All year, I had handled it.
The steroid treatments.
The late-night nebulizer.
The emergency inhalers in every drawer.
The insurance forms.
The school care plans.
The way Ethan would wake up afraid because he couldn’t catch his breath.
I had handled everything because I thought Garrett was working, sacrificing, providing.
But he had not been carrying the weight.
He had been escaping it.
I looked up.
“Did you know he was sick tonight?”
“No.”
“Did you know he had been worse this week?”
He said nothing.
“Did you?”
His silence answered.
A sound left my mouth, small and broken.
“You left anyway.”
Garrett’s eyes filled with tears now, finally, but they were useless to me.
“I thought you had it under control.”
The cruelty of that sentence was so quiet that it almost felt gentle.
I stepped back as if distance could keep me from shattering.
My father took the phone from my hand and read the messages himself. When he finished, he looked at Garrett with an expression I would never forget.
It was not rage.
It was a verdict.
“You are done.”
Garrett barked a bitter laugh, panic turning ugly. “Done? You don’t own me.”
“I own the company that funds your division.”
Garrett went pale.
“I own the board seat your father begged me to secure.”
His mouth opened.
