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“See?” she said, beaming up at me. “He’s different . Honestly, he’s better. He just needs some time with you. You’ll see. Tonight is going to be perfect. I promise.”

***

Mom never came downstairs for dinner.

Dad said she was tired and not feeling well. “You know how she is,” he muttered coolly as he cut his slice of ham into small pieces.

I did. But I also thought I’d known my father, and this man wasn’t it.

This man, who still sat in the same spot at the table he’d always occupied, had cooked Christmas dinner with the help of my sisters and their respective significant others.

This man had put family pictures on the living room wall.

This man smiled at my pregnant sister and laid his hand over her growing belly with an affection I’d never seen him express in all of my thirty-two years of existence.

This man engaged Sid and Ricky in casual conversation and laughed when Sid cracked a joke.

He actually laughed !

He still looked and sounded like my father, but the man he was with them was a stranger to me.

The man he was with them was the man I’d craved for him to be my entire life, and the longer I sat there, waiting for him to cast that smile on me, the more I wanted to scream and beg for him to explain to me once and for all what the hell it was about me .

“So, Maxwell, what have you been doing for work?” Dad asked without looking at me. “Since the Army fired you.”

“I wasn’t fired,” I corrected. “I was let go on—"

“Yes, I remember. The girls told me,” he replied. “I just question the legitimacy of the reasoning—that’s all. Seems”—he pursed his lips as he eyed a spoonful of mashed potatoes—"suspicious.”

It was the first time my father had spoken directly to me about my discharge from the military, and he left me dumbfounded and unable to form words.

“Daddy,” Lucy scolded, her tone harsh and cracking like a whip, “don’t say that. Max saved people.”

“Oh, does that make him a hero then? Because he allegedly saved people before conning the military into releasing him on … what did you call it? Medical discharge?” He shook his head, a condescending look on his face, like he found the whole situation very amusing.

My eyes met Sid’s. He was already looking back at me, silently telling me not to poke the bear.

Grace scoffed, disgust in her tone. “Max was injured in the same attack as Sid—"

“Do not compare a man losing a limb to a man claiming to have lost something easily faked, Grace,” Dad scolded.

“Your brother is a coward and a disgrace to this family, not to mention an even bigger disgrace to our country. You’re lucky I’ve allowed him to sit at this table tonight, but I will not stand to listen to him be defended in this house. ”

Sid’s clenched fist hit the table’s surface, rattling the utensils and glasses. “I’m not gonna sit back and—"

“Sid,” I warned, keeping my eyes on my untouched plate.

“I would be dead if it wasn’t for him!” he shouted, his voice higher with a desperation to defend me.

This is what happens when I’m around.

I ruin everything.

“Sid. Stop.” I laid a hand over my eyes, pressing my thumb and pointer finger to my temples.

“Excuse me?” my father asked, his voice as chilled as the ice in my glass.

“I just don’t understand how you could be the nicest fuckin’ guy on the planet earlier tonight, but the second he walks in, you turn into a raging fuckin’ asshole! Explain that to me! What the fuck gives you the right to treat anyone like that, let alone him ?!”

The nicest guy on the planet … the second he walks in …

I ruin everything.

God, I have to get out of here.

“I will not be disrespected in my own house,” Dad warned, his volume rising. “I don’t care who at this table you’re sleeping with—"

“Daddy,” Grace cut in harshly, aghast.

He ignored her easily. “I will happily throw you out of this house if you so easily stand at the side of this cowardly excuse— "

“Understand something, asshole,” Sid growled, fists clenched against the table. “I can respect you when I’m inside this house. But I will always—and I mean, always —stand by his side.”

I couldn’t listen to any more of my father’s insults. I couldn’t listen to any more of the yelling and defending. I couldn’t take it.

I pushed out from the table, the chair legs scraping over the floor, and I stood.

“Nobody has to stand by my side,” I said, my voice raspy and choked. “I’m leaving.”

“What?” Lucy and Grace both cried in unison.

“No!” Lucy said, shaking her head. “You can’t ! Just … just stay! Please—"

“Why?” I asked, exasperated. “So that I can listen to more of this shit? So that I can ruin this fucking holiday for everyone? No, Lucy. I won’t. I can’t .”

I hurried past my father, who had yet to say another word or move from his spot at the table. I hurried into the living room to grab my coat off the rack, not bothering to put it on before pulling the door open.

“Where are you gonna go, Max?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Sid.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Doesn’t matter.”

He walked over to me. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to come here. I suggested we do something at Lucy and Ricky’s place. Without him. But Grace and Lucy …”

His voice trailed off with the words he didn’t want to say. Something about my sisters loving our father, despite everything. Something about not understanding how my dad could be such a nice guy to others, but not to me, never ever to me.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, ready to push the door open and disappear. Maybe even for good this time.

“I just don’t get it,” he muttered, his brow crumpling like he was attempting to figure out the greatest mystery of my life. “What the hell does he have against you?”

“Everything,” was all I could say, and then, before he could reply, I left.

***

I drove for twenty minutes before pulling to the side of the road.

The water looked still outside the foggy windows, like a sheet of glass beneath the crescent moon.

It was a cold night, cold enough for the surface of the water to freeze.

I bet it’d feel like a thousand daggers piercing my skin the moment I plunged in, but the pain would be gone quickly. Or I hoped so anyway.

I killed the engine. Then I took out my hearing aids to drop them in the center console.

I didn’t need them where I was going, and oddly enough, all I could think was that they were worth more than anything else I owned.

I might’ve hated them, but I appreciated their value, and so I chose to spare them a watery demise.

I got out of the truck and into a silent night, the only sound a barrage of insults and cruelties assaulting my tired mind.

My father’s voice, accusing me of lying, of cheating, of being exactly what he always thought I was—a coward .

A failure. An embarrassment to his family.

So much so that he’d written me out of it, pretended I didn’t exist. I wished I knew why.

God, I wished I understood what I had done to make him despise me in such a heinous, wicked way, but was any reason justification enough to loathe your own son?

I didn’t know. But I couldn’t live with it anymore.

I couldn’t live, period.

I walked around the truck and to the sidewalk and steel railing.

My hands touched the freezing metal and clenched around it as I leaned forward, looking down at the water roughly a hundred fifty feet below.

I couldn’t hear the water as it sloshed around the bridge’s rocky pillars, but I could see enough in the moonlight, and I decided this might be the best place to jump.

If my head hits those rocks, I’m good and done. Better than hitting the water and maybe surviving.

I looked ahead and saw a lighthouse, winking at me across the water. Like the star the Wise Men had followed to that stable in Bethlehem, it called to me, beckoning me with a promise of peace and joy.

Quiet .

Oh God, how badly I wanted my brain to be quiet.

How badly I wanted to go a single fucking day without hearing my father’s voice, hearing every failure I’d committed in all of my years on this planet, spoken in his words.

How badly I wanted him to love me the way he loved my sisters, how fucking desperately I longed for him to look at me for a second the way he looked at them.

The wind blew against my face, freezing the tears streaming down my cheeks. Even in my last moments, I was desperate for an affection I would never receive .

Pathetic .

I stepped onto the first bar, ready to swing my leg over, when I saw movement to my right.

Startled, I turned my head, half expecting to find that Sid had followed me here.

But it wasn’t him. It was a woman, and she was slowly approaching through the darkness.

I couldn’t make out her face, but her hands were outstretched, palms out, as if to tell me to stop.

Ignore her. Just jump. Be done with this.

I looked away, eyes on the lighthouse.

Guide me home.

I leaned over the railing, my grip tightening as my eyes closed to the frigid air on my face.

Let go. It’s okay. Let go. Fall. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.

But hushed, muffled cries beside me drew my attention, distracting me. I couldn’t make out the words, but her presence was felt. She was getting in the way.

Dammit !

I opened my eyes, turned my head, and gasped, losing my footing and slipping off, my shoe landing on the sidewalk.

Am I dreaming? I wondered as I stared into the eyes of the woman I had loved and hurt and loved some more.

Laura’s lips were moving, her eyes wild and terrified and frantic. No, there was no possible way for her to be here, yet there she was. I wished she weren’t, but, oh my God, she was here , and I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. But her lips were moving.

Please, please, please , I could see she was saying. That word, mixed among others I couldn’t quite read. Please, please, please .