The Blue Zone. Andrew Gross

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       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      Kate found him on the back porch, sitting in an Adirondack chair in the chilly late-September air, overlooking the Sound.

      She already felt that something was different about him. His fingers were locked in front of his face, and he was staring out onto the water, a glass of bourbon on the chair arm beside him.

      He didn’t even turn.

      Kate sat on the swinging bench across from him. Finally he looked at her, a brooding darkness in his eyes.

      “Who are you, Daddy?”

      “Kate …” He turned and reached for her hand.

      “No, I need to hear it from you, Daddy. Because all of a sudden, I don’t know. All of a sudden, I’m trying to figure out which part of you—which part of all this—isn’t some kind of crazy lie. All that preaching about what made us strong, our family … How could you, Dad?”

      “I’m your father, Kate,” he said, hunching deeper in the chair. “That’s not a lie.”

      “No.” She shook her head. “My father was this honest, stand-up man. He taught us how to be strong and make a difference. He didn’t look in my eye and tell me to trust him one day and then the next say that everything about his life is a lie. You knew, Daddy. You knew what you were doing all along. You knew every goddamn day you came home to us. Every day of our lives …”

      He nodded. “What isn’t a lie is that I love you, pumpkin.”

      “Don’t call me that!” Kate said. “You don’t get to call me that ever again. That’s gone. That’s the price you pay for this. Look around you, Dad—look at the hurt you’ve caused.”

      Her father flinched. He suddenly looked small to Kate, weakened.

      “You can’t just build this wall down the center of your life and say, ‘On this side I’m a good person—a good father—but on the other side I’m a liar and a thief.’ I know you’re sorry, Dad. I’m sure this hurts. I wish I could stand behind you, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at you quite the same way.”

      “I’m afraid you’re going to have to, Kate. We’re all going to need one another more than ever now, to get through this.”

      “Well, that’s the thing.” Kate shook her head. “I won’t be going with you, Daddy. I’m staying here.”

      He turned—his pupils fixed and widening. Alarmed. “You have to, Kate. You could be in danger. I know how angry you are. But if I testify, anyone who might possibly lead back to me—”

      “No,” she stopped him, “I don’t. I don’t have to, Daddy. I’m over twenty-one. I have my life here. My work. Greg. Maybe Em and Justin, you can drag them along, and somehow I hope to God you can repair the hurt you’ve caused. But I won’t be going. Don’t you see, you’ve ruined lives, Daddy. And not just your own. People you love. You’ve robbed them of someone they loved and looked up to. I’m sorry, Dad, I won’t let you ruin mine, too.”

      He stared at her, stunned at what he was hearing. Then he looked down. “If you don’t,” he said, “you know it might be a very long time before you can see any of us again.”

      “I know,” Kate said. “And it’s breaking my heart, Daddy. About as much as it’s breaking my heart to look at you now.”

      He sucked in a breath and reached out a hand toward her, as if looking for some kind of forgiveness.

      “All I did was buy the gold,” he said. “I’ve never even seen a bag of cocaine.”

      “No, you don’t get to think that, Dad,” Kate said angrily. She took his hand, but his fingers had changed from the ones that she felt yesterday—now foreign and unfamiliar and cold.

      “Look around you, Dad. This was our family. You’ve done a whole lot more than that.”