Chapter 7 - A Reckoning Between Father and Son
A week after the repossession, a battered, familiar sedan pulled into my driveway. It was Dad. He didn't come in with his usual bluster or authoritative posture; his shoulders were slumped, his gait dragging as if he were carrying an invisible boulder. Leah made a fresh pot of coffee, placed two mugs on the kitchen table, and discreetly slipped into the backyard to give us space. Dad sat down, his rough hands trembling slightly as he cradled the ceramic mug. For several minutes, neither of us said a word. The hum of our refrigerator was the only sound. ""I failed you, Davey,"" he finally choked out, his voice cracking with a pain I had never heard in him before. ""I spent twenty years looking in the wrong direction. I gave him everything, handed him my father's sweat and tears on a silver platter, and I treated you like an afterthought because you didn't need me to fix your messes."" Tears leaked down his weathered cheeks, disappearing into his graying beard. ""I was blind. Your mother made him her project, and I just went along with it because it was easy. Now the business is dead, my savings are half-gone, and the only son who ever truly understood what honest work meant is the one I pushed into the cold."" I watched this man—a man I had spent my entire childhood trying to impress, whose approval I would have died for at sixteen—completely unravel before me. I didn't gloat. I didn't throw my success in his face. ""You made mistakes, Dad. Huge ones,"" I said quietly, leaning forward. ""You let him disrespect me, and you let Mom enable his destruction. But the company isn't entirely dead yet. Not if we handle this like men instead of cowards.""
