Page 169 of Hello, Summer
Grayson walked over and knelt on the floor by her. “Honey, why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me about Dad? I’m your sister. You should have told me.”
“I thought it was my fault. I knew how depressed he was, but I went off and took a job out of town and told myself it would be all right. I’ve felt so guilty. Maybe if I’d been around more, I could have done something, been there for him.”
“No.” Grayson was emphatic. “You couldn’t. No matter how much we loved Dad, we couldn’t save him. Nobody could.”
“How can you know that?”
“How can you not and stay sane? Here’s the truth, Conley. Dad’s gone. It’s okay to grieve for him, but you and I have got to move on. I don’t want to be like G’mama, hanging on to a landline, hoping that someday my daughter will magically call home and ask for forgiveness.”
“How do you do that?” Conley asked. “How am I supposed to move on when I still wake up in the middle of the night, hearing his voice?”
“You don’t do it by running away,” Grayson said.
“I’m not.”
Grayson looked dubious.
“I don’t want to work for the network. At least not full-time. And I don’t want to go back to work for the Atlanta paper either. I’ve done that already.”
“Soooo?”
“I was thinking,” Conley said slowly. “What if we can find a way to make theBeaconsolvent again?”
“How wouldweaccomplish that? The last week has been an amazing morale booster for all of us, but less than a hundred new subscribers and a handful of new advertisers aren’t gonna cut it.”
“We’ve gotta look for new ways to do community journalism,” Conley said. “Maybe we look for investors—not to buy us out but to partner with us. There are grants too. I’ve read about several foundations that are funding small-scale investigative journalism projects. And if we can hang on to our boy genius out there, maybe he can help us figure out how to monetize our social media.”
“That all sounds really promising,” Grayson said, “but I don’t want you thinking you have to give up your career to save theBeaconout of some misguided sense of guilt. There’s been enough of that in this family.”
“What about you? You gave up a law career to come home and run this paper, and you’ve sacrificed everything to try to save it. Why are you sticking around?”
“Because I believe in what we’re trying to do? Because this is my home, and I want to make this a better place to someday raise my own family?”
“Does that mean you and Tony are on again?”
Gray looked at her watch. “His plane got in a little while ago. I promised him I’d make sure there was gas for the lawnmower and that I’d be home for dinner tonight—deadline or no deadline.”
“Sounds like a sensible plan,” Conley said. “Speaking of deadlines,guess I’d better get over to the cop shop and pick up the incident reports for this week’s police blotter, huh?”
“It’s already done,” Gray said.
“By whom?”
“Our new police reporter, Lillian King. She’s got a lot more free time now that she doesn’t have to retype Rowena’s column. Why don’t you go on out to the Dunes? I think we can cut you a little slack this once, considering what you went through this weekend. In fact, that’s an order. Go home.”
“Thanks. I’ve got one last loose end to tie up, and then I will.”
She called Skelly from her desk phone.
“Hi.” He sounded surprised to hear from her.
“Hi yourself. I realize this is short notice, but I was wondering if you’d care to have a late dinner with me tonight?”
“I’d love to if I can get my mom’s caregiver to stay late. But that shouldn’t be a problem. What time and where?”
“The Dunes. Can you make it by seven?”
“What can I bring?”
