Page 34 of The Scrooge Effect

“She’s pregnant.”

Lock glanced over at me, and I knew immediately he was wondering how I’d reacted. “And…is that a good thing?”

“It is. I mean, I’m happy.”

“You sound it,” he muttered.

“I’m just…in a weird place right now. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy.”

He looked over at me again, this time shaking his head. “I really hope you didn’t tell Harper like that. Maybe she will run away.”

“You don’t think she would, do you?”

“Man, I don’t know. You’re all over the place. You wanted her back. You wanted the baby, and you were ecstatic when Gracie came and then James, but now…I don’t know, if I were her, I wouldn’t exactly be thrilled by your response. What have you done for her since?”

“What do you mean?”

Scoffing, he shook his head at me. “You missed most of the first pregnancy. You were there for the second, but you can’t just assume your job is done. Now’s your chance to make up for it. Massage her feet at the end of the day. Pick up the slack at home. Maybe tell her that you’re happy about the baby.”

“Shit.” I rubbed my hand over my face, feeling like a complete failure. “She’s really gonna leave me.”

“She is not. Relax, there’s still plenty of time to fix this. We’ll finish this job, and then we’ll figure out how to make all of this right.”

“Oh, are you going to magically make me like Christmas? Are you going to solve all the issues with the old man’s house?”

“I think before you do anything with that house, you have to ask yourself a few questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why you’re really pissed about him leaving it to you. There had to be a reason.”

“And you think I should look deep into my soul and find out if I still love my old man?”

“No, I’m saying…You didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to either of them, and I don’t think you’ve ever really dealt with that.”

“I have nothing to say to him. I mean, if he were alive. He’s dead, and that’s the way I wanted it.”

“But you didn’t get any closure. He went to prison, and that was it. You never saw him again. You never told him all the shit that had been building up inside you.”

“Because I didn’t need to. I wanted him out of my life, and when he was, there was nothing left to say,” I snapped.

He shifted uncomfortably beside me.

“What? You don’t think I’m serious?”

“I think you’re burying a lot of shit and trauma, and you’re pretending you’re impenetrable, but man, we all have shit that gets to us. The longer you keep that bottled up, the less likely it is that you’ll have any kind of healthy relationship with Harper.”

There was a very large part of me that didn’t want to hear a word he had to say, but deep down, I knew he was right. Everything about my childhood had affected my future, and it was ruining what I had with Harper. I was letting that evil seep into my life without even knowing it.

I had to cut the head off the snake before I lost everything I had.

And I’d figure that out as soon as this job was over. There was no way I was going to lose my wife and kids over the scum that was my father.

“So, I’ll get back and burn the house. That’ll be it.”

“Dude, that’s not⁠—”

“What? You said I need to face it. This is what I need. Burn the house, get him out of my life, and move on.”