Page 122 of Promised to the Cowboy

He leaves before either of us can stop him. The door closes quietly.

Dad and I are alone. For most of my life, that would have been the worst possible arrangement. Now I don’t know what it is.

He sits back down, curling his hand around the edge of the chair. “You arrested in the field. Your heart went into ventricular fibrillation after the taser hit.”

The words are clinical. Safe. He’s always been good with facts when feelings are too dangerous.

“Ethan started CPR. I took over when I got there.”

“You brought me back.”

“The defibrillator brought you back.”

“Dad.”

His mouth tightens. “I kept your blood moving until they could shock you.”

“Dad.”

“What?”

“You called me son.”

Silence fills the room. The monitor marks every second of it.

His eyes close briefly.

“I heard you.”

He swallows. Looks toward the blinds. Anywhere but at me.

“You called me Gabriel too.”

His jaw shifts. “I know your name.”

“You’ve spent thirty years acting like saying it costs you something.”

He goes completely still.

My chest hurts from speaking, but I can’t stop now. Not after dying. Not after hearing the one thing I spent my whole life pretending I no longer needed.

“Was it because you thought I was dead?”

His face folds. “I thought you were dying, and I knew the last thing I might ever have given you was silence.”

My eyes burn, but I don’t look away. I’m done looking away.

The monitor keeps its steady rhythm.

“I didn’t know how to look at you,” Dad says, his hands clasped between his knees now. “You looked so much like her.”

“Mom.”

He flinches at the word, then nods. “At first. The eyes. The hair. Then you got older, and you started looking like me.”

“I’m sorry that was so difficult for you.” The bitterness comes out before I can stop it.

He accepts it. Doesn’t argue. “That wasn’t the difficult part.”