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“Release her. Get help. Invest in your family. They’re fantastic. Did you know they found you in a pile of your own shit trying to pour another drink? Is that classy enough for you? Is that the image you want to portray in the courtroom? Sounds like the perfect picture of rock fucking bottom.”

He limps away from me, turning his back. I see his shoulders shake. I don’t know if he’s laughing or crying.

“Look, I have my own baggage and shit, but please lighten her load. Don’t make her carry your burden any longer.”

“You’re here to ask for her hand in marriage? She’s not good at marriages.”

“With all due respect, fuck you, sir. She’s a fantastic partner, when she isn’t living up to someone else’s expectations. Or worried about your health. Or how she’ll be perceived as a mother. Or desperately trying to keep all the sadness and rejection away from everyone, especially her son. Release her from your bullshit. You want to drink yourself to death, that’s your prerogative, but don’t make her feel guilty for not pouring you another martini. Or cut her down to make yourself feel better. Despite your best efforts to dull her shine, she’s still vibrant. Get in the game. Tell her all the things I know you feel about her. Tell her for real or get out of our lives. She does love you. Pick up the fucking phone, you lazy, self-serving piece of shit.”

He sits back down, and we say nothing to each other. Then he sips his coffee. I twist the braided leather bracelet Ethan gave me as a joke. I wear it for real. I may not get to have her because of all of this. She may hate me for getting involved, but I can’t sit by. This may heal her for someone else, and even that would be better than knowing Jilly is pushing the world away from her while waiting for the call.

He rounds on me, and I see the fury and the tears in his eyes. “You think I don’t live with the guilt every day of not being the father my children wanted?” he huffs. I’m a lawyer, too. I know bullshit when I see it being shoveled. When you’re trying to win an argument after laying out your case, you flip the blame. “What about me?” And there it is. “They don’t call me all the time. They have no idea what I go through. I don’t share that shit because they don’t need it or want to hear about it. Stop telling me she’s suffering. How the hell would I know? I love my children. They know that.”

And right there, my mind opens. It’s the exploding head emoji. She doesn’t really let anyone inside her fabulous brain, just like her father. She doesn’t ask for help or reveal her turmoil. Instead, she’s let a lifetime of being disappointed affect every aspect of her life. Her only adult criteria is to not be him for Ethan. Yet, she’s keeping it all in, so it doesn’t affect him.

That’s a tricky little line my Jilly is walking. When we were kids, she was always open and always being let down by her father and her grandmother. Her mother did what she could to open her eyes and see that it didn’t matter. Then she married Christopher. And there was no way, no matter how great or how shitty he was, he’d survive the comparison. It’s learned behavior and she’s shielding her son from her own childhood hurt. Shit. Christopher might not be the exemplary father, but in Jill’s mind, no one could live up to Steve Martin in Father of the Bride.

I never had a chance. No one would. He won’t go because it’s for the best. It’s time to be the bully and then walk away from all of this. My last gift to her. And for me. I’m done settling for good enough and running away from situations. I’ll face everything head-on.

“Here’s what happening, you fucking coward. Asking nicely, demanding, and urgent medical advice sure as fuck doesn’t work. New tactic. I’m going to take you back upstairs to rehab. You stay. You figure out how to deal with how destructive you are and why. If you do this, I won’t tell anyone how they found you. I won’t tell anyone all the information I’m now privy to as your HIPPA contact. I will keep the secrets you desperately want to hide from society. But if you don’t stay for the full ninety days, I will take out an ad in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Washington Post. I’ll send a write-up to the Pennsylvania Bar Association with every dirty, disgusting, and cowardly detail. I will chronicle every nasty drunken moment I can. And I will destroy you. I don’t care if you get wasted the moment they release you. I only care that you stay ninety days and you’re well enough to get the surgery.”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“Tell that to the hole you punched in your living room wall. Or the piss stained rug in your condo. The people who run the retirement complex didn’t even know you were there drinking again. I’m not her. I don’t need to protect anyone except Jillien and Ethan. She’s no longer your whipping girl anymore. Got me?”

He turns his cup on the table in a circle. He rubs his fingers over the top of the plastic opening of the cup with a slight scraping sound. He looks me in the eye, and I see the man he could be. He holds out his hand across the table, and I take it.

“She already decided that on her own. But I hear you. Checkmate, son.”

“Let’s go.”

We shake. I stand and keep holding his hand as I put my other hand under his elbow and help him up. As long as he has breath in his body, there’s still potential. Unfortunately, my own father doesn’t have that gift. I hope Jeffery doesn’t squander it again.

53

JILLIEN

We fall asleep on the couch watching The Office. We’ve seen it a hundred times, but it’s comfort food for the soul. My brave and wise thirteen-year-old is curled into me on our giant couch, and I stroke his hair. I don’t get to cuddle the boy much anymore since he’s become more man than boy. I relish every second of it.

He wakes up and croaks out, “Are you petting me?”

I laugh. “Yes. Go with it.”

“Ok.”

We stay there for a while as the sun streams past our curtains and blinds and hits the hardwood floors. I watch as it moves and dances through our living room. I do love this house, but I think I love it because no one told me what I had to do with it. I fought for it. Other than Ethan, it’s the only thing in the world that’s completely mine. I didn’t compromise on any piece of the design or decorating. I didn’t have to listen to someone’s opinion or on what a house should look like. All I see is the life I created, and each moment in the house makes me happy. I decorated some of Jake and Meg’s place as well. Making a space belong calms me.

“Can we have coffee now?” he asks. “We have Liam to win back.”

I don’t move yet, and neither does he.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was moving to the Vineyard?”

“First off, then I’d have to tell you I’m still talking to him. And second, why does that matter?”

“I went to see him when you went to Comic-Con.” Ethan sits up and pulls the turquoise cashmere throw with him.

“You did? I’m guessing that went shitty, since he’s not here.”