“I am so sorry for the part I played in your mother’s lie. I love you. I was trying to honor your mother’s wishes. I thought that was where my duty lay as a father, but I wasn’t thinking about the big picture. About my duty as a grandfather. It is the greatest failure of my life, and I am truly sorry.”

I focus on a piece of lint stuck to the blanket as my eyes well up with unwelcome tears.

Papa bobs his head. “Good night. I’ll be up for another hour or so if you want to chat or play a round of rummy.”

I nod and he closes the door softly behind him.

When I finish making the bed I shuffle out of the room toward Papa’s round little kitchen table. He’s waiting there, reading his paper with a deck of cards out. He looks up and grins.

“You shuffle. I’ll deal,” I tell him. He cracks the cards around through bridges and different shuffling measures before handing them to me. I dole them out, seven cards apiece, and we enter a round of gin rummy.

“Papa,” I start. And stop immediately. This is so hard.

He waits, eyebrows raised.

I exhale a forced breath. “I am a walking, talking human manifestation of failure.”

“Jamie,” Papa sighs.

I shake my head. “No, let me have this, I am. I don’t mean to hurt everyone around me,” I mumble. “But I do. All the time. I say things, and I do things for laugh value, and I don’t register the collateral damage until … I’ve done it. Siri is right. I’m a selfish shit stick—”

He winces at my curse.

“All I’ve been able to bring myself to do in the last five hours on the plane and at the airport is scribble down more jokes about all this crap, so I can use it in the future to make other people laugh.” I pause, serving him a look. “That’s messed up. I haven’t apologized to anyone. I haven’t attempted to talk it through. I’ve been here exploiting the drama I’m still waist-deep in.” I stare unseeing at my cards. “It’s how my brain has always sifted through things. And it’s messed up.”

I pick a card from the draw pile, compare it to my hand, and discard.

Papa draws a card. “I don’t know why you’re getting so down on yourself for wanting to make people laugh. It sounds like you’re feeling guilty for having a passion. If comedy is how you process life, then that’s how you process life. People need laughter, it’s what keeps us going through life’s roughest moments. And you need to process what’s happening around you before you can go about trying to fix it.”