Chapter Thirty Two
Up ahead, a house comes into view. I almost miss it because it doesn’t announce itself the way other Waversea properties do.
There’s no iron gate, no long drive, no manicured warning to turn back before it’s too late.
Instead, it sits back from the dirt track like it’s trying not to be noticed.
Small, modest, and definitely not whatever I was bracing for.
A narrow line of solar panels tilts along one side of the roof, catching the light. One window is boarded with wood that has been perfectly cut to fit, rather than but cleanly slapped on in a panic. The other is intact, a pale curtain hanging behind it that stirs faintly with movement from inside.
I clock the Nissan, discarded off to the side as if it was parked in a rush.
Harper’s hold on my arm doesn’t relent, dragging me all the way to the small porch with no self-preservation.
The steps groan behind our weight, placing us between two mismatched chairs facing the minimal yard as someone sits there to drink coffee and pretend the world wasn’t so heavy.
I hesitate, not knowing what she expects of me.
To knock and say, "Hey, Dad, you look shit today?" Turns out, I don’t need to do anything, because Harper puffs out her chest and raps her knuckles on the door. I wish I could share in the small smile she gives me, the one that fully believes we’re about to cut off the hydra’s head.
If that’s her intention, she doesn’t know her Greek mythology very well.
My feet twitch, preparing to bolt, when the door creaks open carefully, revealing a hint of a face peering through the crack.
The air that seeps out around him is warm, humming faintly with electricity.
It takes far too long for the recognition to flare in my father’s blue eyes, the crinkles of age around them seeming out of place.
My stomach knots, my lungs forgetting how to work.
“Rh-Rhys?” he asks in a voice far too kind. I frown, taking a hesitant step back.
“What is this?” I ask no one in particular. Harper’s head tilts, her keen eye assessing the man who steps further out of the house. There’s an old stain on his T-shirt, cargos on his legs that are in desperate need of pressing.
“My God, Rhys,” he steps forward, arms raised. I take another step out of his reach, my heels teetering on the porch steps. In response, he lowers his arms and presses his lips together. “Maybe you’d better come inside.”
Whatever happens next comes in flashes of confusion.
Gentle hands usher me into the house, Harper’s body tucked into my side and Clayton’s chest remaining at my back.
I vaguely register a hallway, a kitchen.
A warm mug is placed in my hand, my father’s sleeves now rolled up to the elbow.
I lower into a dining chair, presumably because I’m told to, the wood not feeling entirely solid.
He stands across the room, keeping a safe distance between us as he leans on a counter.
I blink a few times. Phillip Waversea doesn’t lean.
He stands ramrod straight with smug entitlement.
“Who are you?” I almost growl, grateful for Harper rushing to remove the steamy cup from my hands. A flicker of confusion passes his features.
“Um, Rhys, I’m your father.” He says it with such earnestness, it’s almost impossible not to believe him. My head spins. What in the Darth Vader hell is happening right now? “You…that’s why you came, isn’t it? To see us?”
“Us?” I nearly croak. Harper clears her throat to gain my attention, her eyes sliding to an adjoining room and back again.
I stand with a wobble in my knees, closing the gap between us.
The man claiming to be my father mumbles something that I don’t hear, or don’t want to hear, because my gaze has settled on her.
She’s seated in a recliner by the window, positioned carefully so the solar light hits her face.
Tubing trails from beneath a soft blanket, disappearing into a compact medical unit beside her chair, its screen glowing with green numbers.
She’s smaller than I remember. Frailer. Her hair, once thick and dark, has gone almost entirely silver, pulled back loosely with strands escaping around her temples.
Her skin looks translucent, stretched thin over delicate bones, and when she lifts her head, it’s slow as if the movement costs her the precious energy she’s trying to reserve.
Her eyes, though. Holy hell, they’re exactly the same.
Blue, warm, impossibly gentle. The way I’ve seen them in all of the dreams I refused to remember when each morning came.
Now though, they rush back to me with a force that cleaves my chest in half.
I must stumble, my knees buckling, because Clayton catches me, his sturdy shoulder propping me up.
That’s when she looks at me.
“Rhys?” she breathes, my name barely more than a hissed exhale.
She stares eerily, as if seeing a hallucination, or perhaps a memory.
Bringing a hand to her mouth, her fingers trembling, silent tears roll down her cheeks.
A sob bubbles up behind her hand, her whole body folding in on itself from the force of it, and all I can do is stand there.
The man who’s claiming to be my father is at her side in an instant, setting another mug down to crouch beside her chair.
“Shh, Della. You need to breathe, or you’ll set the alarms off again,” he murmurs softly but urgently. My gaze slides to the monitor she’s hooked up to, the numbers increasing. Clutching her chest, my mother battles with herself to get herself under control.
“Oh. Oh, my baby. I knew it. I told you he’d find us.
I knew you would.” Harper nudges me to go to her, but my feet remain frozen.
If standing in the doorway is almost killing her, I’m terrified to take a single step closer.
I haven’t come all this way just to watch her die.
Except then she reaches for me and, with some encouragement from those on either side of me, I stumble forward.
Taking her hand in mine, I startle at how fragile and cold it is. My father, apparently, watches me with a warmth in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
“It’s okay,” he manages a smile. “She’s tougher than she looks.
” This earns him a light smack from the hand, the pair of them chuckling lightly.
The disorientation I’m falling victim to doesn’t seem to be striking them in the same way.
As it stands, my ribs feel like they’re closing in around my heart, trying to still it from beating.
Shifting her thin fingers, my mother lifts them to brush over my hair.
Her smile is delicate yet radiant, like she’s seeing something no one else can.
“You look so grown, so handsome,” she whispers.
I try to look away, but it’s impossible.
How ironic that I’ve made myself the embodiment of what I thought she’d hate out of spite, and here she is, calling me handsome.
Her fingers shift from my hair to my cheek, cradling it tenderly.
“I’ve missed you every day. Every single day. ”
I swallow hard, my throat burning. Twenty years of questions claw at my tongue, but none of them come out. Instead, all I can think of is that she left. That she disappeared without a word. That I cried myself to sleep, clutching a blanket that was then burned like evidence of a crime.
“What…what’s wrong with you?” I ask a little too harshly. I hear it back in my own ears, but my mother isn’t offended. She’s just sad, tears welling in her eyes once again.
“It’s congestive heart failure. I’ve had it for decades.”
“Two, specifically,” I comment dryly, and my mother nods.
I focus on drawing air into my lungs, running through memories I thought I’d made up.
Images of her lying unconscious on the ground, others where we were laughing so hard that she had to clutch her chest. The diagnosis and the timeline make sense, but the man sitting opposite me doesn’t.
“You’re my father?” I question shrewdly. The smile drops from his face.
“Of course he is,” my mother frowns, looking between the two of us.
“Rhys, you’re our son, and we’ve been waiting for you for so long.
” They’ve been waiting for me? Drawing back on my heels, I remove myself from the mini reunion I’d found myself in.
Suddenly, the comfort I was buying into feels more like a trap.
My mother’s breath hitches, causing her to cough.
The sound is thin and wet, as her companion immediately redirects his attention to adjusting her blanket and checking the machine.
His hands are gentle, reverent despite the callouses that cover them from manual labor.
The kind of care I didn’t know he was capable of.
My chest twists violently, but I’m unable to drag my eyes away.
This picture isn’t right. This man destroyed me.
My mind splinters, sliding backwards to a place I don’t want to go.
He cradles her so carefully, with so much love, but those same hands taught me what fear tastes like.
I remember being small, hiding in corners that were never dark enough, counting breaths so he wouldn’t find me.
I remember flinching at footsteps, the way my stomach would hollow out when his shadow filled a doorway.
Love had no place, and safety was a privilege I never earned.
Now he’s here, playing the devoted husband, the gentle caregiver, rewriting history with every soft touch.
All that leaves is for the doubt to creep in, the sickening whisper asking what if I deserved it, what if I imagined it, what if this version of him is real, and the terrified boy I was is a lie.
My heart slams against my ribs, panic crawling up my spine.
Reading the anguish playing across my face, my father’s eyes pinch, his voice almost too quiet to catch.
“He didn’t tell you, did he?”