By the time the monitors hummed softly around him, the years between us felt like a lifetime and a single breath. I had spent so long chasing approval in rooms that glittered, ignoring the quiet ache that followed me into every designer doorway. My mother’s love was a ledger; every gift tallied, every mistake invoiced. When she drew the final line—“him or me”—I realized I’d never truly belonged there at all.

With my father, there was nothing to bargain for and nothing left to prove. His hands were thinner, his voice weaker, but his eyes held the same unshaken warmth I’d run from as a child. As I wiped his forehead and listened to his ragged breathing, shame burned through me, then softened into something else. He didn’t ask where I’d been. He only squeezed my hand, as if to say: you’re here now, and that is enough.