“How did you keep Ma out of it? All the stupid shit you did?” I ask him. I know he led a wild life. He’s got the stories and the scars to prove it. I came by my lifestyle honestly.

I lift my head and look him in the eyes, forcing a small smile to my face. “I need to know what to do. I need advice.”

“You can’t. It’s gotta stop.” He shrugs his shoulders, the faint light from the hallway casting a long shadow of him into the room, ending at my feet. “That’s the advice I can give you. Don’t keep a thing from her. You should already know that.”

I swallow, or try to, as a ball of spikes grows in my throat. “What if you can’t stop? What if I can’t quit this job and this life?” The image of Tony dead on the floor remains firm in my sight. Even as I blink it away and look up at my father, I can still see him. Dead from an overdose and staring back at me with glassy, lifeless eyes as if it was my fault.

I brought him to that room. The one reserved for partying in our company.

I gave him the coke, but I didn’t know it was laced. And then I left him there to get whiskey and cigarettes.

I brought him to his death.

I can never tell her that. I can barely admit it to myself.

“Did you ever mess up so bad, you thought you could never make it right?” I ask even though his answer doesn’t matter. I guess I just don’t want to feel so alone.

“We all do; you just find a way. I’m sorry, but it’s the best I’ve got.”

“Find a way …” I say the words softly, barely moving my lips as I look at the edge of the comforter, wishing it were that easy.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Evan. I did everything for your mom, and I’d do it all again. Maybe that’s where you went wrong?”

“What’s that?” I’m quick to ask him, my gaze focused on Pops and whatever it is he has to say. I’m desperate for an answer to all this shit. I need to take it all back.

“You weren’t thinking about her.”

His words sink in slow, but deep.

I shake my head and agree, “No, I wasn’t.”

“The best thing you ever did was marry that girl.” I nod my head, feeling a jagged pain move through my body. “Worse thing you ever did was leave her side.”

He doesn’t know how true his words are.

Kat

You left a space beside me,

You left me all alone.

You left a space beside me,

I thought my heart would turn to stone.

You left a space beside me,