Janie circles to the driver's side and slips into her seat. She doesn't look my way, doesn't acknowledge that she knows I'm still here, watching. I stayed to myself for practice, keeping my distance.
Maybe she doesn't realize.
Or, maybe she just doesn't care.
My phone vibrates against the cup holder, the sound jarring in the heavy silence of the truck. An unfamiliar number flashes on the screen. Every instinct says let it go to voicemail, but something, maybe intuition or maybe just the need for distraction, makes me swipe to answer.
“Warren Carter.” My voice comes out rough, even to my own ears.
“Mr. Carter? This is Beth at CHG. I know you’re on the board here, and when I saw Charles Carter III admitted, I put the connection together. I thought you’d want to know.”
The name is a fist to the chest. My father.
"Uhh. Um. Okay."
Before I can find words, she rushes on. “I hope I haven’t overstepped, but I know your mom is beside herself, so I took it upon myself to let you know.”
Overstepped? My family hasn’t spoken my name in twenty years. They didn’t call me, didn’t list me, didn’t want me. And yet here I am, hearing about him because some hospital administrator knows I'm on the hospital's board and knows I'm his son.
The irony burns.
"Oh, thank you." I watch as Janie's SUV pulls out of the parking lot, taking my son away from me again. "I won't be able to make it in, but I appreciate the call."
"Okay. You should know his condition has deteriorated significantly."
The steering wheel grows slippery beneath my palm.
The line goes quiet, and the choice hangs heavy in the silence. Neither of us seems to know what else to say. Perhaps there is nothing more that can be said.
"I appreciate the call." I hang up without another word.
But the image won’t leave me. The man who erased me, dying. My mother, breaking beside him.
After all these years, I thought I’d feel something. Maybe anger, maybe relief. But all I feel is the weight of it. The inevitability.
There’s no satisfaction in it. Just the hollow truth that even the mighty fall.
For twenty years, I’ve sworn I’d never go back. But thethought twists in my gut: if I don’t go, and he dies, I’ll never get the chance to look him in the eye again.
I start the truck and pull away from the soccer field. Against every instinct, I steer toward CHG instead of my empty apartment. Not for Charles. Not for Eleanor.
Maybe for Beckett. Maybe for myself. Maybe to finally close a wound that’s been bleeding for twenty years.
The sliding glass doors hiss open, releasing a blast of sterile air. I’ve walked into this lobby a hundred times for quarterly board meetings over the last five years, even more often now with the community outreach committee. I know the layout, the artwork, the donor wall with my last name carved into the top tier.
But today, the light is harsher. The air is colder. The walls are more clinical.
The receptionist glances up from her monitor. “Welcome to CHG. Can I help you?”
My throat is dry, scratchy, suddenly sore. “Charles Carter.”
Her fingers skim the keyboard, the clack of the keys louder than it should be. “Carter. Yes. Room 523. Oncology.” She hands me a visitor’s badge. “Take the main elevators to the fifth floor and take a right.”
My palm itches as I pin the badge to my lapel. The wordvisitorstares back at me. Not a board member. Not son.
Just a visitor.
“Thank you,” I manage. My voice comes more gruff than I intend, and I hesitate a moment, gathering myself.