CHAPTER 14 : My Father's Shadow POV : Damian

The call from the hospital comes in at 6:40 P.M., right as I am finishing up the review of the acquisition forecast.

Adrian sits across the desk from me, waiting for my approval on something else. I hold up one finger to him and take the call.

“Mr. Blackwood? This is cardiology. We are calling in connection with your ongoing assessment. Dr. Harris would like to talk to you about the latest information. Could you come tomorrow morning?”

I look down at my calendar. “Can we do this over the phone?”

“I'm afraid Dr. Harris would rather speak to you in person.”

“Is it an emergency?”

“He'd be better placed to explain the findings himself, sir.” A brief pause. “Nine thirty, if you are free.”

I don't like that answer. It provides me with just enough information to dream up a few possibilities and not enough to judge any of them.

I check the calendar again. We can postpone the meeting with Northstar's legal team. Adrian can push back his internal review for another hour.

“Nine thirty is good.”

“Thank you, Mr. Blackwood. We'll see you tomorrow.”

The call ends.

Adrian sees me put the phone down. “Hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Everything okay?”

“They want to talk about some of the information in my assessment.”

He does not question me again. I value that more than I mean to show.

“Move the legal review to eleven,” I say. “I'll be free after the appointment.”

“Done.”

He pushes the papers away from my desk, but his eyes stay on me for a second longer.

“Shall I go along with you?”

“No.”

“Right.”

He turns to the door.

“Adrian.”

He stops. “Yes?”

“Forward any changes to tomorrow's schedule to me directly. I do not want to learn about them by a reminder.”

When he's gone, I open the forecast again.

The numbers are the same. Northstar's revenue forecast is still looking strong, the transition costs are manageable, and the acquisition still makes sense. I read the same paragraph twice before I have to confess that my attention has wandered.

I shut the document.

I have been able to keep a problem apart from everything else for years. Find the problem, set the facts, find the possible solutions, act. If the facts are not enough, find more facts. If a decision is hard, make it anyway.

My dad's rules weren't much different.

He taught me that hesitation is an expensive habit to cultivate. He also taught me that a man who let others make his decisions would have no decisions left to make.

I learned those lessons early on.

Likely too early.

---

My father is forty-eight the first time I know that something is wrong.

I'm old enough to know that adults sometimes lie, but young enough to think I can catch them in the act. I'm fourteen.

He cancels dinner with me twice in one week. His office calls the first time and says an important meeting ran over. The second time, our housekeeper tells me that he is not feeling well.

When I ask what that means, she busies herself with the plates.

“Your father needs to rest.”

“What's wrong with him?”

“Nothing to worry about.”

I know the answer. It means somebody decided I don't have a right to the truth.

Later that evening, I find him in his study, seated behind his desk, tie loosened, his eyes closed. There is a glass of water near a stack of contracts. His coat is draped over the back of his chair.

“Are you sick?”

His eyes fly open. “No.”

“You missed dinner.”

“I had to finish work.”

“Mrs. Ellis said you had to rest.”

He looks at me for a beat and then gestures to the chair across from him.

“Come over here.”

I remain standing.

He sighs, but there's amusement in his face. “You are getting difficult.”

“You taught me to ask questions.”

“That was a mistake, of course.”

I smile involuntarily.

He picks up the water and drinks, then replaces the glass with care.

“I'm having a little trouble with my heart,” he says.

At first, the words don't mean much to me. I know what a heart does. I know people get ill. I have read about operations, medicines, and hospitals.

But my dad is the man who makes problems disappear.

He knows how to handle a contract gone bad, a supplier who breaks a deal, a board member threatening to withhold support. I have never thought about the possibility that his own body might become a problem he cannot solve.

“Can they fix it?”

“The doctors are working on it.”

“Why are you still working, then?”

His mouth has a slight curve.

“Because the company doesn't stop just because I'm having a bad week.”

“Can't somebody else do it?”

He leans back, and for a moment, I see the tiredness he has been trying to hide.

“Someone else can run a business, Damian. That doesn't mean they'll do it the way I would.”

It is not the answer to my question, but it is the only answer he gives.

The frequency of his appointments increases over the next few months. Sometimes he leaves early and gets home before I return from school. Sometimes he gets home late, his face long, and says he's had a long day.

I start to see the little things.

The hesitations before he goes up the stairs. The way he sits down more often when he talks. How his voice trails off and loses its usual strength when he thinks no one is listening.

When I ask him if he is getting better, he always says the same thing.

“We're dealing with it.”

Not I'm getting better.

The treatment does not work.

It is.

I'm starting to hate those words.

They sound like a promise until I ask what they mean.

---

My mother is gone before I turn sixteen.

I can think of no dramatic argument, no final statement that accounts for it all. It is only weeks of awkward conversations, closed doors, and more and more evenings when she says she has somewhere to be.

One afternoon, I come home and see two suitcases by the entrance. I find out she is leaving.

She's by the stairs in a cream coat, holding her handbag.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

She looks at me, and something in her face makes my gut clench.

“Damian, I need some time away.”

“How long?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you going with Dad?”

Her eyes drift toward the study.

“No.”

I wait for her to speak. I wait for her to say it's temporary, that she's going somewhere to rest, that it will make sense when I understand it.

Instead, she reaches for my hand.

“You know I love you.”

“Then why are you going?”

I step back before she can hold it.

She winces.

I think for a moment she might actually tell the truth. Her lips part, and she looks at me as if she has words she's rehearsed but can't bring herself to say.

Then she shuts her mouth.

“Sorry.”

That is the last thing she says before she walks away.

I stand in the doorway long after the door has closed.

That night, my father tells me she needs space. He says this is a complicated situation and I shouldn't blame myself.

I don't have it.

It's HER fault.

But I also learn something I can't seem to forget: people can promise to stay and leave when staying is hard.

Then I stop asking questions that require someone else's willingness to tell the truth.

I work at school, on the company, and on the future my father expects me to inherit. I learn how to solve problems by myself and how to hide my worries.

If I want something, I get it myself.

When I am disappointed, I deal with it myself.

When I am scared, I find something useful to do.

It's the best way to live.

It's a lonely one, too, but I don't use that word.

---

My father's illness continues to influence our lives, even when we don't discuss it.

There are times he looks stronger. He is in the office far more often, attends meetings, and insists on reviewing important decisions himself. I allow myself to think that the worst is behind us.

Then something shifts.

His commitments multiply. Then he starts to keep more information between himself and his doctors. When I ask what they've said, he gives me bits and pieces instead of explanations.

“Your treatment is changing,” I say one night when I find a new set of instructions next to his medication.

He looks up from the newspaper.

“Some adjustments are necessary.”

“What adjustments?”

“There's nothing for you to worry about.”

I set the paper down.

“I'm not a child.”

“No. You are my boy.”

“Then stop acting like one.”

His face goes tight.

“I am trying to protect you from things that you cannot control.”

“You won't tell me anything, so I don't know what I can take.”

We stare at one another across the dining table for a few seconds.

Then he puts the paper away.

“There are some decisions a man has to make for himself, Damian. When you grow up, you will understand.”

I'm angry with him. Not because he is ill, but because he appears determined to deal with it alone and to be satisfied with whatever scraps of information he sees fit to tell me.

I want to ask him if he is afraid.

I want to ask if the doctors told him something he doesn't want me to know.

But I rise from the table.

I tell myself to ask again when he's ready to answer.

I never get the chance I expect.

As his health continues to fail, our conversations become shorter and more guarded. I know enough to realise that his condition is serious, but not enough to know what is going on behind the closed doors of his appointments.

When he dies, I am left with questions that have no answers.

I never knew the whole story of his last months. Some of the medical decisions are still unclear to me, and it's harder to sift through the memories of conversations we avoided and the facts I do know.

I'm a total information junkie.

I read anything that I can get my hands on.

I keep asking questions until I get answers. I ensure that the company has clear emergency, succession, and accountability processes.

I remind myself that to prepare is to honour him.

Maybe it is.

But preparation becomes something else at a point in the process. It's a way to make sure no one can blindside me with information that changes everything.

And now Amelia Carter is asking me to believe that some answers will come when they come, no matter how many questions I ask.

---

The next morning, I am twelve minutes early at the hospital.

I tell myself it's because I want the appointment done before the legal review. Nothing to do with the fact that I spent part of the night thinking about what Dr. Harris might have to tell me.

The reception area is already quite busy. A boy sits next to his mother, swinging his legs under the chair. A nurse checks an old man's details while he looks at a newspaper. No one has the time or the inclination to notice me.

That's kind of comforting to me.

The nurse calls out my name, and I follow her down the corridor.

Dr. Harris awaits in his office. Amelia stands by the desk, a file open in front of her.

Her eyes come up as I walk in.

“Good morning, Damian.”

“Dr. Carter.”

Her face is empty. I can't tell if she's worried, tired, or just in the zone for the appointment ahead.

I hate that I need to know.

Dr. Harris points to the chair.

“Sit down. We've reviewed the information from your recent assessment, and there are a few points I'd like to go over with you.”

I take a seat.

Amelia is sitting in the chair beside the desk, not across from me. It's a small thing, but it makes a difference in how the room is arranged. This is not a fight between a doctor and a difficult patient. It's a discussion that I'm supposed to be a part of.

Dr. Harris begins to explain what the evidence can show and what it can't. He distinguishes the findings that have been confirmed from the questions that still need investigation. There is no puzzle piece to end the puzzle, no easy answer that lets me return to my work and put it out of my mind.

I listen carefully.

When he's done, I ask what happens next.

Amelia replies with the follow-up plan and the assessment items still outstanding. She explains why each recommendation is being made and doesn't try to hide the remaining uncertainty.

I ask another question.

She answers.

Then a third.

She never gets impatient. She never reassures me just because I want her to.

For the first time, I understand something that has been bothering me since our first meeting.

She's not keeping anything from me to keep control of me. She refuses to give me information that she doesn't have.

It's different.

“What do you recommend?” I ask, looking down at the notes in front of me.

Amelia looks me in the eye.

“I suggest we finish the assessment, look at the results together, and decide based on what the evidence suggests. If anything changes before then, you need to tell us.”

No guarantees. No attempt to make me feel better by faking an outcome.

Just a plan.

I nod.

“Good.”

Dr. Harris makes a note, and Amelia confirms the arrangements for the follow-up.

“Please provide me with copies of the relevant results as they are released,” I say.

She nods.

The appointment goes through without further discussion.

Outside the office, I stop at the window across the corridor as Amelia goes to put the file back in the department.

In my mind, I see my father in his study, saying the doctors are working on it. I think of my mother leaving without any explanation I could understand. I think about how easy it was for uncertainty to become something I could not challenge or control.

Trusting Amelia with my medical decisions is not abdicating responsibility. It means trusting someone qualified to do her job, asking questions when I need answers, and accepting that the truth might not come on my schedule.

I can do that much.

To leave the rest to her is another matter.

She has seen my irritation, my impatience, and the fear I confessed yesterday. She has not used any of them against me. But I can't forget the feeling of exposure when I told her the truth.

I'm not ready to give her any more yet.

My phone buzzes.

Adrian's message flashes across the screen.

The finance team has looked into the discrepancy you pointed out. You have to give them permission to look at the backup records before they can finish the reconciliation.

I read it twice.

The company is awaiting a decision. There are papers to read. Questions to answer. People who expect me to be responsible.

They are known problems.

I write a short response authorising the review and put the phone down.

Then I glance back toward Amelia's office.

I can trust her to tell me what she knows.

I can trust her to tell me if she's not sure enough.

That will have to do for the present.

Because I learned how to bear uncertainty myself at a young age.

I have no idea how to have somebody stand next to me while I do it.