He stared at the screen again, then looked at me.
“I never got that,” he said, and the words came out heavy. “Paige, I never got that.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “That’s why I’m here.”
He looked down at his hands. They were trembling slightly.
“I thought,” he said, and swallowed. “I thought people were just being kind.”
“They were,” I said. “It was me.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, they were wet.
“I could have done the better program,” he whispered. “I could have… I could have walked better.”
I felt a tightness behind my ribs that I didn’t let turn into tears. Not here. Not in a clinic parking lot.
“I’m sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t the one who did it.
He shook his head. “No. No, not you.”
His jaw tightened.
“Your mother,” he said, and it wasn’t angry exactly. It was stunned—like a man seeing his own life clearly for the first time.
He turned his head toward the clinic door as if he expected her to appear there, smiling, carrying the narrative.
“She never told me,” he said. “She never—”
I didn’t fill in the blank, because the blank was too ugly.
That night, my mom called me. She didn’t start with hello either.
“How dare you?” she hissed. “How dare you go to him? Do you want to ruin our marriage?”
I held the phone away from my ear for a second, then brought it back.
“You ruined your marriage,” I said. “Not me.”
“You embarrassed me,” she snapped.
“You stole from him,” I said, and my voice stayed even. “Be glad I didn’t call the police.”
There was a sharp inhale on the other end.
“You wouldn’t,” she said, like she was challenging me.
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have to.
A week later, my dad asked me to meet him at a lawyer’s office.
Ila was there. My mom was there. Mitchell wasn’t. That didn’t surprise me. Mitchell avoids rooms where Ila’s image might take damage.
My mom sat upright in the chair, lips pressed into a line.
Ila looked like she hadn’t slept. Her eyes were puffy. Her hands kept moving, fidgeting with her ring.
My dad walked in slowly, cane tapping the floor. He looked tired, but he looked decided.
The lawyer explained things in simple language.
The house my parents lived in belonged to my dad—inherited from his side of the family.
My mom’s face shifted: confusion, then alarm.
My dad spoke, voice quiet but firm.
“Your mother can live there while I’m alive,” he said, looking at me briefly, then back at the table. “But when I’m gone, it goes to Willa.”
Ila jerked her head up. “What?”
My mom’s face went pale. “That’s not—”
My dad lifted a hand. “It is.”
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