The Maine Event

Chapter 15

Logan had just buckled his seatbelt on the HPG jet as his father arrived, taking a seat opposite him, carrying a newspaper he'd just grabbed from the flight attendant. Mitchum had been stuck in traffic resulting in the jet to miss their take off slot at London Stapleford. They were off to Munich for a few days for a series of meeting. His father looked tired, his eyes bloodshot. That was really no wonder - the man was getting old, no matter if he admitted it or not, and just keeping up the former pace, was getting to him.

"You okay there, dad?" Logan asked genuinely.

"Oh yea, just the bloody Penguin. They're proving to be difficult," he replied referring to a recent lawsuit he was dealing with concerning the Penguin Publishing house.

"Everything alright with you?" Mitchum asked, appreciating his son's concern.

"Okay, I guess. The holiday was good, it's just been a little difficult to get back in the work mode since," he replied truthfully, but didn't really elaborate into the real reasons.

"You'll be off to your honeymoon soon enough," Mitchum noted, observing his son carefully, before folding open the newspaper, dissappearing behind it.

"Listen dad...," Logan began after a few moments, wanting to at least explore the topic in some extent with his father. There certainly wasn't going to be a much better place to do it than this with hardly anyone at earshot. "Honor and I were talking at Christmas about what we used to do in the summers when we were growing up, and she reminded me that we spent some time over in Maine. I didn't really remember that time, but I guess I must've been like 4 or 5 or something. I just wondered why we never did stuff like that later on.... Honor had to remind me but I now think I remember the swimming and boating," he added, wondering how his father would take a question like that.

Mitchum certainly hadn't expected that question and it took him a few moments to reply.

"I guess, it must've been just before I took over the company from Elias, the work just got crazy after that. But don't get me wrong, I was glad you guys at least got to have some of that traditional childhood," Mitchum recalled, lowering the newspaper with a completely composed look on his face. Later on it had been nannies, coaches, boarding schools and board meetings for the two.

"I know it's your life's work, dad. But did you ever regret taking it on?" Logan asked.

"You're not having second thoughts about taking over are you?" Mitchum chuckled. "Because I think it's a little late for that," he added sternly, raising his eyebrows.

"No, but it is a big compromise. Things are just rapidly changing right now, I think it's about time I contemplate over my life a little. If not now, when?" he tried to joke.

"Well it's a big compromise alright. When you'll have kids of your own, you'll see. Everybody wants to do everything, and then most of them will tell you it's a matter of prioritizing or choices more generally, but in reality there are always some activities that just can't be postponed, and that doesn't really make it a very even playing field," Mitchum noted. Perhaps it was even his way to justifying the way he had been afterwards, distant and drawn. But Logan did understand - when there were the livelyhoods of thousands of people on the line, missing a soccer game hardly seemed like a big deal.

"I'm sorry to bring it up, but Honor recalled that back in Maine it was just us three, no mom. I wonder why that was?" he continued, wondering whether he was beginning to reach his tolerance level yet.

"I think that was around the time we had been fighting, well mostly about the very same work-life balance, if I remember correctly. And she never really was a fan of that place. 'Too common', or something like that she tended to call it," Mitchum recalled.