Page 104 of Doomsdate

“Your mother and I want to apologize, son. We will likely do a subpar job, but please allow us to try.” Dad pauses to swipe at his still-leaking eyes. “God knows it’s been too long in coming as it is.”

“Hank,” Mom chides under her breath, glancing around to inventory who might witness the unseemly crying. “Think of company morale.”

“You’re right. Let’s relocate to the privacy of our office,” Dad says with another one of those Dyson-powered sniffs.

“Um. Okay, then.” With that, my parents turn in lockstep and march toward Washington Hall. What else can I do? Chicken and I follow behind.

Once inside their office, I take a seat in a wooden chair with leather arms, the kind where the padding’s been hammered into place with brass-headed nails. The seat is surprisingly springy and cushioned. Comfortable.

Are Mom and Dad getting soft in their old age?

Surprising me further, they pull up two of the wooden armchairs across from mine until we’re sitting in a triangle, our knees almost touching.

“Son, we are so happy to see you,” Mom begins, and after a stilted pause, she places her hand on top of mine.

I squirm in my seat, feeling incredibly vulnerable in this triad of their unbridled attention. “You’re probably just surprised I made it this long.”

“No,” Dad says, shaking his head with a considering frown. “You were always strong and brave. Incredibly resourceful. And you are an expert on the zombie genre.”

I stare at them over the frames of my glasses. “Uh. What? Are you thinking of some other son?”

“I’m thinking of the boy who was so passionate and determined to do what he loved, he stood up to two decorated colonels and defied their commands at age eighteen and has been taking care of himself ever since.” Mom meets my shocked stare with one of her own. “You built a whole life for yourself, Everett. A wonderful career doing exactly what you loved, with a family you made on your own. We are very proud of you.”

“Then…excuse me. What?” I blink rapidly at the words I longed to hear every day of my high school years, my eyes tearing up against my will. “How can you say that when you disowned me?”

“Disown you?” Dad leans over and places a hand on top of my other one. “We didn’t disown you, son. We never owned you to begin with.”

My eyebrows rise nearly into my hairline as my parents hold both my hands like we’re in some strange military séance.

“We did have to learn that, though,” Mom says, more softly. “When you first started your teenage rebellion, that’s all we thought it was—rebelling for the sake of rebelling. We thought that with discipline and a firm hand, you’d come to your senses and fall in line.”

“You thought I’d become just like you. That’s what you wanted.” The words come out defiant and, even after all these years, laced with an anger I thought I’d numbed out completely. “You didn’t want the real me.”

“We thought we were raising you. Doing what was best for you. When you want the world for your child, it’s hard to accept NYU.” Mom makes a face, like my alma mater is the educational equivalent of dollar-store mac and cheese.

I roll my eyes and retract my hands, feeling duped that I actually thought this was going to be an apology instead of another pile-on about all the crackpot decisions I’ve made. “Okay, well,” I say as I stand up, hoisting Chicken higher onto my chest. “Glad to see you still feel exactly the same as always.” I make to leave, but Mom’s voice cuts through the scrape of my chair.

“We told ourselves we knew best. But Everett, we didn’t. And it kept us from knowing you at all.”

I freeze, still facing the door.

“But we’ve been trying to fix that ever since, son,” Dad says. “And we’ll try even harder now that we finally have you back.”

“How?” I spin on my heels. “You left me alone for years! You didn’t visit me at college. You didn’t check on me. You didn’t come to my graduation. I had to do everything by myself, like I was an orphan instead of a kid whose parents withdrew their love the moment they didn’t get their way. How have you been trying to fix anything?”

“Well.” Dad takes a deep breath in. “We’ve been watching horror movies.”

My head rears back so far, my neck pops. “What?”

“We couldn’t understand why you threw away the life we wanted for you, so we tried our best to understand the one you were making for yourself. We’ve read every article you’ve published, every film review, every post on your social media. We’ve watched every single movie you’ve ever mentioned.”

“You…have?”

Mom nods. “Even the ones you hated.”

“Why?” My eyes dart between them, waiting for one of them to pop up out of their chair and yell siiiiike!

“So we could hate them, too,” Dad replies. “Obviously.”