Chapter Twenty-Two: Answers

                                        

                                              

I chose to meet at the park.

 Not the one with the playground and dog walkers and sticky-fingered children, but our park—the quieter one, tucked behind the rows of old olive trees, where the benches were slightly crooked and the world always smelled faintly of earth and rosemary.
It was the place we used to walk to when we didn't want to talk but wanted to be near each other anyway. It felt like the right setting for this. Neutral ground for something that didn't feel neutral at all.
I saw him before he saw me, standing near one of the benches, scanning the paths like he wasn't sure which direction I'd come from. He was wearing those usual soft tones he always gravitated toward—beige, amber, something muted and forgettable but safe. Like he was afraid of standing out, of being noticed too much.
When he spotted me, he lifted a hand in a half-wave, unsure whether to smile or apologize first.
"Hi, October," he said, handing me the tea like a quiet peace offering. "I thought I was late, took a bit longer than I thought—the barista was... talkative. Kept asking if I wanted something sweet with it, then laughed and said something about not needing more sweetness." He gave a small, baffled shrug, like he was still trying to make sense of it. "Then something about working out—I don't know. Weird questions for tea, right?" 
I nearly laughed. I almost did. Typical. Even now—so clueless sometimes. The man could dismantle financial reports like second nature but couldn't tell when someone was hitting on him with neon signs.
I almost softened then. Almost. But I didn't come here for that.
I shifted, the paper cup warming my fingers, and looked him dead in the eye. "What happened exactly the night you didn't come home and went to save her cat?"
No soft openings. No pleasantries. I'd rehearsed too many versions of this in my head, watered down, polite, indirect—and I was done with that now. His expression faltered, lips parting slightly like he'd been ready for small talk and I'd thrown him into deep water instead.
 "You didn't leave because of some emergency," I said, "Or someone dying. Or a crisis you couldn't ignore." I stopped to gather my thoughts, "You didn't leave because the world was burning. You left because she called. And her cat was missing."
The words hung there between us—absurd and heavy at the same time. They echoed off the walls of everything we'd built and everything he'd cracked open that night.
"And then you called me callous hearted for being upset!!" I added.
And he stood there, caught in it, with nothing left to hide behind. He didn't defend himself. Just nodded slowly. 
"Okay," he began, his voice low, uneven, as if each word cost him something. "So... weeks before your birthday, something started gnawing at me—this slow, creeping guilt. I kept pushing it down, telling myself I had everything under control, but it was always there, just under the surface. It was about how much time I was spending away from you... and how much I was enjoying being at work. Not just working, but specifically working with Laura."
"It wasn't only that she was efficient or helpful—it was that being around her seemed to restore something in me. She made things easier, yes, but more than that... being close to her made me feel like I mattered again at the firm. Like I was finally back in Dad's good graces. He looked at me differently when she and I worked together—as if I was capable again, like I was finally the son he expected. I didn't want to admit how much I craved that. The recognition, the power. It felt good. I felt like a good CEO—sharp, excellent, important. Someone people respected, maybe even envied.