He slid into the booth anyway, his hands trembling. “Vanessa left me, Dad. Three days ago. She took what was left of her jewelry and moved in with some real estate agent in Malibu. She said she didn’t sign up to live in a two-bedroom apartment in the Valley.”
I chewed slowly, swallowed, and looked at him. “A woman who smiles while your father is being beaten is not a woman who will stay when the money runs out. You chose her aesthetic. Now you live with her character.”
“I have nothing!” Ryan suddenly snapped, a flash of his old anger piercing through his misery, though it quickly crumbled into a sob. “My car was repossessed yesterday. My firm is letting me go because my personal life is a PR disaster. I’m sleeping on a mattress on the floor, Dad. Do you know what that feels like?”
“I do,” I replied, my voice steady and unyielding. “In 1978, when the union struck on the San Diego project, I slept in the back of my pickup truck for three months. I ate canned beans and washed my face in gas station sinks. The difference between you and me, Ryan, is that I built a ladder to climb out of that hole. You just expect me to drop an elevator down for you.”
