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After everyone is finished eating, I offer to clean the kitchen to give J.R. time with his parents. But Roger stays behind to help me while J.R., Ellie, and Knox disappear outside. I feel nervous as he hovers next to me, drying the dishes as I wash them. I haven’t decided exactly how I feel about him yet. Knowing the things I do know about him and then after all of the forward and random questions he asked over our meal earlier, I feel uneasy around him. I can’t get a good read on Roger, and maybe that’s what bothers me most about him. I can read most people well. Roger, not so much. There’s something there behind his eyes—something he’s not disclosing. And maybe that’s why I don’t feel like I trust him. Maybe that’s why he makes me uneasy.
“You’ve got a beautiful home,” Roger says to me as he wipes a dish dry and then puts it away.
“Thank you. When we bought the place, it was a dump. J.R. thought we should tear it down and start over.”
“Sounds like J.R.,” Roger says. “He’s never been very resourceful.”
“He’s handy, though. We did a lot of the work here on our own. He only electrocuted himself once.” I laugh, mostly joking. He was shocked once when we were taking down an old light fixture.
Roger doesn’t laugh. He’s lost in a thought somewhere. “He was always a good kid. Despite our differences.”
“J.R. is happy to have you here today. You and Ellie both. It means a lot to him.”
“And you? What do you think?” he asks me.
I glance at him. His blue eyes are piercing into me. I feel like he’s trying to take this conversation down a certain path, although I'm not sure which way he’s trying to go. I wonder if I should take the bait and see where it goes or resist.
I take the bait. “I think it’s great. My mother was never interested in reconciling with me. Every child, no matter the age, needs their parents.”
“Yet you kept J.R. from his daughter for a long time,” he points out. His voice is still kind, but I hear the question in his voice. I’m just not sure which part of me he’s questioning.
“Not my proudest moment,” I reply. I’m not looking at him now. My eyes stare down into the soapy water in the sink, and I scrub a fork a little more ferociously than I need to.
“Why did you come back, Rachel?” he asks me. “Better question, why did you leave him in the first place?”
I continue scrubbing the fork. I feel myself getting angry, and I’m trying to keep a cap on it. I don’t look at him. I don’t answer him.
“Are you sure that Knox even belongs to my boy?” he pushes.
My face fills with heat, and staying calm is no longer an option. I’m filled with a kind of rage that I can’t really define, and I briefly imagine taking the fork in my hand and plunging it into one of his blue eyeballs.
I thought I was crazy. I’ve felt like Roger has been watching me all day. Measuring me up. Evaluating me. Every question he has asked me today has been strategic in its own way. I’m not an idiot. I know when I’m being sized up.
I turn to face him. “Say what you need to say, but please don’t questionwhomy daughter belongs to.”
Roger looks at me. He’s calm, still measuring me with his blue eyes. I watch a smirk curve in his lips. “I hit a nerve.”
“You did.” I keep a straight expression, trying not to shout, but my words are sharp. “Knox Rose is your granddaughter. She looks just like J.R. You can’t deny that.” I glare at him. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, but since we’re asking questions, why did you come back? Why did you randomly call up your son and attempt to right your wrong?”
He blinks, and then he turns back to face the dishes. He’s quiet for a few minutes. He’s gone somewhere else in his mind. I’m not sure where. Finally, he says softly, “I’m dying.”
The words take me by surprise, but I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed before. His ashen face. The way his eyes sink back slightly. He does look sick in a way. Not a deathbed sick, but like he’s heading in that direction.
“Does J.R. know?” I ask him softly.
“No,” he says. “I’ll tell him. I want to be the one to tell him.”
“Of course.” I go back to my dishes, wiping a plate clean.
“It’s a brain tumor. Inoperable.”
My heart sinks. “How long do you have?”
“Well, I’ll put it this way. This is my last Thanksgiving.”
Now I feel like a little shit. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
Roger sighs. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. With J.R., especially. Before I go, I want my family back. My son. There’s a lot of lost time, but I want to make up for it.”
