That’s the first thing, and it nearly stops me on the second step.
Earl Dawson used to be built like a fence post—not tall, not broad, but dense.
Solid in a way that had nothing to do with size and everything to do with the kind of man he was.
The man on the porch is the same frame with half the substance.
His flannel hangs loose.
His wrists are bird-boned above hands that still look capable even if the flesh around them has receded.
His cheekbones stand out sharp above a jaw that used to be hidden by the fullness of a face that got fed properly and worked hard and laughed at its own jokes.
His eyes are the same.
Blue. Sharp. Missing nothing.
I stop at the top of the steps.
I don’t know what to say.
I’ve had fourteen miles to figure it out and I’ve got nothing—no words big enough to cover years of silence, no apology sufficient for the son-in-law who vanished when the man who’d treated him like blood needed him most.
I just stand there, hands at my sides, and let him see whatever’s on my face.
I owe him that much.
I owe him the truth of what I look like standing on his porch knowing I should have been here years ago.
Earl looks at me for a long time, sets his coffee on the arm of the rocker, and nods once.
“It’s good to see you, son.”
Son.
Not Lee. Not Banshee. Son.
The same thing he called me when I asked for Rose’s hand.
The same thing he called me at the funeral.
A word he has no obligation to use anymore—his daughter is dead, our legal connection dissolved by a death certificate, and I haven’t earned the right to be called anything by this man except maybe the coward who disappeared when things got hard.
But Earl says it like it's a fact.
Like the years of silence didn’t happen.
Like I’m walking in for Sunday dinner and Rose is in the kitchen and the world hasn’t been broken beyond repair.
The unearned forgiveness nearly drops me.
“Earl.” My voice cracks.
The first time in years.
I’ve kept it level through everything—exile with Shadow, the run in Houston, rescue missions, club business.
Never cracked. Never let the seams show. And now I’m standing on an old man’s porch and the word “son” is what breaks me.
