“All I know is I’m not going there to save him,” Mom replied.
At Lydia’s, she opened the door looking grim. “The surgery didn’t go well,” she said.
“What surgery?” Mom asked.
“He spent everything on not getting old,” Lydia explained. “Surgeries, treatments, injections, hair restoration, skin tightening—God knows what else. Every time someone promised he’d look ten years younger, he threw money at it.”
“And Tessa?” Nora asked.
“She left the minute the credit cards dried up.”
Inside, Dad sat in Lydia’s recliner. For a moment, I didn’t recognize him. His face was tight and uneven, cheeks too smooth in one place and sagging in another. His hair looked unnaturally dark. He didn’t look younger—just damaged.
“Kayla,” he said, standing too quickly.
Mom looked at him. “You’ve been busy.”
“It didn’t go the way I expected,” he admitted.
“I made mistakes.”
Ben laughed bitterly. “You think?”
Dad ignored him, eyes fixed on Mom. “I thought maybe we could talk.”
“Talk about what?” she asked.
“About us.”
“There is no us.”
His face twitched. “Kayla—”
“No. You don’t get to come back now because your little performance fell apart.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
