Page 96 of Worth Loving
“Hello.”
“Dean. I wasn’t sure if I’d catch you. Or that you’d answer.”
“I always answer if I can,” he said.
“That’s right. You do. You talk to us when we call, but you never call us.”
This was the reason. They blamed him for everything. For having a set of balls that no one else had.
“Is there a reason for this call?” he asked. “I’m just pulling out of the garage and going to work.”
“You own the bar, you can come and go when you want,” his mother pointed out.
“I can. But I’ve got a lot going on.”
“You need to come home,” his mother said.
“Why?” he asked. “The holidays are a few months away and I’m not sure I can make it.” He wasn’t even lying about it this time. His parents came the first two years that Jonah was alive and last year they wanted him there.
It wasn’t possible when Jonah got sick and he didn’t want to travel at that point.
They weren’t happy but he was putting his kid first.
Something his parents never did.
“It’s Grandpa. He had a heart attack and it’s not good. He wants to see you.”
“You couldn’t lead with that? You had to start the conversation by criticizing me?” Some things would never change.
“We don’t know how bad it is. He needs to have a pacemaker and possibly a few valves repaired and, well, you know any surgery is a risk. He’s in ICU now and he is asking for you.”
There were so many things going through his head. His grandfather and he hadn’t had much more than a few words to say to each other since Dean returned the trust fund check and said he wasn’t going to medical school.
His grandfather hadn’t met Jonah once. Hadn’t even acknowledged his first great grandchild.
Because you know, the circumstances behind it were a smear on the Easton name.
Fuck them and that name.
His kid came first then.
The old man’s heart probably had enough of his dictatorship and couldn’t take any more.
“Why does he want to see me? We don’t even get along. We haven’t spoken in years on top of it. You know how I feel about this.”
He’d made no secret about it to anyone that their treatment of Jonah was the last straw and he’d stay in contact, but not much more.
“He wants you. You’re the only one he wants to see before he goes in for surgery.”
It was almost too much to take in. After all these years, none of it made any damn sense.
“When is his surgery?”
“Friday morning,” his mother said.
“That’s two days from now.”
“You always were a smart one.”
