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He made no effort to hide his dislike and the tears stopped rolling with one last sniffle. Delilah patted her hair. She opened her mouth to say something and then obviously thought better of it. She grabbed a tube of lipstick from her purse and applied it carefully, eyes on Matt the whole time.
The woman disgusted him.
“I’m going for a coffee. Do you want anything Mattie?”
He strode past her without another word and entered room 211. He smelled it immediately—the unmistakable scent of death. His eyes were drawn to the bed. A slight form lay there, sucked into the mattress and pillows it seemed, and monitors blinked and beeped in the background. The sound of his breathing was hard to listen to.
A small lamp near the bed threw eerie shadows across the prone body and after a few seconds, Matt had to force himself to move. He did it—one step at a time—and stopped near the bed. He couldn’t look at him—not yet—and his eyes moved to the table there.
Several framed photos were on display and Matt frowned, reaching for the one closest to the bed—the one easiest for his father to see. He stared at the image for so long his eyes blurred and he had to scrub at them. He hadn’t thought about that day in a long, long time.
“Mattie. Hold that darn fish up so your mother can get it in the shot.”
“I’m trying, Dad.” But the fish was slippery and wanted back into the water. Matt held onto his fishing rod, nearly lost it, and bit his tongue in an effort to keep the slippery fish in the boat. It wasn’t that big, a little old sunfish, but he’d caught it on his own.
“I got it, Dad!”
His father leaned in close, arm around Matt as the two of them beamed at his mother. She was on the dock with their lunch unpacked and ready to go.
Her hair blew in the wind and her dress billowed around her legs. She was laughing, trying to keep the hair from her eyes so that she could take the picture.
“Get closer, Mommy,” Matt shouted.
He held up the fish and puffed out his chest.
“Closer!” He laughed, watching his mom take another step forward. She snapped the photo and then, with a yelp, went flying head over heels into the water.
For one second Matt and his father froze, but when his mother broke the water, they fell down laughing, nearly capsizing their boat.
Of course his mom hadn’t found it funny until much later. But she’d managed to make a memory and had the good smarts to toss the camera onto the dock before her epic fall.
HIS EYES SMARTED and Matt set the photo back onto the table. There were a few others there. One of Matt as a teen, arms folded and leaning against his dad’s custom ride, looking sullen and full of attitude. And two of another young boy. The resemblance was uncanny. It had to be Justin.
Shit. He couldn’t go there yet. He needed to get through this first.
Matt shoved his hands into his pockets and looked up at the ceiling. What was he doing here? He couldn’t even look at the man in the bed. A man who was dying. A man who was his father. A man who surrounded himself with pictures of a son he’d not talked to in nearly twenty years. A man who had hurt him more deeply than any other human being on the planet.
“Didn’t think you’d come.”
The voice came from his right. It was gravelly. Weak. Hesitant.
Matt’s fists tightened and he turned to look at his father. He thought he’d be prepared. Hell, he’d seen sickly folks before. But even so it was a shock. His father had been over six foot and built like a Mack truck. He’d had a full head of dark wavy hair and a five o’clock shadow that never left him.
The man in the bed was unrecognizable. His body was decimated from cancer—he was nothing but skin and bones. And even though the eyes were Ben’s, they were too electric—too intense. Matt had to look away.
Now that he was here, all the anger and the words full of hurt and pain he’d wanted to throw at Ben—those words disappeared like water down the drain. He had nothing.
He looked at his father and found his voice. “I know how you like surprises so…”
Benjamin’s breaths were shallow and harsh. He moved his mouth, but at first no words came out. It took a bit and Matt had to lean closer to hear him. It was as if each word took a little bit more of whatever strength he had left.
“You always were a smart ass.” His father wheezed. “You look good.”
“You look like shit.”
His father smiled, or at least tried to. He thought he mumbled, smart ass, again. Benjamin’s eyes fluttered and then closed. Matt waited for something more, but other than the strained sounds of his breathing, Ben Hawkins didn’t move.
Unsure and more than a little anxious, Matt paced the room, his eyes moving from the photos on the beside table to the prone man smothered by pillows and blankets. As the minutes dragged by, the tension inside him multiplied and then tripled. His chest was tight, his jaw, his shoulders….
