She came alive.

It was only for a minute, but I felt it as clearly as a sharp wind. It was like all of her suddenly vibrated to life right in front of me. As if part of her had been diffused and hidden before that moment.

She’s been gone for almost an hour, but the adrenaline is still pounding through me. The desire to follow after her is overwhelming. To see her, touch her. Discover what she tastes like. To see that life in her again.

There’s something holding her back, but now that I see that, I want to figure out how to crush it. That was the first time she didn’t sprint from me. I mean, she still kind of ran. But it was a slow run.

I can’t believe my progress with a woman is a slow run. But I’ll take it. I’ll take anything I can get.

I push her from my mind as I walk to my father’s facility. Just thinking of Ella while I’m heading toward my father feels wrong. Having them in the same damn town feels wrong. Maybe I should move him back to Upper Bay. To put some distance between them and make sure that something like the bakery doesn’t happen again.

With the onset of warmer weather, there are children playing in the yards of the houses I pass. An old couple sits on their porch, and I nod to them. Life’s starting to fill up what used to be empty streets.

But when I get to the facility, the life fades. The low ceilings feel like they are even lower today. I stride through the building to my father’s room. Instantly, the weight of being in his vicinity stiffens my spine and locks my jaw. He sits on the end of his bed, slippered feet flat on the floor, and not doing much at all. Just sitting there with his hands curled in his lap and his toe sticking out of his slipper.

His hair is getting shaggy. I suppose it’s my job to provide a barber for him. I’m sure as hell not going to cut it.

After a few conversations with Paul, I learned that the most difficult time for them to cover is dinner time. The facility has a central cafeteria that has multiple doors—into a courtyard, which is where he escaped from earlier. So the extra personnel coverage is mostly for my father to eat dinner with other people. And I guess it’s some sort of facility policy that all residents eat at least one meal in the common area for the majority of the week.

So, here I am. To share dinner with my father. Four nights a week.

Or at least, sit next to him and stare at the door until he’s finished eating.

“Are you ready?” I ask him, gruffly. I clear my throat. He listens better when I don’t let my anger seep into my voice.

His head snaps up. “What the hell are you doing here?”

My back straightens, giving me another inch on him. Fuck. I hate when he’s coherent. It’s so much better when he doesn’t know who I am.

“I’m here to take you down to dinner,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Are you ready to go?”

He snorts out some kind of response and stands, looking up at me as he does. “Why are you keeping me here?”

“This is where you live.” I start toward the door. “Let’s get dinner over with.”

He shuffles behind me down the hallway, looking in all the doors as we pass. More like the man I’ve been used to seeing over the past few weeks.

I don’t really know much about his dementia. I didn’t plan on spending time with him, so I didn’t see the benefit of learning. But if I have to endure these dinners, then maybe I should read a few articles online.

I help him through the line. Hold his plate of chicken and rice. Putting some vegetables on the side even though he doesn’t ask for them. Get him a clean fork because the first one is dirty.

Fuck, I hate this. Taking care of him. Standing next to him. Directing him to his seat across the room.

Each step next to him ratchets my shoulders and back tighter. By the time I step out of here, I’m going to be a solid mass of stone.

And he eats slowly. I finally sigh and take a seat next to him, realizing that I’m making the rest of his table companions nervous with my looming angrily behind him.

I push the chair back from the table and set my elbows on my knees, waiting for the man to finish eating.

After trying his chicken, he turns toward me. “Aren’t you going to eat too?”

I shake my head. “Not hungry.”

“Okay.” He pauses, staring at me. “What was your name again?”

I hesitate, debating. Maybe I should just make up something.

“Oh, that’s your son, Charles.” Another resident, an older woman dressed entirely in pink, leans over the table toward us. She reminds me of the kind of woman who knows everything about everyone. “Which one are you?”

“Dean.”

She nods and points her fork at me. “The son who sails his boat?”

My elbows dig into my knees, but I try and soften my expression. It’s not her fault my father’s an asshole.

“It was my mother’s boat,” I say.

“Rosemary.” My father pushes his chicken around his plate.

“Yes.”

“Where is she?” He looks up, glancing around himself for the first time since entering the cafeteria.

“Not here,” I snap.

The woman across the tables purses her lips, giving me a look that’s a cross between pity and contempt. Maybe I deserve it. The heat is building in me—threatening to spill over.

My father turns to look at me. “Is she with Mira?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know who Mira is.”

A friend of my mother’s? I had thought it was one of my father’s women. But, if that was the case, then why would he think Mira was with my mother? I shake my head. I don’t really want to think about this shit. It’s bad enough I have to see him. Puzzling out what he did in his younger, asshole years is not how I want to spend my evening.

The woman keeps glaring at me from across the table, and I push up to my feet. I can watch him just fine from across the room.

“I deserved it,” my father says.

I stop. “What did you say?”

“I said I deserved it.” His eyes narrow on me, a glimpse of the man that I’d grown up with. “What she did to me.”

“Mira?” My hand doesn’t wrap into a fist, exactly. But my fingers tighten, my nails digging into my palm. “I don’t want to hear about the women you cheated on my mother with. And I’m sure you did deserve it, whatever happened.”

“Dean.” The woman says my name from across the table again, but I barely hear it. I’m glaring down at my father, waiting for him to answer. My fist clenching and releasing. And…

Fuck. I take a step back. I’m not that guy.

My father shakes his head. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t hurt her, Dean. But I still deserved it.” Then he turns back to his rice and scoops up a huge bite.

I keep staring down at him. “Hurt who?” I finally ask. If there’s one thing I’ll never believe about this man, it’s that he didn’t hurt someone.

He always hurt someone. Over and over.

But he doesn’t answer. He stands up and shuffles back to his room without another word.