Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Didn’t think you had the guts to come back here,” Malcolm Wyler muttered, voice rough as gravel.
Jay willed himself not to flinch. “Didn’t think you had the liver to be here.”
A dry huff of air left Malcolm’s nose. “You here to tell me I’m dying? ‘Cause Michelle already covered that.”
Jay’s eyes flicked around the room. The old bookshelf now sagged under the weight of takeout containers and unread mail. An end table stood beside the recliner, stained and sticky. Medical pamphlets were scattered across it—Liver Disease decades of carrying his father’s voice in his head and the fear that he was fundamentally damaged was finally loosening its grip.
Ava’s face flashed in his mind. All those times he’d pushed her away before she could leave him first. All those nights he’d chosen the bottle over her. He’d been so afraid of proving his father right that he’d made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But that was over now.
Jay paused at the doorway, one hand on the frame. He didn’t turn around. “Ari’s not broken. Mira deserved protection.” He paused. “So did I.”
Malcolm said nothing. The TV droned on.
Jay walked through the house, pushing past the nurse acting as though she wasn’t eavesdropping and into the late afternoon.
For the first time in weeks, he thought about calling Ava without his chest tightening with shame.
He thought about his siblings, not as fellow casualties of their childhood but as people he could actually help heal… and heal alongside them.
He stood on the porch for a moment, looking at the warm steady light burning next door.
Then he walked to the Lincoln and got in.