Episode 1207: My Boys

His body, for the most part, had recovered from the crash but there were plenty of days like this one where he woke up stiff and sore. He still regularly went for therapy and messages. He’d had an appointment for therapy that morning but had canceled, too eager to speak with his father to do anything else.

Ava wanted him to let it go, put his dad’s actions in the rearview and focus on the impending arrival of their baby. Sebastian had agreed initially, all he’d wanted for so long was to forget everything about the accident and what had come right before it. But when he should have slept the night before, he’d mostly been caught up thinking.

Thinking about the kind of father he wanted to be. Someone who didn’t do shady things anymore just to get what he wanted. Someone who shouldn’t just let his own father, his kid’s grandfather, think it was fair game to blackmail his daughter-in-law.

“For someone who’s usually chained to his desk, you sure were hard to find today,” Sebastian said, walking up to his father and bracing for one the dog’s trademark overly enthusiastic greetings at a time when Sebastian’s body least needed the impact. But Walter barely gave a tail wag on Bas’s arrival.

“I’m glad you were eager to see me, son, but are you sure you should be out and about? You haven’t been lax with your therapy have you, your mother has talked to no end about how important it is that you continue with that. You need to be careful, Sebastian, your limp is looking very pronounced. I already have one of my boys not feeling well, we don’t need to add you to the list. Walter hasn’t been hadn’t been his gregarious self, not eating as much either. That’s why I didn’t go into the office today.”

“You stayed home with your sick dog? You skipped work for him?” This revelation was a thousand percent more surprising than learning that his dad had blackmailed Ava. Work was everything to his father, at least it always used to be.

“You never once stayed home with me when I was sick as a kid. You never showed up for my school stuff either. Working always mattered more. The only way I knew you loved me was when you blackmailed or manipulated me into things and told me it was for my own good.”

His dad at least had the decency to look chagrined. “I’ve had conflicted priorities in the past. I’m trying to be a better father these days.”

“A better father to your dog, but to me-”

“Walter?” Phillip Marques said, alarm in his voice. “It’s not like him to lay down on the sidewalk when we’re out for a walk. Walter? Are you okay?”

Episode 1208: We Are Family