I eat the eggs and rice, even though I’m not hungry. Every forkful is a little easier than the last, and by the end I actually feel a pulse in my arms again.
I clear the table, rinse the dishes, and find her reading on the couch, glasses perched on the end of her nose.
She gestures for me to sit, and I do, sinking into the ancient corduroy with a creak.
She looks at me over the top of the book. “You want to tell me what’s really wrong, or you want to wait until you’re ready?”
I don’t answer. I just stare at the TV, where a news anchor is interviewing a politician about something I can’t process.
She sets the book down, comes over, and puts her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, baby. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
The words hit harder than I expect. For a second, I can’t breathe. I nod, once, and she lets it be.
That night, I crash in my old bedroom, which still smells faintly of the cheap cologne I used to drown myself in before school dances.
The bed is smaller than I remember, but the sheets are clean and the pillow has the same lumpy, comforting shape as always.
I lie on my back, hands folded over my chest, staring at the ceiling, where the glow-in-the-dark stars I stuck up in sixth grade are still faintly visible in the dark.
I reach for my phone, turn it on, and scroll through the unread messages.
I almost call him. I almost say, “I’m here,” or, “I miss you,” or, “I’m sorry.”
Instead, I set the phone on the nightstand, roll to my side, and close my eyes.
It takes a long time to fall asleep, but when I do, I dream about skating, just me and the ice, no teammates, no noise, just the clean scrape of blades on glass and the sound of my own heart, steady and unbroken.
———
Roland picks me up in his Mustang, the ’67 Fastback, the one that’s worth more than most people’s houses but still has a cigarette burn on the passenger seat from a night in the seventies he won’t talk about.
The car is immaculate otherwise, every chrome accent polished, the paint shining like gunmetal in the sunlight.
He pulls up at the curb, window down, shades on, and gives me the nod.
“Get in, D,” he says, like we’re running a heist.
I slide in. The leather is already hot, the scent of gasoline and old vinyl hitting me like a memory.
He’s got jazz on the stereo, low enough not to interfere with conversation but loud enough to fill the silences.
He doesn’t ask why I’m here, or if I’m ready, or if I want to talk.
He just guns the engine and heads for the freeway, the transmission grumbling like it resents every shift.
The drive is pure California, the sweep of highway out of Oakland, the scrubby hills giving way to the cliffs and the impossible blue of the ocean beyond.
He takes the scenic route, Highway One, which is objectively beautiful but so full of hairpin turns and blind curves that most people white-knuckle the whole way. Not my father.
He drives it one-handed, elbow on the window, the other hand occasionally gesturing to make a point.
He talks business the entire time. “Market’s soft, but that’s when you build. Bought a position in biotech, just to see if the boys in Basel have anything new.”
He tells me about a founder who flamed out, about a deal that would have made them both rich if not for the idiot’s “lack of conviction.” He uses words like “downside” and “liquidity event” and “asymmetric return profile” like I’m his managing director, not his kid.
I let him run. It’s easier than talking about myself.
At Point Reyes, he slows the car, then pulls off at a turnout facing the ocean. The wind off the water is brisk, cold enough to raise goosebumps, even with the sun overhead.
