Chapter 8 Ronan
RONAN
Inviting one’s estranged son to dinner should not feel like preparing for a surgical procedure.
And yet that is precisely how it feels.
I stand in the kitchen of my penthouse with a glass of wine in my hand, staring at the dining table as though it might offer strategic advice. The place settings are symmetrical, the food is prepared, and the wine has been properly decanted. Everything is precisely as it should be.
Which is exactly the problem.
When one has no relationship with a person, there are no familiar rhythms to rely on. No conversational shortcuts. No shared history to fall back on that doesn’t carry the weight of a complicated past.
Connor will be here in fifteen minutes. My son.
Even now, the word feels slightly formal in my mind.
It’s not that Connor and I are strangers. We have spoken occasionally. Holidays, birthdays, brief visits that never quite settle into anything resembling comfort. Something exists between us, technically speaking, but there is very little underneath it to support real weight.
I check the time again, despite the fact that only thirty seconds have passed since the last time I did so. The faint knot of nervous energy sitting in my chest is both irritating and instructive. It occurs to me that the discomfort is probably a useful signal.
If something makes you nervous, it usually means you should do it more often. At least, that has been my experience in medicine.
So here we are.
The doorbell rings exactly at seven.
I cross the living room and open the door to find Connor standing there in a tailored coat that probably costs more than the average person’s monthly rent. The coat suits him. Connor has inherited a certain physical presence that draws attention whether he intends it to or not.
“Evening,” he says. His tone is neutral. Polite. Not at all familiar.
“Connor.” I step aside and gesture toward the apartment. “Come in.”
He walks past me and pauses near the dining area, glancing around the space with mild curiosity.
The penthouse view tends to have that effect on people.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the harbor, the city lights reflecting off the water in a way that makes Boston look far more romantic than it usually feels.
“Nice place,” he remarks.
“Thank you.”
There’s a small pause after that, the sort that appears when two people are quietly searching for the next logical sentence.
“How have you been?” I ask.
“Busy.” Connor removes his coat and drapes it over the back of the chair. “Work’s been good.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Another pause settles between us.
This, unfortunately, is the fundamental challenge of rebuilding a relationship that never properly formed in the first place. One cannot repair a foundation that was never poured.
Still, I gesture toward the table. “Dinner is ready.”
Connor nods once and takes his seat.
For the first few minutes, we focus almost entirely on the mechanics of eating.
Plates are passed, glasses are filled, and the polite choreography of a shared meal unfolds with careful precision.
The conversation remains harmless enough—work schedules, general updates, the sort of neutral topics two colleagues might discuss over lunch.
It is not unpleasant. It is simply… fragile.
An hour passes like this.
Then Connor sets down his fork and looks directly at me. The shift in his posture is subtle but unmistakable. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
He studies my face for a moment before continuing. “Do you blame me for your wife’s death?”
For a moment, I am certain I must have misheard him.
Connor’s question lands on the table between us with the subtlety of a dropped weight.
I set my fork down carefully. “No.”
Connor watches me across the table, his expression unreadable. He has always been remarkably skilled at that particular trick—presenting a calm exterior while keeping whatever is happening inside his head locked firmly out of view.
“It wasn’t your fault that Aoifa died,” I continue. “Not in any capacity.”
The name still carries a strange weight even after all these years. Aoifa. My wife. A woman who possessed more patience and grace than I deserved.
Connor’s gaze shifts briefly to the wineglass in front of him. “That’s not exactly how the math works.”
I lean back slightly in my chair. “The mathematics of tragedy are rarely accurate.”
“That’s a very poetic way to avoid the point.” There’s no accusation in his voice. Only a quiet insistence.
So I give him the truth. “If I had not had an affair with your mother,” I say evenly, “then you would not exist. Aoifa would not have been on the phone with me that afternoon…”
The memory surfaces with uncomfortable clarity.
Traffic. The sound of her voice through the car speakers. Her broken tone. “You slept with someone else?”
The words choked out of me. “I’m so sorry—”
And then, nothing.
I clear my throat to bring myself to the present moment.
“She ran a stop sign,” I say quietly. “A semitruck hit the driver’s side door.
It was an auto collision. I certainly don’t blame someone who was barely formed for that.
You weren’t driving either vehicle.” I try for mirth with that last line, but neither of us feel it.
Connor’s fingers turn the stem of his wineglass slowly. “You’ve never blamed me?”
“Never.” That part requires no effort whatsoever. “If blame is required for the situation, it rests with me. I was the one who made the decisions that led to that moment.”
Connor’s gaze lifts again, studying my face with the same careful scrutiny he used earlier. “I always assumed you did.”
“I’m not sure why you would assume that.”
He shrugs slightly, the movement casual enough that it might pass for indifference if one weren’t paying attention. “People blame the nearest thing.”
“Perhaps,” I concede. “But you were not the nearest thing.”
Connor’s mouth twitches faintly, as though he’s suppressing some reaction he has decided not to express. I take a sip of wine and watch him across the table. Time with Connor feels like playing a game of chess with invisible pieces.
There is something else beneath the question he asked earlier. A tension that has nothing to do with my feelings toward him, and rather more to do with his feelings toward himself.
“Have you blamed yourself?” I ask.
Connor’s eyes flick up immediately. “No.”
The answer arrives a little too quickly.
It’s not the word itself that gives him away, but the timing.
Anyone who has spent enough years speaking with patients learns to recognize the small signals that accompany an unconvincing answer.
The hesitation that appears half a second too late.
The tone that shifts slightly out of alignment with the words.
Connor’s denial carries the distinct scent of bullshit. I don’t call him on it.
Whatever fragile structure we have managed to assemble this evening would not survive that particular confrontation. It has taken us nearly an hour to reach the point where he’s asking difficult questions at all. Disrupting that progress would be… counterproductive.
Still, the realization sits quietly in the back of my mind. Perhaps that is why Connor has always kept his distance. Guilt has a remarkable ability to sour relationships before they even begin.
Connor sets his glass down and studies me again. “So why the dinner invitation?”
The question is direct enough to be refreshing. “I wanted to spend time with my son.”
“That’s the official answer.”
“And the unofficial one?”
His mouth curves faintly. “You saw the watch campaign, right?”
For a brief moment, I almost laugh. “The what?”
“The deal with Valerion.” He smiles proudly. “I’m in the big leagues now.”
“It’s a big accomplishment. Congratulations are in order.” The truth is, I cannot imagine anything more inane. But, Connor appears rather pleased with the achievement, thus I will be happy for him. Or, I’ll let him think I am. “Should I break out the good stuff?”
Connor smirks. “Not needed. Save that for my next big campaign.” The corner of his mouth lifts again, and for the first time this evening the tension in the room loosens slightly.
It’s a small thing. But it feels like progress.
There are many things one might ask a son after twenty-six years of a loosely defined relationship. Career ambitions, personal interests, future plans. Safe topics that sit comfortably on the surface of a conversation.
Instead, I find myself asking something else. “When was the last time you saw your sisters?”
Connor’s hand pauses halfway to the table. The reaction is small, but it’s there. “Myrna and Orla?”
“Yes.”
He sets the bottle down and leans back slightly in his chair. The casual confidence he carries so easily returns, though it feels a bit more deliberate this time. “It’s been a while.”
“How long is a while?”
Connor shrugs. “Couple months, maybe.”
I let that sit for a moment.
Myrna and Orla are technically Connor’s half sisters, though the three of them have never quite settled into anything resembling a sibling dynamic. The girls were always polite when Connor appeared during family events, but politeness is not the same thing as closeness.
“I suspect they would enjoy seeing you.”
Connor huffs faintly. “They’ve never exactly chased me down for lunch.”
“That may be because they’re attempting to respect your boundaries.”
“My boundaries.”
“Yes.”
Connor studies me as though I have just suggested something faintly ridiculous. “They have my number.”
“They do.”
“So if they wanted to reach out…”
“They might worry about intruding.”
Myrna and Orla grew up in a household that understood Connor existed but rarely knew quite what to do with that information.
Connor picks up his fork again, though he doesn’t actually eat anything. “So the suggestion is… what?”
“That you might reach out first.”
His mouth pulls sideways. “Why should I?”
The question is blunt, but not hostile.
“Because relationships tend to require invitations,” I reply.
Connor considers that for several seconds.
“They don’t want to encroach,” I add. “Your life is… rather public these days. I imagine they assume you prefer distance. Or that perhaps, you would see them as fame-hungry. I assure you, they have no reason to seek out your fame when they have plenty of their own in their respective fields.”
“That’s not… I don’t care about that bullshit.” He lets out a quiet breath. “I’ll make an effort.”
The words arrive smoothly. Too smoothly.
Another lie. Not a malicious one. Merely a convenient one.
Unfortunately, it is remarkably difficult to read anything Connor says with certainty. When two people lack a foundation of shared history, interpretation becomes guesswork. So, I let the moment pass without pressing him further. There are some white lies that should be respected.
Dinner winds down in the slow, careful way conversations do when both parties are aware they have ventured near delicate territory and would prefer not to shatter the fragile progress made so far.
Connor leans back in his chair, turning the stem of his glass between his fingers in a quiet, absent-minded rhythm.
It strikes me again how difficult it is to read him.
Connor has grown into a man whose exterior presentation is polished, confident, and remarkably controlled. The advertising campaigns, the tailored clothing, the carefully cultivated image—these things project an image to the outside world. A curated one.
Yet sitting across from him now, I realize how little of that polish translates into something human. A father is supposed to recognize his son’s moods, his hesitations, the small tells that reveal what he is thinking.
I have no such advantage.
“I realize this evening may have seemed… unusual,” I begin after a moment.
Connor glances up from his glass. “Dinner with my father usually qualifies.”
“That is an unfortunate truth.”
His mouth curves faintly at that, though the expression fades quickly.
“I invited you because I would like us to know each other,” I continue, choosing the words with deliberate care. “That may sound obvious, but it has not historically been something we’ve attempted with much consistency.”
Connor watches me across the table. His posture remains relaxed, but the attention in his eyes sharpens slightly. “You want to fix things.”
“I would prefer the term improve.”
Connor studies the table for several seconds before finally looking back at me. “I wouldn’t hate that.”
For the first time tonight, his voice carries none of the careful distance he has maintained through most of the conversation. The admission is not dramatic. It’s not even particularly emotional.
But it is sincere.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I reply.
Connor exhales slowly, as though releasing a tension he has been holding for some time. “We don’t really know each other. But we could.”
“Then perhaps this evening is a start.”
Connor lifts his glass slightly in a quiet, informal gesture that is not quite a toast but carries the spirit of one. “To starting.”
I lift my own. “To clean slates.”