Page 25 of The Homewreckers
“Okay, I guess. We don’t talk a lot.”
“Does she know about this television show you’re fixing to do?”
Hattie had explained aboutHomewreckersin her call to him the night before.
“Not yet. I wanted to wait until I get the house under contract.”
“Tell me about the house,” her father prompted. “It sounds like you’re going to have to pump a hell of a lot of money in it. And right after you lost your shirt on that place on Tattnall Street. You sure you’ll make back your investment?”
She bristled at his blunt reminder of her most recent failure, and realized that in Woody’s eyes, she was still the same age she’d been when he’d been sent to prison.
“You know, Dad, I’ve been doing this for a living since I was eighteen. I’ve run all the comps on Tybee waterfront houses sold in the past eighteen months. The lot alone, without the house, is worth half a million dollars, easy.”
“Come on. Tybee Island, half a million?”
“It’s not like it used to be, Dad.”
“Okay, let’s talk numbers.”
She’d brought along a yellow legal pad with her rough estimate of what she’d have to spend to buy the house, and an even rougher number for the renovation. “This is all just based on eyeballing it,” she explained, tapping the paper with her pen. “The Creedmores have basically let the house rot since the last hurricane.”
“Hard to believe Holland Creedmore is just going to sit back and let that house get bought out from under him. You want to watch out for that character. Back in the day he always had some kind of shady back-room deal cooking.”
Hattie stared at her father.
“What? You think your old man is the only one who ever committed a crime? Listen here, Hattie. The only difference between me and Holland Creedmore and at least half the movers and shakers in Savannah is that I got caught and went to prison for what I did.”
She doodled on the legal pad. Sketches of houses and trees and birds and bunnies. Anything to avoid meeting her father’s eyes.
“Look at me, young lady,” her father said sternly, in the same tone of voice he’d used when she was a child, berating her for a less than perfect grade in school.
She lifted her chin and coolly met his gaze. Once his eyes had been a deep, piercing brown. Now they were lighter, almost greenish-hazel.
“I made mistakes a long time ago. But I paid back that money. I’ve been a model citizen since I got out, and I don’t appreciate being judged all over again by my own daughter.”
He hadn’t really changed, Hattie realized. Woody Bowers, at his core, would always be Woody Bowers. He’d survived prison and he would survive everything life threw at him because the only person he really cared about was himself.
“Go ahead and say what’s on your mind,” he challenged.
“You paid back the money you stole from orphans and widows and kids with cancer. You think going to prison erases all that. But what about what you stole from me, and Mom? You destroyed our family, and you have never once acknowledged, let alone apologized, for that. The stink from what you did settled on me, and on her.”
“You haven’t done so badly,” Woody protested. “You got to stay in that expensive private school. I saw to it that you had money for what you needed. And now, when you come to me because you need money, do I turn you away?”
She got up and looked out the window, toward the river, and changed the subject. “What are you afraid of, Dad? Why all the security cameras and locked gates? Why all the secrecy?”
“There are people out there who don’t like the fact that I’m out of prison, and I’m making money again. I got to watch out for myself.”
He began clearing the lunch dishes. “You want something else to eat? Some cookies?”
“No, thanks. I better get back to town.”
He pulled out a binder of checks and placed it on the table, scratching numbers on the paper so furiously the pen pierced the check in a couple of places. He ripped it from the book and held it out to her.
“So that’s it, huh? You show up here, ask me for a loan, get your check, and then leave?”
Hattie didn’t flinch. “What did you expect? A teary-eyed family reunion? You want to hold me up with emotional blackmail? That’s not gonna work on me anymore, Dad. I finally figured it out. Everything is a transaction to you. Okay, fine. I don’t need your love, or your approval, or even your respect anymore. But I’ll take a loan. And I’ll pay you back. Because, just like you taught me, I know now that a clean balance sheet is the key to happiness.”
She took the check, folded it, and put it in her pocket. She opened the back door and whistled for Ribsy. “Come on, boy. Time to go home.”
