“You got a plan?” Micah asked.

“You’re the one who rooted him out, I figured you would have a plan,” Zeke said.

“Yeah, find Jessi and beat the shit out of him,” Micah growled.

“Right, okay, so we need a plan. Here’s what we’ll do. Oh, shit, damn it!”

“What?” Micah asked, startled.

“I forgot to...here, will you call Zack and explain...well...just....”

“I’ll come up with something,” Micah said, already dialing. “Hey, Zack, it’s Micah. Yeah, he’s with me. No, we were out...uh-huh. Oh. Crap. Yeah, I’ll let him know. Sorry about that, dude. We can’t now, but I’ll talk to him. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Micah hung up with a worried look.

“We were out? That’s all? I could have come up with a better excuse than...what is it?” Zeke’s tone changed when he saw Micah’s face.

“Um...Your dad had a bit of an episode yesterday, I guess. He got real agitated and took off while Zack was on the phone with his work. They found him a few hours later wandering around in the dry lake...chemical burns from the lye...dehydration...he’s in a coma at the hospice center. They don’t think he has much longer, Zack wants you to come as soon as you can.”

Zeke inhaled deeply through his nose and blew the breath out. Emotions swirled through him, unidentifiable and dark, until one burst from the torrent and made itself clear: this was his fault. If he had been there, Zack wouldn’t have been talking to his boss because he would have been at work. Zeke wouldn’t have been distracted because he already had his work handled. Everything would have been fine, and his dad wouldn’t have met his end chasing ghosts into the wilderness.

He gripped the steering wheel with every ounce of pent-up self-loathing which bubbled through his molecules. He couldn’t go beat Jessi to a pulp now, and he couldn’t fetch the food for Brandy, and he couldn’t back Micah up on his quest. He had his own quest to finish. Without a word to Micah, Zeke exited the freeway at the wrong spot for Chick’n Mash. Micah didn’t say a word. Of course he didn’t. The man could always read his mind, why should today be any different?

“Hey, Mom?” Micah’s voice startled Zeke, and he glanced over to find him on the phone. “There’s been an emergency with Zeke’s dad. We’re going to be a lot longer than we thought, so I’ll text you when we’re headed to the restaurant and you can tell me how many people are left to feed. Alright? Cool, thanks.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Zeke said through a strangled throat. “You can go and do the thing.”

“And leave you without support? I think not,” Micah said, stashing his phone back in his pocket. “This is a big deal. I’m not going anywhere.”

A lurch of something painful and raw cut through the dark emotions whirling in Zeke’s chest. Bittersweet and filled with aching need, it shattered the fog, sending it to trickle from his eyes. Furtively wiping his face, Zeke forced himself to focus on driving and nothing else. He recognized two of the cars in the parking lot of the hospice center, and his heart pounded anxiously. He wasn’t in any mood to face Benjamin, especially not after he had left them hanging for two days.

“You got this,” Micah said, squeezing his shoulder. “I’m right here.”

It shouldn’t have helped, to his mind, but it did. With Micah beside him, Zeke forced one foot in front of the other into the hospice center. It seemed surreal. The decor was cheerful and bright, filled with images and colors reminiscent of life; but the air was thick with the taste of death, overlaid by chemically enhanced flowers. The receptionist was carefully inviting and sympathetically cheerful, a presentation which must have taken her years to perfect. She apologetically asked Micah to wait outside; family only, please. Micah gave Zeke one last encouraging look, then took a seat in the small, bright lobby. 

Benjamin didn’t say a word to him as he entered the room. Zack looked up at him with big eyes filled with tears, exuding guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I should have been paying attention, I didn’t think he would....”

That swell of bittersweet emotion broke through every barrier in Zeke’s heart, and he wrapped his baby brother in a bear hug. Zack was shocked still for a moment before melting into him and sobbing into his shoulder. Over his head, Zeke could see his father. He looked twenty years older somehow; what he could see of his skin was like paper, and the rest was wrapped in bandages. A morphine drip beeped every few minutes, keeping the brain wave pattern steady. Weak, but steady.

“What did they say?” Zeke asked Benjamin, still cradling Zack against him.

“Aneurysm in his memory center,” Benjamin said dully. “Then everything just started to fall apart. It didn’t make any sense for him to walk into the lake, but...I guess it made sense to him.”

“I don’t think anything was making sense to him,” Zeke said doubtfully. “He’s been really...off lately. More than usual.”

Benjamin scoffed humorlessly. “How would you know? It’s not like you’ve been there.”

“Yeah,” Zeke sighed, his heart heavy. “I’m sorry about that. Things got crazy for a minute there.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Benjamin said flatly. “You manage a goddamn gym. Crazy...the only thing that’s crazy is the fact that you don’t want anything to do with your own dad. He did his best for us, Zeke. Especially you.”

A cold detachment settled over Zeke’s nerves, and Zack pulled away to sit by his dad’s head. Zeke slowly turned to Benjamin, his eyes wide with sardonic disbelief.

“Especially me? Did his best? What are you doing, Benjamin?”

“Telling you how it was,” Benjamin said dully, cracking his knuckles. “You’re an ungrateful little shit. You are responsible for this, not Zack. Zack at least was trying. You can’t even be bothered to answer your goddamn phone.”

An icy calm flowed out of Zeke’s throat as he spoke. “I didn’t owe that douche bag anything, Benjamin. Not a goddamn thing. He repeatedly ruined my life, and deliberately fucked with my head. Yeah, maybe he was an infant at the end, maybe he couldn’t remember why I hated him, and maybe I didn’t feel the need to remind him. But don’t sit there and call me ungrateful when this bastard didn’t give me a single fucking thing to be grateful for.”

Benjamin leapt to his feet, his dark eyes flashing with fury born of grief. “Take it back,” he said, his voice shaking.

“It’s the truth,” Zeke said, shaking his head.

“The only truth is that you didn’t deserve someone like my dad,” Benjamin shouted, stepping up to Zeke, his nose nearly embedded in Zeke’s eye. “You’re the reason he’s gone, and I hope you suffer with that every day for the rest of your life!”

Zeke merely blinked benignly at Benjamin, then turned toward his father. He scanned the numbers, knowledgeable enough to understand what he was seeing. Blood pressure and oxygen were incredibly low. Heart rate was incredibly high. Brain waves were wavering around barely there, flickering out now and again like a flame fighting against a spitting breeze.

Looking down at his dad’s face, he saw every line. Every frustration. Every misunderstanding. Every confusing thing he couldn’t understand. Beneath these, so faint to as almost not be there, the laugh lines. The smiles he’d kept for Althea and lost when he lost her. Every ounce of pain was hardened in his skin, visible even on the edge of death; and all the love and joy he had ever felt disappeared in contrast. A sick churning in his gut became a shock of recognition. Jimmy had built his own pattern, set it in motion, maintained it; a pattern of misery and rage.

In that moment, Zeke swore to himself that he would break the cycle. He saw it in himself, heard it in the words that Micah said to him. It was all true. If he didn’t do something about it now, then someday he would be there; crazy, lost, unloved and unable to love. Not this time.

“Thanks, Pops,” he murmured as he touched two fingers to his lips and then to his father’s forehead. “Sorry it went down like this.”

“Nice try,” Benjamin sneered behind him. “But that’s not good enough. You aren’t good enough.”

“I am for some people,” Zeke said quietly.

Zack met his eyes over their father’s still form, spilling his grief as shamelessly as a child. Zeke ruffled his hair the way he used to do when Zack was very small, chucked him under the chin with a finger, and tapped his nose.

“I’ll be around. Call me if you need anything.”

“’Kay,” Zack sniffed, wiping his nose.

Zeke turned to his father for the last time. “Thanks for the life, old man.”

As he turned away, the machines began to beep frantically, then flat-line. He didn’t look back. Benjamin crumbled in front of him, letting him pass without a glance. It was like walking through a dream. Nurses rushed past him, codes were called over the PA, all around him a whirlwind of activity. He walked slowly, feeling the tile floor suck at his feet like molasses, unable to connect his consciousness to his form to the passage of time and confines of space. He couldn’t remember walking there, but he suddenly found himself face to face with Micah in the bright little lobby.

“How is he?” Micah asked hesitantly.

Zeke’s mouth and throat worked around the words, choking on them, parching around them. The gentle, sympathetic receptionist pressed a plastic cup of water into his hand and he drank it gratefully, forcing the cool liquid to open his clenched vocal chords.

“Um...he’s....” Zeke cleared his throat, holding his hand up to interrupt Micah as he began to make understanding noises. He needed to say it, or it would never be real. He inhaled sharply. “Jimmy is dead.”

The words slid out, somehow detached from him. Somewhere between intent and action, his consciousness was drifting. Jimmy’s wrinkled face hovered in his mind’s eye, his brain obsessively mapping and labeling each emotion which carved them. Over and over again, the lines were drawn. Break the cycle. He took another deep, shuddering breath, and finally met Micah’s eyes with full focus.

“I love you,” he said.

Micah’s mouth dropped open slightly as his eyes widened. Zeke could see his mind working, making allowances for the circumstances, and a distant frustration snapped at Zeke’s awareness.

“Look at me,” he said quietly, stepping through the distance between them. He was staring into Micah’s molten grey eyes, watching his own image swirl in the inky black pupil. He set his hands on either side of Micah’s face, letting the empty cup fall to the floor.

“I love you, Micah.”

“I love you too,” Micah said, his voice quaking.

Zeke was suddenly aware of eyes on him. The receptionist from under her lashes, a patient openly cooing over her jigsaw puzzle, an orderly blushing furiously into his mop bucket. Zeke cleared his throat and dropped his hands, stooping to pick up the abandoned cup before clasping Micah’s hand and leaving the hospice center behind. The shrouds of heightened emotion fell away with every step. When he reached his truck, reality was back in full force, uncomfortable, grinding, and dirty. No halos, no soft energy, no existence beyond the physical. He suddenly realized how very tired he was.

“Chick’n Mash?” Micah asked as he started the engine.

“How’d you get to be the driver?” Zeke asked, suddenly aware that he was in the passenger seat.

“Because your reflexes are mannequin-like,” Micah teased with the gentleness of a kitten. “If you drive you’re going to drift. So, Chick’n Mash?”

“Yeah,” Zeke said absently.

But they were already on their way.