20
AARON
Dad didn’t speak about what he’d walked in on that night. Not. One. Word.
He also didn’t mention Ezra’s absence the next day when I got him out of his bed and helped him dress in his favorite sweatpants. But I didn’t either. In silence, I went about my drudgery of caring for an invalid whose one slurred word had taken away the most precious thing I had from my life. Every step, every time I sat caused my backside to twinge, reminding me of loving the man I wanted—needed.
And no longer had.
Abandoned. Again.
Searching inwardly for anything I might have done to contribute to Ezra’s leaving other than loving him proved fruitless. We’d connected, and even though I’d been the one to initiate intimacy and affection time and again, I refused to fault myself. It was Dad’s single wor
