“I would have been irritated, but I would have not been as hurt. I do love TJ. He’s my brother. One day, he’s going to be feeding me pudding in the nursing home. I absolutely want to make sure he has a good life, or I’m getting tapioca. I really hate tapioca, Timothy.”
The older man laughed.
His grandson’s sense of humor was dry, and very much like his own.
“Well, that forty-plus-year age difference might pay off after all,” he admitted.
Ethan smiled.
“I mean, Takoda will have someone else to rely on then. He’ll be in his fifties like I am now. He’ll have a backup to the crazy.”
Timothy took the pipe and inhaled.
With Ethan, the information shared had to be delivered carefully.
Someone got cranky.
It was why he’d been able to tell Callen that the woman who would save him would come, and he couldn’t tell Ethan jack shit, or he would have lost his mind.
“My boy, I can’t tell you what to do. I mean, I can, but we know you aren’t going to listen to me. You’re just as angry at me, but you’re letting it all direct at Wyler to preserve my memory. I only let you down a little. Wyler let you down a lot.”
That was the truth.
“I just want to not be angry. I feel like every day, it consumes me. He abandoned me, Granddad. When I needed him most, I was alone. I found my mother dead and cold. I crawled into bed with her thinking she was asleep, and the second I leaned on her, I found her cold.”
Timothy knew who was behind them.
That Ethan didn’t show how much his anger was clouding his gift. When walking through the smoke, you were cognizant of everything, since your mind manifested it.
“I ran through the snow barefoot to your cabin. I had to move in there, and I lost my mom and home on the same day. I never had what I needed.”
Timothy was curious.
“And what did you need?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“I needed my mom. That’s all I needed. I love you, old man, but you were a disaster. What I needed was my mother, and I lost her way too young.”
Timothy laughed.
“Oh, well, we can’t all be good dads like you, EJ. You’re a damn good father. Some of us…we falter. When I lost Naomi, I did a bad job. It snowballed. You have Elizabeth. If Wyler had his mom, who was a lot like your wife, I bet he would have been more like you. Sometimes, we don’t get what we want.”
Yeah, unfortunately.
That was the nonstop storyline in his life, and it was goddamn exhausting.
“I want to hate him.”
Timothy sighed, but didn’t get to say anything.
“I really wish you wouldn’t,” came the voice from behind him, and Ethan was up fast, turning.
That’s when he saw her.
The sound of her voice hit that tender spot in his heart, and made him ache all over again. It had been over thirty-eight years since he’d heard her.
“Mom?” he asked.
