“I don’t need your help. We don’t. How dare you bust in and upset Maggie like that?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t our intention. We didn’t expect her to react that way.”
“How did you think she’d react? You’re strangers! She doesn’t know you.” Anger whipped through him. “I don’t know you anymore! And you’re going to say that’s my fault, right?”
“No,” his father answered emphatically. “It’s our fault. We realize that. We’ve known it for a long time, but we were stubborn. The first few years, we told ourselves you wouldn’t be able to manage. That you’d see we were right. That you’d come back.”
Jason breathed shallowly, his fingers clenching and unclenching. “You were wrong.”
“We were.” His mother’s eyes glistened. “We were wrong and inflexible and didn’t want to admit what an enormous mistake we’d made. We’ve wanted to reach out for so long, but we let our pride win.” She gulped in a breath, wiping her cheeks. “When we saw you both on the news. The thought that you could have been killed without knowing how sorry we are—God, it was unbearable.”
Robert swallowed thickly. “I don’t know if you can ever forgive us. I don’t know if you should. But we had to see you both. We had to try.”
A mess of conflicting impulses battled. Jason wanted to scream and shout his bitterness and betrayal at the same time that he wanted to fix the fracture in his soul, fill the void. He rasped, “I don’t know either.”
“We’re just so relieved you’re all right.” His mother pressed a hand to her chest. “Maggie’s beautiful, Jason. And look at you! So big and tall. So grown-up. We’ve all missed you very much. Your brother too.”
Bitterness boiled over. “Then why didn’t he answer my texts when I moved out?”
“We took his phone away. Changed his number.” Robert rubbed a hand over his face. “We were so angry. So convinced we were right. Please don’t blame your brother for any of it.”
“All these years, I haven’t had a family. It’s just me and Maggie. I can’t—you can’t fix this overnight.”
Shelly nodded. “We realize that. But we want to help, honey. We’ve contacted a child psychologist, and she can see Maggie as early as Wednesday. There’s a flight tomorrow morning—”
“Wait, what?” He held up his hands. “No! Stop! You can’t just take over.” He backed up, his brain buzzing. “I can’t deal with you right now. I need to be with Maggie. She’s the priority.”
“Of course she is,” his father soothed. “Both of you are our priorities. We’re here to help you.”
“I haven’t seen you in eight years!” His chest tightened painfully. “I need to think. This is too much right now.” Maggie kidnapped, sex with Ben, and now he was actually in the same room with his parents. They stood there a few feet away, flesh and blood—his and Maggie’s.
“Darling, you look pale. Sit down and breathe. Robert, find a doctor.”
“No! Stop!” Blood rushing in his ears, he blew out slowly. “I need to process. I need to be alone—with Maggie. Come back in the morning. Please.”
They shared a long look, and his mother said, “Of course. As we told you, we only want to help. We have so much to make up for.” Her eyes filled again. “You’re a father. You can understand how much we’ve missed you. How much we want to be there for you.”
He was drowning in the swirling flood of conflicting emotions, barely keeping his head above the surface. “I’ll never understand how you turned your backs on me. On us.”
“It was the biggest mistake of our lives.” Tears shone in Robert’s eyes too, and Jason realized he’d never seen his father cry. “Almost losing you both, it showed us once and for all what fools we’ve been. We want to make it up to you and Maggie. We don’t expect you to forgive us. But we hope you’ll let us be a part of your lives. We’ll be back first thing tomorrow.”
His mother took a step closer. “Jason, will you… Can I hug you? Please?”
Eyes burning, he nodded and let her wrap her thin arms around him. She felt so much smaller than he remembered, and she shook with a wretched sob. But she smelled the same, jasmine and sage, her perfume filling his senses as he fought tears.
“Come on, Shelly. Let’s give him the space he wants.”
She let go, and Jason almost reached out to draw her back and return the embrace. But he let them leave, waiting until the hall was clear to duck back into Maggie’s room. Karen gave his shoulder a squeeze after vacating the chair by the bed and leaving, pulling the door halfway closed.
He turned off the low light, the only brightness now the diagonal beam from the hall. The cot was folded in the corner, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. He dropped into the chair, wincing at the tenderness in his ass. Adrenaline spiked, a cocktail of excitement and confusion with a thread of panic.