Dan hadn’t felt like that man in a long time.
His phone buzzed with a text, and he jumped on it, expecting it to be Harper. He frowned down as he saw his mom’s name on the screen. He slid open the message.
I can’t believe you didn’t call me today.
Dan’s blood froze in his veins as he looked at the date then reread the message.
December 20th.
Fuck.
Dan dropped the suit as memories from the last time he’d worn it, one year and two weeks to the day, flooded through him.
He’d been heading into the office early, a cocky grin plastered on his face at his perfect call on an alternative scenario outcome for the passing of a tax cut bill that many senior managers had overlooked. It was a risky move for a junior manager to contradict those above him, but Dan had advocated for a change in the company’s stop prices, and his plan ended up saving the company, and its clients, ridiculous sums of money—making Dan the office hero and inflating his usually minor ego to supersized proportions.
He’d worn his nicest suit in preparation to present a debriefing, explaining what the past forty-eight hours had meant for the company, and offering suggestions on where to go. He’d been a few blocks from the building when he’d gotten the call from his mom.
Now, with numb fingers, he dialed her number.
It rang twice, then went silent, his mom’s breathing coming across the line as she waited for him to say something.
“Hi, Mom,” he finally managed to push out.
“Hello, habibi,” his mom, Farrah, said, her voice steady, trying to hide the pain that crackled right below the surface.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. I didn’t realize what day it was.”
“It’s been a year, Daniyal,” she shot out, using the Arabic pronunciation of his name. “Not ten. How could you not remember?”
Dan did remember. He remembered his mom’s crying on the phone as she told him his father had been rushed to the hospital. The way he’d taken the first train to Philadelphia. He remembered holding her in the hospital waiting room as she cried into his shoulder, pressing the words ‘cancer’ and ‘a few weeks’ into his nicest suit.
He remembered feeling both numb and shattered. Angry and relieved. Confused by how something like cancer could take down Dr. James Craige, pioneer of the dental field, savior of teeth, frigid father, emotional tyrant. But most of all, he felt worried for his mom and how this would rock her world.
“I … I haven’t been paying attention to dates lately,” Dan said. “It was a mistake.”
Farrah sniffed. “Do you not mourn for him? He was your father.”
“No, he was an asshole.”
“Daniyal,” his mom snapped.
“No,” he cut in. “You know he was. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean we have to pretend he was some sort of saint. Being dead doesn’t make you a good person, Mom.”
“He was a good person. He helped countless people. His foundations, his practice, his charity work—”
“Yeah, but what about his family?” Dan shot back, his voice rising, bitterness and anger swelling up inside him in a sudden tidal wave of hurt. “What about how small he made you become to accommodate his vision? Everything you had to give up? Or the fact that the practice was always his, despite the work you did together? His name, his business, his legacy, and fuck us for wanting any individuality in that, right? And now we’re supposed to pretend he was some hero?”
His mom was silent on the other end, and Dan decided to go for broke. “It won’t make you a bad wife to admit your husband was a piece of shit.”
“I’m not going to listen to this,” Farrah said, before hanging up on him.
Dan clenched his phone in his fist, hitting the corner of it against his forehead a few times before chucking it on his bed. The seal had been broken, the memories of that day bursting in from the shadows of his psyche.
He saw the tubes twisting in and out of his father’s body, machines beeping and humming as they stood guard over him, the acrid smell of hospital disinfectant burning through the room.
James Craige had always been large. Imposing. But under the harsh lights and thin blankets, he looked small. Fragile.
Dan sat in the chair next to the bed and took his father’s hand. After a moment, he stirred from his sleep and blinked up at the ceiling. James slowly noticed Dan’s presence and eventually turned his head to his son.
A sour grimace covered his face as he looked Dan up and down. He pulled his hand from Dan’s grip.