That’s all Flora and Miguel have ever been to these people.
“My parents have worked for you for over twenty years,” I hiss through clenched teeth, so furious I’m barely able to breathe. “Gull Cottage has been their home for as long as they’ve lived in this country. And you’re just going to throw them out on the street like… like… rubbish on trash day?”
“Certainly not.” Vincent huffs. “We are in a position to provide them with quite a generous severance package. Enough money to get them set up with a house of their own anywhere in the world.”
Anywhere except Manchester-by-the-Sea, he means.
“However…” Blair’s lips twist in a fake frown. “We are under no such obligation to do so. Technically, as they are in violation of their contract, we owe them nothing. Not a penny. Not even two weeks notice.” She pauses. “I doubt they’d find other work in this area. It’s a small community. People talk. You know how it is.”
Translation: we will use our extensive network to blacklist your parents from any potential job opportunities in a hundred-mile radius.
I look back and forth between them. My heart is lodged inside my throat. “So that’s my choice. Either I lose Jo… or lose everything else. My future. My family. My whole fucking life.”
Blair sniffs. “I wouldn’t phrase it so crudely, but… yes. In a sense, if you cut your ties with our daughter, we will ensure that you walk away from this rather unpleasant incident a free man. And we will take care of your parents in such a generous manner, they can retire tomorrow, if they so choose.”
My eyelids press closed. Jo’s face appears behind them. A million versions of it. A million memories, embedded deeply in my mind.
Jo at 4, wearing overalls and lopsided pigtails.
Jo at 8, teaching me to skip stones in the cove.
Jo at 10, digging up quahogs on the shore.
Jo at 12, teaching me the basics of sailing.
Jo at 15, scowling at me under the stars.
Jo at 17, telling me she loved me.
Jo at 18, exploding into passion beneath me.
“I can’t.” My eyes open. “I won’t.”
“Don’t be so stubborn, Archer.” Blair scoffs. “Think it through. We all know your baseball career is effectively over. Which means… no scholarship. No college. Even if you beat the criminal charges, you’re looking at a far smaller future than the one you planned on.”
I try to block her out, but her words hit me like bullets, tearing into the fabric of my heart.
“Without our help… you’ll be an ex-con, like your brother. Is that really what you want?.” She pauses artfully. “Tell me — can you really picture Josephine in that future with you? Do you really think she’d want you likethis? No talent? No prospects? No ability to provide the kind of life to which she is accustomed?”
I clench my fists. Pain shoots through my broken bones — a pain so intense, my eyes fill with tears. I can’t bring myself to speak.
“You have nothing to offer,” Vincent says flatly. “You can’t elevate her to the heights she deserves. You will only bring her down, into a life of misery and despair. And, eventually… she will hate you for it.”
I stare at the wall. For a long time, the room is completely silent. The agony inside my heart is stronger, even, that the physical pain of my broken body. I find myself wishing, just for a moment, that I really had died when my truck flipped. A quick exit might’ve been more merciful than this slow atrophy occurring inside my soul.
I have lost everything.
My future.
My dream.
My love.
Looking back at Blair and Vincent, I swallow hard. The voice that comes out of my mouth sounds like it belongs to a stranger.
Cold.
Dead.