He and I always got on well. Sinclair never liked him much. Said he was boring and uptight. But as the elevator doors slide shut, she looks at him, batting her eyelashes, before reaching up and kissing him on the mouth. I can’t make out what he says to her as she eases back, but whatever it is, combined with the adoration in his eyes, has her pulling his mouth down to hers and kissing him again.
She looks so happy.
Tightness grows in my chest making it hard to breathe.
I make my way to the exit.
This was a mistake. I’m an idiot to think I could walk in here and be unaffected. Even if I hadn’t just seen my estranged sister, merely breathing in the air, the scent, the sounds, even the feel of the thick plush carpet beneath my feet would have ruined me.
It’s all too familiar. It’s alltoo much.
I don’t wait for the doorman to open the door for me. I push out through the other giant door beside it and drag in a deep breath of city air as I spill out onto the sidewalk.
I stride away but only make it a couple of feet when I spot a familiar woman walking toward me from the opposite direction.
Flashes of a silver dress rush to the front of my mind.
She’s heavily pregnant, and I can feel her eyes scrutinizing the side of my face as I keep my head down and pass her.
“Excuse me?” she calls in a British accent.
But I pull my collar up and hunker down into it as I speed up.
I wait until I’m safely across the street and concealed around the edge of a building before I look back.
She’s standing on the sidewalk, looking in the direction I came in. She’s been joined by a man with silvering hair in a suit. He’s whipping his head around, scanning the street in-between talking to her. She’s pointing in my direction and shaking her head. He kisses her, resting one hand over her bump as he does so, then he’s striding in my direction, pulling a phone from his jacket as he does so.
The only time I’ve seen my father in the flesh in the last three years is that day at the beach.
His wedding.
He looked happy that day. Serene even. Like he was at peace.
As he strides closer, all hint of that peace has evaporated, and been replaced by a haunted look as his face drains of color.
I sink against the wall of the building, shielded by the corner as he strides past, his phone glued to his ear.
“Hallie’s certain it looked like him,” he says.
He listens to whoever is on the other end of the line before sighing.
“I know. You’re right, Son.”
He’s talking to my brother.
The one son he still acknowledges. The one son that still exists to him.
The sound of the word from his lips, knowing I’ll never again hear it directed toward me is the final snap of a fiber to an ever-fraying rope.
I slam the edge of my fist into the wall before heading onto the street and not looking back.
32
JUDE
The front doorrings with incessant urgency as if someone’s pressing down on the buzzer without letting up. I race to the intercom.
Slade put me in a cab last night, listened to the address I gave to the driver, and promised he’d come to me. I spent all night and the day at work thinking about him, wondering if that was the last time I was ever going to see him.
