Chapter 3: Don't Come Home
I stared at those three words until the screen went dark.
Dad was still standing in my doorway.
He hadn't moved.
He was watching me the way you watch someone standing too close to the edge of something.
"What does Jake know that you're not telling me?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
I turned the phone around and showed him the screen.
Dad's face changed.
Not surprise.
Something closer to defeat, like a man who had been hoping to get through one conversation without this particular door opening.
"He doesn't want the family upset," Dad said finally.
"He thinks if you come back, it'll—"
"It'll what?"
"Confuse her.
He says she's fragile, and seeing you after all this time might—"
"She's been asking for me every week." My voice came out harder than I meant it to.
"You just told me that.
So don't stand in my living room and tell me Jake is protecting her."
Dad sat down on the edge of my couch without being invited.
He looked like a man who had run out of places to stand.
"He's been managing everything," Dad said.
"The hospital visits.
The doctors.
The finances."
"What finances?"
Dad rubbed the back of his neck.
"Your mother has some savings.
Not a lot.
But Jake has been handling the accounts while she's been sick.
Power of attorney."
Something shifted in my chest.
Not quite anger yet.
Something quieter and colder.
"When did she give him that?"
"About six months ago.
She was having a bad week and the hospital needed someone to sign things and Jake was there and I—" Dad stopped.
"I didn't think anything of it at the time."
"And now?"
He didn't answer.
I walked to the window.
Outside, the street was ordinary.
A woman walking a dog.
A car pulling out of a space.
The world moving along completely unbothered.
"Dad." I turned around.
"Why did you really come here tonight?
Not the story about Mom asking for me.
The real reason."
He looked at his hands for a long time.
"Two weeks ago I tried to check on one of the accounts.
The one your mother set up years ago, for emergencies.
I'm still on it.
Or I was." He looked up.
"The money is gone, son.
All of it."
The room went very quiet.
"How much?"
"Forty-three thousand dollars."
I sat down.
"Jake says it went to medical bills," Dad said.
"But I've seen the bills.
I've been to every appointment with her.
The numbers don't—" He shook his head.
"They don't add up."
My phone buzzed again.
Another message from Jake.
*I know Dad is with you.
Don't do something you'll regret.*
I set the phone face-down on the table.
"I'm coming home," I said.
"Tonight."
Dad closed his eyes.
May you like
I couldn't tell if it was relief or fear.
Maybe both.
