"Dad went too far earlier. I'm sorry on his behalf. Come home first, and we can talk it through."
"Rudolph, please don't be like this, okay?"
I didn't reply to any of it. I set my phone facedown on the table and kept eating.
Mom glanced at the phone, then at me. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and said nothing.
After dinner, I went out to the balcony for a smoke.
The phone buzzed again.
This time, I picked up.
"Rudolph." Prudence's voice came through, soft and gentle. "Where are you? Are you at your mom's?"
"I know today upset you."
"You know how my dad is. When his temper flares, he says whatever comes to mind."
"Don't take it to heart. Come home, and we'll talk."
"I'm not coming back," I said flatly.
A beat of silence.
"What did you say?"
"I said I'm not coming back." I ground the cigarette out. "Not tonight. Not ever."
"The divorce wasn't a joke."
Silence stretched on the other end for several seconds.
"Rudolph, don't do this." Her voice shifted, a thin edge of anger creeping in beneath the restraint. "I know you were humiliated today, but you can't just throw the word 'divorce' around like that."
"I'm not throwing it around."
"Then what do you want?" Her pitch climbed. "I already said I'd make up for the gift money. I apologized. What else? You want me to get on my knees?"
"No."
"Then come home. We'll talk it out."
"There's nothing to talk about."
I was about to hang up when a burst of noise erupted on the other end, like someone snatching the phone away.
Then Kevin Swanson's voice exploded through the speaker, so loud my eardrum ached.
"Rudolph, you ungrateful piece of trash!"
His voice was enormous, slurred with liquor.
"Who the hell do you think you are? I married my daughter off to you. I let you scrape by at my company. And now you've got the nerve to push back?"
I held the phone. Said nothing.
"A broke nobody. Some hick who crawled out of the sticks!"
"Your mother, that crippled old woman—if I hadn't taken pity on her, you think she'd have a job at Grandwell? You think she'd be pulling that paycheck? Twenty-eight hundred a month. I might as well have been tossing scraps to a beggar!"
"And today you had the gall to cop an attitude with me in my own office? You?"
The insults poured faster, one on top of the next, no room to get a word in.
"Let me tell you something, Rudolph. I've seen a hundred guys like you!"
"No talent, no connections. Just a thick skin and a willingness to leech."
"You think those sales awards were because of you? That was Grandwell's brand doing the heavy lifting!"
"Try it at another company. See how far you get. You'd be nothing. Less than nothing!"
"And you dare bring up divorce to my daughter? Go ahead! Divorce her! I'd love that!"
"Prudence stuck with a broke deadbeat like you—it's been killing me to watch!"
"Good riddance. I'll find her a real man from a real family. What are you, exactly?"
Through the speaker, I heard Prudence in the background, her voice low and pleading. "Dad, stop..."
"Stay out of this!"
Kevin barked her down, then turned back to the phone.
"Listen to me carefully, Rudolph. If you don't come back tonight, tomorrow I'll make sure you never work in this industry again!"
"You think Grandwell's clients belong to you? Those accounts? All I have to do is make one phone call, and we'll see how many of them still know your name."
"And that cripple mother of yours—she loves working so much? Fine. I'll put the word out to every company in Riverside City. Let's see who dares hire her!"
"One call from me, and she won't even find work sweeping streets. You think I'm bluffing?"
My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles went white.
"You've got ten minutes! If I don't see your sorry face in ten minutes, you just wait and see what happens!"
"I've been running this city for thirty years! There isn't a corner of Riverside where I don't have people!"
"You make my daughter unhappy, and I will crush you like the backwater mutt you are!"
