My bare steps echo down the hall, down the staircase, too loud in the quiet of the morning. The air smells faintly of coffee, andit drags me faster, dread tightening every muscle until I nearly stumble to the dining room.
When I reach the dining room, I see him. Hayden—shirtless, pale, his jaw locked tight—sits rigid at the long oak table while a man I’ve never seen before crouches beside him, working on my husband with a needle and thread. Blood slicks his side, dark and wet against his skin, and the sight rips the breath from my chest.
Hayden drags furiously on a cigarette, smoke curling around his face as a clinician in a white coat with a large doctor's case pulls the last of the stitches through.
Ford stands next to him, watching closely while sipping from a glass of vodka. Only then do I notice the absence—no Dexter, no one else—just us suspended in this terrible moment.
“No,” I choke, the word breaking into a sob that tears out of me in a torrent I can’t control.
My throat burns, my hands clutching at nothing, because I can’t get to him, can’t make it stop. Ford is here, and there’s no Dexter.
He had told me there wouldn’t be. My husband was clear when he said he was dead, but seeing Ford stand here without Dex finally breaks me in half. Ford has never resembled Dex; even though they were identical twins, they each had their own personalities that made them so different. And yet, with only Ford here, it seems I’m looking at one half of a whole.
Ford murmurs something to the doctor, who hurriedly snatches up his bag and slips out, leaving Ford striding quickly across the room toward me.
Footsteps thunder from behind me. Dale bursts into the room in the pajamas I lent her, bob somehow still smoothed to perfection, and eyes wide with alarm. Her voice cuts sharply through the room as she takes in the scene—the blood, Fordwalking over to me, while I stand here with tears rolling down my cheeks.
I should be happy to have my brother back; I shouldn’t be so ungrateful. But the finality of seeing only Ford in our dining room feels like it’s the end of Dexter forever.
I’m still gathering myself through my tears when I hear Dale, “Ford!” her voice bright with relief as she rushes forward.
For a heartbeat, I think that he’s running to her, because his steps pound against the wood with such urgency it feels like he’s answering her call.
But he isn’t. His hands are under my arms, hauling me up a few inches to meet his height, steadying me against his chest in a crushing hug. His focus is only on me, as he kisses the top of my head with a peck.
After scooping me up in a large hug, he sets me down only to turn coldly towards Dale,
I hear the break in Dale’s breath behind us. A sharp inhale, strangled at the end, as if someone had cut the air from her lungs. She had thought he was reaching for her, that he came back for her, too.
“Ford?” Her voice is softer but still full of her usual haughtiness. He hardly even looks at her.
I don’t need to see her face to know. I can feel it. The sound of the gasp she sucks in at his rejection.
He pulls me back into a hug, seeing my tears. His arms tighten around me, his chin pressed to the top of my head, steadying me while I shake against him. For a moment, I let myself sink into the safety of it, the anchor of my brother alive and here. The only thing that would complete this moment is if Dexter were here too.
When he finally pulls away, it’s only enough to look me in the eyes, thumb brushing the tears from my cheek. Over myshoulder, Dale shifts closer, with a look of anger marring her beautifully sharp features.
“Ford…” she whispers again, and the tinge of desperation in her usually confident tone shocks me.
He finally looks at her then—but the gaze is cold, flat, stripped of any tenderness. He shakes his head once, slowly and decisively as he releases me.
“Don’t,” he says, voice low and sharp. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
The words land heavier than a blow. I feel her falter beside me, the hope draining out of her as fast as the blood from Hayden’s side. Her lips part as if to protest, but no sound comes. Just silence, a formal dismissal, while he turns his attention back to me as if she were never there at all.
“Don’t?” Dale’s voice cracks, jagged and full of faltering confidence. She stumbles forward, her hand reaching for him against her will like she can claw back what he’s just ripped away.
Her hand falls to her side as quickly as it rose, her shoulders straighten in quiet defiance of the emotions I know are churning within her.
“You disappear, you let me think you’re dead, and now you stand there like I don’t exist? You owe me more than that, Ford!”
Her voice rises to a raw, unrestrained yell, echoing through the dining room. She looks like she’s been gutted, standing there in my pajamas, her short bob sharp and sleek, in a defensive position as though her whole body isn’t begging him just to give her something—anything to hold on to.
She flinches away from my touch, a look of ice and ire suddenly marring her features as she somehow stands taller. It makes her look a little sharper.
Ford doesn’t move; he only narrows his eyes at Dale, and when he finally speaks, his voice is carved from stone. “I don’t owe you anything.”
The silence that follows is brutal, and if you look closely, you can catch the subtle jolt his words send through her. Yet Dale stands as if ice runs in her veins, the rejection plain in the silent tears welling in her bright green eyes.
