhat sad at his mother’s casual use of the word. Now, he just felt like shrugging it off. He really didn’t care. It was a strange feeling.
“What else would you call it?” His father demanded. “It’s been over six years, and you can’t let her walk through the building without starting an altercation. It’s ridiculous. That you have let this dislike consume you so much that you cannot separate your personal issues from what is best for the business is nothing short of insanity.”
“The board doesn’t agree with you.” It was the first time he had ever felt good about cutting his father off mid rant. He wondered if the words sounded as coldly reasonable as they sounded to him in his head.
“What?” He wasn’t certain whether his father was questioning his statement or the fact that he had interrupted.
“The board doesn’t agree with you that accepting the offer from Walsh Industrial Solutions was what was best for Ridley Resources,” he offered an expansion of his statement. He didn’t think it was necessary to defend his interruption. “They’ve made their decision -- whatever you think about my reasons for lobbying the way I have. The board saw reasons to say no.”
“I didn’t see any reasons during that meeting,” his father insisted. He sounded angry. Connor couldn’t decide whether it was because of the decision that the board had made, his own influence on it, or the fact that he had been left out of the loop in the process. He found he didn’t much care which it was. It didn’t change the outcome (and it certainly wasn’t going to change his father’s determination to blame him for it). There was (for once) a reasonable case to be made for it actually being his fault.
“Nearly everyone in that room seemed to have already come to that conclusion without anything being openly said.” He leveled a glare at Connor, and he noticed his mother placing a warning hand on his father’s arm. If she was trying to warn him to not lose his temper, then it was a little late. “Would you like to explain that to me?”
“I’ve had a lot of private meetings lately,” he admitted with a small shrug (exhausting meetings that he hadn’t been at all confident were going to work, but he didn’t think this was the time to mention that). The flippantness that he could feel behind his words wasn’t going to do anything toward calming the situation at hand. He knew that, but he made no effort to curb it.
“So, you went behind our backs, made some sort of deals with board members, and all for what?” His father’s hands were clenched so tightly that they had gone white. “Because you can’t forgive Meredyth for moving on without you?”
The uncaring numbness didn’t lift -- not even with the nearly spitting manner in which that final question had been hurled at him. He wasn’t supposed to answer it. He knew how this worked. He was supposed to acknowledge the question’s validity by his lack of answer. He didn’t think he wanted to play along with that this time. He wasn’t sure he wanted to dignify it with an answer either. He decided to just start talking and let the words fall where they would.
“I did go behind your backs,” he agreed. He didn’t think there was anything particularly startling about his admission. It wasn’t like all three of them were not already aware of that fact. There was certainly no reason for it to have shocked his father into the silence that seemed to have taken him over. He, however, was not going to question the result. He would rather get his words out in a solid block instead of having to trade off turns back and forth.
“I did not make any deals with the board members,” he corrected. “I gave them facts.” He made an acquiescing gesture with his hands. “Granted, I focused on different facts with different board members given what I felt would be most persuasive.” He felt his head tilt to the side as he gave his parents an appraising look.
“What I don’t know is when it’s going to stop stinging that my own parents think so little of me as a person that they think I play with people for petty personal reasons.” He watched them with nothing but curiosity wondering if the words would mean anything to them. It was odd, but he felt like he could finally mention that disappointment of his because he didn’t think he was suffering from it any longer. He never would have said those words out loud a year, a month, or even two days before this conversation. This numb detachedness was opening up all kinds of doors that he no longer felt he needed to see what was behind. They would think what they liked (just as they always had). He would no longer twist himself into pretzels trying to understand and mitigate their sources of displeasure.
“Well, you certainly didn’t feel as if your facts were good enough to pass muster with us since you didn’t feel inclined to share them.” He felt a passing interest in the fact that his assertion about their feelings as to his character (or lack thereof) was brushed aside without so much as a flicker of disconcertedness. It was, however, a purely ac
ademic interest. The feeling that none of this could touch him persisted.
“I didn’t think you would care.” He answered truthfully.
“I beg your pardon?” Did his father actually sound insulted? That was almost amusing.
“You don’t care what the facts are,” he asserted. “You don’t care what I found or what I told them. You don’t care why the board voted the way that it did. You just want to be angry at me for getting involved because you think I’m not capable.” He let out a soft chuckle and shook his head. It didn’t sound bitter. It sounded legitimately amused. That was good; that was how he was feeling beyond the detached.
“Which is disturbingly ironic because you’re usually angry at me because you think that I should make an effort to be more involved,” he reflected. He shook his head dismissively. “It doesn’t really matter. What matters is what you’re going to do about it?”
“Was that an open challenge?” The words didn’t come from his father. The coldly leveled demand had come from his mother. Something had provoked her out of her watchful silence, but he didn’t have the faintest idea what it had been.
Her brown eyes drilled into him, and he found himself wondering if that was part of why his mother’s disappointed gaze had always bothered him so deeply. It suddenly struck home that the fact that he had inherited his eyes from her meant seeing disappointment in her eyes was the same as seeing disappointment when he looked in the mirror. He shook off the thought. It didn’t matter now. He met her accusing gaze with an unconcerned one of his own.
“Take it however you want.”
He had nothing more to say. He was finished with explanations. He sank into a chair and folded his hands in his lap and simply looked at his parents. He wasn’t looking down. He wasn’t sitting like a scolded schoolboy. He was merely waiting. The next decision belonged to them. He didn’t particularly care how they decided to proceed. Whatever came next, he would roll with it. Walsh, Meredyth, his parents, and life in general could throw whatever they wanted at him. He knew who had his back, and it wasn’t anyone in this room.
Glimpse: The Complete Trilogy Page 20