“I’m… Eggs?” he guessed.

“It was French toast, according to your home nursing staff. Can you tell me the date?”

Dad swayed. “It’s June. I know it’s June.”

“June what? Fifteenth? Seventh? Twenty-eighth?”

“It’s June!” Dad shouted.

My eyes pricked, and I blinked back the moisture that welled, watching my father dissolve.

“But what day in June?”

“I don’t know!”

“I understand, Art. Can you tell me the names of your home-nursing staff?” Milton didn’t even give Dad a chance to recover.

“There are a few,” Dad replied, looking so lost that my instincts screamed to get him down from the stand.

“But who are they?”

“I don’t…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know the people who are currently responsible for your around-the-clock care?” Milton questioned.

“No! I don’t! They’re people in my house. They’re always there. They never leave me alone anymore!” His voice broke and took my spirit with it.

“That’s okay, Art. Let’s try one last thing. Camden says that he was brought home by a voicemail you left. Do you remember that?”

Dad’s eyes brightened. “Yes. I remember the voicemail. I asked him to come home and help me. Xander wouldn’t let me have a DNR.”

“That’s right. Do you know when you left the voicemail?”

Shit. I felt the blood drain from my face.

“I…” Dad looked at me helplessly.

I wanted the last twenty minutes back. I wanted to tell Simon, No, don’t put him on the stand. Not because he didn’t deserve to say his piece but because he didn’t deserve what Milton was doing to him right now.

“Look at me, Mr. Daniels,” Milton ordered softly, like he was talking to a child and not a grown-ass man who had raised three sons and buried one of them, plus his wife and brother. “Do you remember when you left the message?”

“It was this year. I know that.” Dad nodded. “I know it. I know it. This year. This year. I know it.”

“Mr. Daniels, do you remember leaving that message at all?”

“This year. Had to be.”

“Mr. Daniels?”

“Objection. Your Honor, this is…” Simon just shook his head. Cruel. It was cruel.

“This is your last question, Mr. Sanders. We’re not here to torture those who need our protection,” Judge Wilson warned.

“Yes, Your Honor. Art?”

“What?” Dad whispered.

“Do you remember leaving Cam that voicemail?”

“No.”

“So everything we’ve done here, from Cam giving up his career to this very hearing, was all started over something you can’t even remember?”

“Mr. Sanders, that’s enough,” Judge Wilson ordered.

“I’m finished,” Milton promised and took his seat.

Dad’s gaze darted around the room to the ceiling and the floor, never settling on any one person or thing.