“You know, I really didn’t appreciate that little stunt your friend Xavier pulled with my car. I could have had him arrested for that; you should be thanking me. Don’t I even get a hug for being such a great dad?” he taunted, opening his arms wide.
“William!” Mia scolded him, but he silenced her with one raised hand, determined to finish what he’d started.
“This is an important day for you, my dear boy. And so, I’m going to give you the best gift you’ve ever received,” he went on in a soft, cruel voice, looking back at Neil.
Next to me, John glared at William, the agony visible on his face.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to leave!” Neil’s voice got louder, and everyone at the table flinched.
“Are you ready to tell your son the truth, Mia? Or would you like me to do it?” William seemed overcome by hatred. John’s presence had stoked his bitterness, his memories of the past, and, more than anything else, his desire for revenge. He turned his glacial stare on Dr. Keller and smiled.
Neil stepped back and looked around for me.
It was as though we were joined by an invisible thread, his eyes locked on mine.
I could immediately sense that he needed me beside him, so I got up and joined him.
I stood close to him, grasped his arm, and gave it a squeeze. It felt like I was gripping a rock shot through with dark tension.
“Isn’t it funny, Neil? That I’m going to be the one to finally give you the answers to those questions you have? All those whys that have filled up your head since you were little?” William began to speak, his voice rough and cold. “Once upon a time, there was beautiful woman who believed in great love…” he continued, soft and derisive, as he stared Neil right in the eyes. The only soundtrack to this scene was broody silence and our anxiously bated breaths. “She loved one man but was forced by her father to marry another. She couldn’t accept this other man, so she decided to continue both relationships at the same time.” He began to move through the room, circling the table under the rapt gazes of the guests. “She fell pregnant by her great love, and she knew very well that she had to keep the truth from the other man who, by that time, had become her husband.”
Neil was unmoving, fixated on that evil man’s little tale. Mia’s shoulders slumped, and she hung her head in surrender as William went on.
“During those nine months of pregnancy, I thought of you as my son, Neil. I thought it was my little baby growing bigger every day inside my wife’s womb. Then you were born, and it was the most beautiful moment of my life. You were strong and sturdy. I still remember exactly how it felt that first time to hold you in my arms.” He formed a cradle with his arms, pretending to rock an invisible infant.
“I had imagined you’d look just like me. Maybe you’d have my blue eyes or a head full of black hair. I thought that, at the very least, you’d have one of my features to make it clear that the blood flowing in your little veins was the same as in mine. But there was nothing. The bigger you got, the more unlike me you looked. Your eyes began to take on that gold color; your nose was small and straight, your mouth was too fleshy, and you had that wild cloud of brown hair. I thought all the time about the differences between us, how far apart you felt…”
Neil kept his eyes on William as the older man came slowly back around the table. He began to circle Neil, then, looking him from head to toe as though observing a specimen.
Tears began to pour down my cheeks.
The confusion that clouded Neil’s face hurt so much it was hard to catch my breath.
“Your mother made the decision to keep hiding it from me for a decade, the fact that you were another man’s son. I only found out because I overheard an argument between her and your father. Your real father. After that, my anger only grew every time I looked at you. Every time I saw you make another face or gesture that was unmistakablyhim.I no longer considered you a son of mine. I hated you because you were a bastard, born from betrayal, from an extramarital affair. From an illicit fuck between your mother and her lover.” William’s voice grew louder, and the tone shifted as he took heavy strides over to Neil, who remained motionless. “You are and always have been an unwanted child, Neil, a cuckoo in the nest. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not a Miller, and you never were. My family—my real family—consists of my wife and my two children, Logan and Chloe. You were always just excess baggage!” he shouted, full of wrath, and everyone cringed. Mia burst into tears, Logan and Chloe jumped to their feet in shock, and John’s eyes went wide. But Neil looked as though he’d been petrified in place. He didn’t even blink. He looked vacant, abandoned, and deep in shock.
“Your father is John Keller, the man sitting here at your fucking table. There’s the truth you wanted—you have been ruining my life for over twenty years!” he screamed furiously, right up close to Neil’s shocked face.
His heart was shattered. I knew it, because I had felt mine break at exactly the same moment.
He didn’t deserve this.
John stood up then, walking around the table to give William’s back a hard shove.
“You don’t get near him! You don’t scream at him like that, and you don’t even think about putting your hands on him again!” John howled like a beast. The veins in his neck were popping, and his breath came in raggedpants. He faced William without a trace of fear, and the latter backed away a few steps. Then he smoothed down his expensive suit jacket, pleased with the turmoil he’d just unleashed.
Mia sobbed and watched as Matt then stood up slowly, letting the napkin that had been in his lap fall to the floor. I followed the fabric’s trajectory, watching as it landed and lay motionless on the floor.
“Well, I’m heading out. Have a lovely evening,” William said, the only one with the audacity to break the anguished silence in the room.
“Oh, and Neil? Happy birthday!” he said at last, a little hint of irony mixed in with all the malice. Then he vanished out the front door, slamming it behind him. I sucked in a breath at the loud sound before slowly turning my attention to Logan, who was holding Chloe and staring at their mother in shock. Neil still stood next to me, but his eyes were staring out into the void.
His gaze was fixed but sightless, like someone had switched him off.
He didn’t blink. He didn’t give a single sign of life.
There was nothing in him.
“Neil…I…I’m sorry.” John kept his distance, but his eyes were glittering with pain. He wanted to touch his son, to hug him, but he knew the risks. Neil wasn’t just another young man; he wasspecial…different.
