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“It’s just me, Dad,” Dylan said, his voice soft and soothing. “And look who I’ve brought with me.”
“Felicity.” Tony’s body relaxed once he spotted me. When he glanced down at the carrier, he even smiled. “God, it’s good to see you. And my grandson, too. Dylan said you’d tracked him down.”
“This is Rylan.” I hauled him over and placed the carrier next to the armchair. “Wanna hold him?”
“I’d love to,” Tony breathed. “It’s been too long.”
Dylan pulled up another couple of chairs, and we sat around Tony while he cradled Rylan in his thin, wiry arms. Tony wore his grief on the outside. It was there in his gaunt cheeks, his thinning hair, the ashy color of his skin. But as he baby-talked at Rylan, there was a light in his eyes. It was the happiest I’d seen him in months.
Eventually, Dylan and I got up and moved around the room. We cleaned up any trash we found, put away the clean clothes on the shelves near the bathroom door, and gathered up any dirty ones we found. Dylan disappeared for few minutes with a Tupperware container of the chicken pot pie we’d had for lunch. He must have gone to the nurse’s station or a lounge with a microwave because it was piping hot when he came back.
“You’ve gotta eat, Dad,” he encouraged in a tired tone that told me they’d had this conversation several times before.
“I’m really not hungry,” Tony insisted.
“Scared of eating my cooking?” I teased. There weren’t many moments where it felt appropriate to guilt-trip someone, but given how thin Tony looked, I didn’t mind.
“Of course not,” Tony said, taking the bait—and the Tupperware.
Dylan offered to hold Rylan while Tony ate.
We chatted for an hour or so, doing our best to keep the conversation light. Tony had a lot of questions about how the pack was doing, which saddened me a little. Other than Dylan and Kingston, it sounded like no one else from the pack had visited Marianne. But more than anything, he was most interested in Xander’s search for Ryder. I regaled him of everything Xander had told me, making sure to highlight the most hopeful parts, and showed him the pictures he’d sent me. The giant cactus outside his room at the Kerrys’ house, a few shots of the Strip, a sunset over the desert, and finally, a picture of Xander himself that one of the Kerrys must have taken. He was hunched over a kitchen island, diligently chopping an onion, while Denny and a punk-rock grandma looked on.
“I know that guy,” Tony said thoughtfully, pointing to Denny. “I just can’t remember where from.”
“That’s Dennis Kerry,” I said. “He’s the bounty hunter we hired to help track the boys down. Doris Houghton recommended him to us. She hired him when Quincy’s dad went feral. Maybe you saw him in Evergreen back then?”
“Could be.” Tony rubbed his eyes. “I feel like my memory’s been going a bit. Must really be getting old.”
“It was more than thirty years ago.” More gently, I added, “And you haven’t been taking the best care of yourself, Tony. That’s probably not helping at all.”
“Yeah, s’pose not,” he admitted. “Some days, it feels like… like I don’t deserve to be taken care of.”
“Tony,” I laid a hand on his arm. “That’s not true at all.”
“Feels true. Just some days, you know. How can I enjoy myself when she’s still… gone? So far away from me?” He shook his head. “I was a bad mate to her. If I had known that she didn’t feel our bond, that she was cut off from the love I felt—”
“But you didn’t know,” I reminded him. “You couldn’t have known. And you were never a bad mate. I don’t believe that even a little.”
“I should have been better,” he insisted. “Loved her harder. Showed it more.”
I tried a few more times to convince him how wrong he was, but he wouldn’t hear it. Nor would he listen to my apologies for not coming sooner.
“She hurt you, kid,” he said with a shake of his head. “She wronged you more than anyone. It’s big of you that you came at all.”
I was about to suggest that we put on a movie or something—Dylan had raided his DVD stash, and the TV in the room had a player plugged in—but before I could pose the idea, Rylan blew out his diaper all over Dylan’s white T-shirt.
“Goddamn, little man!” Dylan turned his face away, coughing from the smell. “You’re a real weapon, you know that.”
“God. I’m so sorry.” I sprang into action, reaching for Rylan, but Tony beat me to it.
“I’ll change him,” Tony offered, taking Rylan from Dylan’s arms. “There’s a table for it in the restroom down the hall.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Tony smiled. “It’s been a while since I’ve changed a diaper, but I bet I’ve still got some skills.”
I handed Tony the diaper bag, and he disappeared out the door with Rylan in his arms. Dylan, retching slightly, excused himself to the bathroom to try and clean his shirt up. He closed the door behind him. The faint rush of running water sounded from within.
