Both,” Gordon admitted. “I have liver failure, Paige. It’s been building for a long time, longer than I ever told either of you. The damage from the years I was drinking finally caught up completely. The doctors gave me a few months, maybe less.”
⸻
I sat down slowly in the chair near the door, working through the shape of that sentence, three years of careful distance between us suddenly collapsing into something considerably heavier than I’d been prepared for that morning.
⸻
“When did you find out?” I asked.
“Two months ago,” Gordon said. “I told Roy right away. I couldn’t figure out how to tell Sienna, given everything with the custody arrangement, given how carefully we’ve both kept things structured since the divorce.”
⸻
“So instead of telling me,” I said, “you told Sienna directly, and let her figure out how to sneak around an entire week of school to see you before it’s too late.”
