"Exactly. Joshua is on a different level now. You clinging to him like this is shameless. If people find out, how bad will that look? Strangers might think the Lambert family treated you poorly! Have some dignity, will you?"
I looked at my son's indifferent face.
That familiar, twisting pain in my chest returned.
But this time, it was violent.
A sledgehammer to the ribs.
I clenched my jaw, refusing to collapse in front of them.
Summoning the last dregs of my strength, I raised my head and looked my son in the eye.
In that look, I poured a lifetime of bitterness.
Confusion.
Love.
And finally… total, despairing resignation.
I didn't say a word.
I didn't look at anyone else.
I turned around silently and began the long walk back the way I came.
Behind me, the glass skyscraper loomed like a massive, cold tombstone.
It buried my hope.
It buried my son.
I don't remember how I made it back to the guesthouse.
I collapsed onto the bed, gasping for air, skin slick with cold sweat. The world tilted and went black.
The terrified guesthouse owner called an ambulance.
When I drifted back to consciousness, I was in a hospital bed. An IV drip stuck in my hand. Oxygen tubes threaded into my nose.
A young nurse was checking my blood pressure. Seeing my eyes flutter open, she spoke softly.
"Sir, you're awake? It was acute angina. A heart attack. You're lucky they brought you in when they did. Don't move. Rest."
I tried to speak, but my throat was sandpaper.
That afternoon, the ward door swung open.
My son walked in, his secretary trailing behind him.
Still impeccably dressed, though he looked slightly haggard. He placed a generic fruit basket on the bedside cabinet—the kind you buy for a stranger.
He stood by the bed, looking down at me. His expression was complicated.
But devoid of love.
After a long, suffocating silence, he finally spoke. The icy corporate tone was gone, replaced by the whine of a victim.
"Dad… I told you. I told you so many times not to come."
He ran a hand through his hair, exasperated.
"You insisted on causing a scene. Now look at you. Lying in a hospital, letting everyone laugh at us."
His voice sharpened.
"Are you satisfied now?"
I closed my eyes.
I couldn't bear to look at him.
A joke?
Is that what I've become?
I, Asher Lambert, lived my entire life with my head held high—upright, honorable. Yet now, in my twilight years, I was nothing more than a punchline to my own son.