I wanted him to have regrets, because I had my resentments. My dad had been the one to escort me to the asylum. Riding with me all the way. Talking to me. He’d visited with regularity, paying for a motel room, coming in daily.

But when he’d found out I was aware, that I could communicate, the visits had tapered off. He’d moved back home. I had no idea how conscious that was. If it came down to having someone he could take care of and support with no real obligations, and that had been spoiled… or if it was because communicating was hard and involved a deeper look at the problems I was dealing with. More personal stuff. Or if it was just coincidence.

But as he’d tapered off his visits, went home, only came every once in a while, my mom had stepped it up. As I became more able to communicate, she had visited more regularly. Never enough, but she’d come. Never looking me in the eye enough, or talking directly to me enough. The doctors had been a safe proxy. She’d studied the paperwork and documentation, the treatment options and she’d listened to the doctors.

But if my dad had stuck it out, tried a bit harder, faced the hard stuff… maybe she and he would have met. Maybe it would have been possible to drag them into therapy. Maybe we could have established boundaries, found a framework, and been able to deal with Amy when she re-entered the picture.

But he hadn’t, so that hadn’t happened. Was it a slim chance? Yeah. But it was a chance. All of us had shit to deal with. But so often it felt like I was the one going the extra mile to wade through the shit to the far end, stick my hand out. To fucking try.

I wanted him to regret that. That he hadn’t.

“You have so much of your mother in you, and so little of me,” he said, in response to my silence.

The image that jumped into my head was of my mom and Uncle Neil kissing, hands finding the zippers or buckles in their old Brockton Bay Brigade outfits.

Holding the bottom end of the phone away from my face, I bit into the chicken strip, past the fried crust into the meat. It had gone lukewarm, the salsa soaking into the fried part, and made it soggy. Which was easier. It made it easier to reconcile my body’s reaction with the meal, which made it easier to eat.

“What are you doing, Dad?” I asked, again. “Right now. What’s the goal?”

“I’m trying to keep her from going off the deep end.”

“She came close. She attacked Sveta.”

“I know. Well, I didn’t hear about Sveta, specifically.”