Chapter Twenty-Three
Three weeks passed slowly, Jay and Mira taking turns sleeping over in Ari’s hospital room as he recovered.
Some nights Jay would doze in the uncomfortable chair beside the bed, waking at every beep of the monitor.
Other nights he’d pace the hallway, unable to settle…
unable to stop thinking about how close he’d come to losing his brother.
Now, on a Tuesday afternoon, the physical therapist had Ari sitting up in the chair—actually sitting, not propped at an angle in bed.
His legs were thin, muscles atrophied from the month in the coma, but they held him.
Bryan, his therapist, was walking him through arm circles, watching his range of motion carefully.
Jay sat in the corner, pretending to play a game on his phone, but he was cataloging everything: the strength returning to Ari’s movements, the way he pushed through the exercises without complaining, and that his brother was here, alive, and getting better.
“Looking good,” Bryan said, making a note on his chart. “Same time tomorrow?”
Ari nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”
Bryan packed up his bag and gave Jay a nod on his way out. “Keep him moving, but don’t push too hard.”
“Will do,” Jay promised.
The door opened again moments later, and Mira stepped in, carrying drinks and a bag of muffins. She looked tired, but she smiled when she saw Ari sitting upright.
“Hey,” she said, setting a carrier of drinks down. “How’d therapy go?”
“He did really—”
“As the patient—” Ari interrupted, shooing Jay with his hand. “I’ll say it went well. Bryan says my range is getting better.”
Mira handed him a lemonade, biting back a smile. “Good to hear it from the actual patient.”
Jay smirked, pleased to see his brother’s personality intact.
Mira held a cup out to Jay. “Want some lemonade?”
“Nah.”
“More for me then, sucker,” Ari said, already reaching for it.
Mira gave the second cup to Ari but glanced back at Jay. He saw the question in her eyes—the one she asked every time she came to take over: You okay?
“I’m heading out,” Jay said, grabbing his jacket.
“Go home. Sleep,” Mira said, settling into the chair he’d been occupying. “Actually sleep. Not just lie there.”
Jay nodded and bent to squeeze Ari’s shoulder. “See you tomorrow, man.”
“Yeah.” Ari looked up at him, and Jay felt it all over again—the relief that his brother was still here. “Thanks for staying.”
“Always,” Jay said, and meant it.
He peeked into the pastry bag on his way out. Four chocolate chip muffins from the cafe downstairs. He plucked one out and took a bite.
“Excuse me,” Ari said, sitting up slightly straighter. “She brought those for me. I have been on a feeding tube for a month.” He turned to Mira, exasperated. “He also ate my pudding cup earlier. I want that on record.”
Jay grinned, backing toward the door. “Finder’s keepers.”
“You didn’t find shit. I bought them,” Mira said, swatting at him halfheartedly. “Go home, asshole.”
“We shared a womb, Jay!” Ari called after him. “That doesn’t mean you get my muffins!”
“Love y’all,” he taunted, and walked out.
He took the elevator down and found David waiting in the Lincoln outside the lobby where he’d dropped Mira off. The older man looked up from his phone when Jay climbed into the backseat.
“Any pit stops or just taking ya home?”
Jay waited a beat. There was something he’d been mulling over all day.
“One stop,” he decided. “Then home…if you’ve got the time.”
Jay rattled off the address, and David pulled out into traffic without hesitation. They drove in silence for a while, Jay finishing the muffin but tasting nothing. His stomach started to knot as the familiar streets of his childhood neighborhood began to appear.
“You sure showing up unannounced is the way to go?” David asked, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror as they turned onto the street where Jay had grown up.
Jay didn’t answer right away. He sat motionless, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled over his lips.
“It is what it is,” Jay said finally. “I’m here to say what should’ve been said a long time ago. That’s it.”
David shifted in his seat. “You know I’ve got your back. But if this goes sideways…”
Jay’s lips curled. “It already did. Years ago.”
Outside, the porch light flickered like it was debating whether to stay on or give up. The house looked smaller than he remembered.
David sighed. “I’ll keep the engine running.”
Jay opened the door and stepped into the November night. Gravel crunched underneath his boots as his gaze wandered next door to Ava’s parents’ place.
The porch light over there worked like it always had—warm and steady. He used to stare at that glow from his bedroom window. He could still see himself sneaking out, barefoot and angry, running from slammed doors and cruel words, straight into the calm that lived inside that house.
That was a lifetime ago. A different him.
He exhaled, turning back to the house that still haunted him, whether he admitted it or not. The siding was more weathered, and the bushes were more overgrown. But the dread in his chest as he approached? That was exactly the same.
There was a white beat-up van in the driveway, with a faded bumper sticker that read Be Kind. It Costs Nothing. That was new—didn’t belong to anyone he knew.
Jay took a breath, held it, then let it go like he was making room in his lungs for whatever was about to come next. He knocked.
Footsteps shuffled inside before the door opened a crack, and then wider. A woman stood there, early thirties maybe, wearing pale blue scrubs and a tired ponytail. Her name tag read Michelle, CNA.
“Uh…” she said, glancing past him like maybe there was someone else she should be talking to. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Malcolm Wyler,” Jay said.
She blinked, her brow furrowing. “You’re…a friend?”
Jay gave a dry huff of a laugh. “Not exactly.”
Michelle tilted her head, studying him closer now. Then her eyes widened. “Wait. Are you—?”
“Yeah.” His voice was flat. “I’m his son.”
She blinked again, like the words didn’t quite compute. “He said you all lost contact years ago.”
Jay bit the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, well. I’m here now.”
Michelle stepped aside without another word, and Jay crossed the threshold.
He paused, eyes scanning the living room.
The bones of it were the same: same worn leather recliner, same cracked TV, same coffee table with one leg shorter than the rest. But the place was drowning in clutter.
Stacks of old newspapers towered on end tables, and magazines spilled out of cardboard boxes.
There were empty liquor bottles shoved into corners like they were trying to hide from each other.
It was the kind of mess that built up when no one was looking—when no one wanted to look.
He stepped carefully, avoiding a pile of mail that looked like it had been accumulating since the Bush administration.
Then he saw them—the pictures hanging in the hallway.
Now, they were crooked and dusty, the frames worn and splintering.
A few of them had slid sideways on their hooks, and no one had bothered to fix them.
There was one of the three of them—Jay, Ari, and Mira—lined up on the porch steps, grinning with popsicles in hand.
Jay must’ve been around nine, already a little too tall, with a chipped tooth and scraped knees.
Ari had one arm around Mira, the other throwing up a peace sign.
Jay’s shirt was too big. Mira’s hair was a mess. They looked happy.
He stared at himself, at the awkward, bright-eyed kid in that photo, and felt a dull ache in his chest. He wanted to reach through the glass and tell that boy to run sooner—to take Ari and Mira and find some other way out.
A few frames down was a group photo taken on a summer afternoon in front of Ava’s old treehouse.
The neighborhood crew posed altogether, and Jay remembered his mother calling them all to come smile for the camera—had to be around 1998.
Ava stood at one end, all legs and braces and bossy confidence with her hand on Mira’s shoulder.
Mira had her best friend Maya pressed close beside her, both of them laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Ari and Jay were toward the center, clutching their skateboards and serving looks that screamed ‘wannabe cool’ louder than they’d ever admit.
Then at the end was Maya’s older brother: Nikhil Banerjee.
Jay hadn’t thought of him in years, and there he was: Nik with the big brown eyes and the thick lashes that made girls—and apparently Ari—go a little soft in the knees.
Jay clenched his teeth, remembering when their father had caught Ari and Nik tangled up in the garage.
They’d been fifteen, Ari only just figuring out his bisexuality.
Jay remembered trying to break up the fight, standing between his brother and father, yelling until his voice cracked and Nik ran back home, scared shitless.
His father had looked at Ari like he was a stranger, or worse, something broken that needed fixing.
Michelle’s voice floated from down the hall. “He’s in the den.”
Jay braced a hand on the wall, second-guessing what he came here for. Then he pushed forward into the den.
The smell hit him first—booze, body odor, antiseptic, and a layer of rot.
The lights were dim, and the blinds were drawn against the setting sun.
The TV was on, volume low, some black-and-white Western flickering across the screen.
His father sat slouched in the old recliner with a threadbare blanket over his legs, a remote in one hand and a crusted tissue in the other.
He looked like half the man Jay remembered. Literally. His frame had shrunk—skin hanging off bone, his once-imposing shoulders caved in like his body had given up carrying its own rage. His eyes, the same color as Jay’s, were still sharp, piercing straight through Jay.