Connor whistled as he walked out the exit door of the hospital parking lot, his house keys jangling in his hand. His brother was home, and his mother was happy—what could make the day any better? The warm sunshine hit his shoulders in answer, a beautiful day following the stormy night. He stepped out to the curb, looking for his ride, but a glance at his watch confirmed he was a few minutes early. He tilted his head back and savored the sun.
“Need a ride, Con?”
He opened his eyes and saw his father leaning against a pillar, his cigarette smoke curling around the no-smoking sign. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight, but he declined the offer. “Got an Uber coming.”
Harold looked around the parking lot. “Uber? In Millerton? Thought that was a city thing.”
“It’s a job, Dad. Anyone with a car can do it.”
“Why you need an Uber, anyway? Your truck running okay?”
“It’s fine. I just rode in with the sheriff.”
“Oh.”
They watched a crew raising a satellite dish on a TV truck near the emergency-room entrance. The cameraman was running a cable and setting up his equipment. A reporter was brushing her hair.
Harold swept his hand toward them. “Vultures. Be careful of them. They made me look so bad back then.”
“I think they just followed the finger the sheriff was pointing.”
“Yep.” He glared at the crew. “Still, be careful.”
“I don’t think they recognize me. I was a little kid back then.”
“They’ll figure it out.” Harold looked up at the wall of windows of the hospital. “How is he really? Jaxon?”
“Tough kid. The stories he tells…” Connor shuddered. “He’s doing better than I would be, considering what he’s been through. Struggling with everything. And he’s so different than I remember.”
“I expect he is different. A lot different. I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know how hard it is to overcome things when you’ve seen horror. And he’s seen a lot worse than I ever did.”
“Yeah, I guess you do know.” Connor squinted against the sun and avoided his father’s eyes, wondering how the man always managed to turn a conversation back on himself.
Harold took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke high in the air. He returned the glare from an elderly couple coming up the walk from the parking lot, as if daring them to say something. After they passed, he said, “You’re a good brother, and that’s what he needs right now. Love, support, time, and being there for him. Give him that, and he has a chance.”
Connor looked toward the entryway by the main road but didn’t see his ride coming in yet. He turned back to his father. “That wasn’t enough for you.”
Harold dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his foot. “That’s on me, son, not you. I was weak, already dabbling with drugs and drinking too much before I even came home. So, no, I was a lost cause. Y’all did what you could, but nothing could have saved me then.”
“And now?”
“I’m working on it. For your brother up there. For your mom. For you. All I can do is one step at a time.”
They stood together as a breeze flapped their jackets. A paper cup bounced across the parking lot. Connor asked, “You staying sober?”
Harold looked down at his feet. “One hundred sixty-three days. But I won’t kid you, Con, it’s hard. Every day is hard.”
Connor had seen Harold sober up many times, but it never stuck. His father had always been glib about it, pretending he didn’t have a real problem, saying “no sweat.” To hear him say every time they saw each other now that it was still difficult gave him hope in a weird way, because it told him how hard his dad was really trying. “Almost six months. I’m proud of you.”
“I can’t think about months, Con. I’m too weak for that. I don’t look further ahead than today. That’s it. It’s all I can focus on. Making it to one hundred sixty-four days.”
Connor nodded. “Then I’m proud of you for today.”
Harold looked away, but not before Connor noticed the moistening of his eyes. His father’s voice came out choked. “I’ll take that. It means more than you’ll ever know.”
They stood in silence for another minute before Connor said, “Guess the sheriff really knows now that you had nothing to do with Jax’s disappearance.”
Harold tapped another cigarette out of the pack in his hands. “I used to hate him for accusing me, for thinking I could ever do that to my own boy. But looking back, I get it. I might have been just sick enough to have caused actual harm to him.”
“But you didn’t have anything to do with Jaxon’s disappearance.”
“I had everything to do with it. I was supposed to be there that morning, watching you boys. Taking you to the park myself. All I had to do was show up, and I couldn’t even manage that. I was more in love with booze and drugs than my own sons.”
“Yeah, well, I was supposed to stay at the house. And I wasn’t supposed to leave Jax alone while I went off with my friends.”
Harold stared hard. “It’s my burden, son, not yours. Don’t you dare take it on.”
Connor leaned his head back and watched a cloud float through the sky. “Maybe we all failed him. Maybe that’s the only way to look at it.”
“Maybe.” Harold flicked the lighter open and let the flame touch the end of his cigarette. He inhaled deeply and blew a series of smoke rings. “Or maybe it’s just freakin’ bad luck it happened at all. Kinda like driving over an IED in the middle of a road.”
Connor watched the smoke float through the air, blurring with the cloud in the distance. He didn’t want to argue, so he changed the topic. “You ever going to quit those?”
“One bad habit at a time, son.”
They stood in silence for a few minutes, a father and a son still trying to find their way around each other. Connor said, “You said you used to hate the sheriff for accusing you. Not anymore?”
“Still working on that, won’t lie. I deserved to get arrested for the dumb shit I was doing, but I didn’t deserve him letting everyone think I would hurt Jaxon.” Harold stared off at the mountains in the direction of Wattsville. “Mostly, though, I’m mad about all that time he wasted focused on me, when he could have been out there searching for Jaxon. Not sure I can ever forgive the sheriff for that.”
A car with an Uber sign pulled up to the curb. Connor waved at the driver and stepped toward it. He looked up at the fifth-floor windows as he opened the car door. “You said we need to give him love, support, and time. Do you think that will really save him after all he’s been through?”
Harold studied the glowing end of his cigarette before answering. “I’m done BSing people, so I gotta say I honestly don’t know. But without that, he doesn’t stand a chance at all.”
“Then it’s what we’ll do for him. You and me both. Make up for failing him ten years ago.”
As the Uber worked its way out of the parking lot, Connor watched his father through the back window. Maybe, he thought, I’m getting my brother and my father back at the same time.