Kevin pounded up the hill, headphones blaring. He hoped the screaming in his ears, and the racing of his heart, would drown out the sludge in his head, but his beloved Rage Against the Machine seemed too loud. His pulse was way too fast. This is forty.

Collapsing by the old tree, he searched for the carving in the bark. There it is. He touched his mother’s initials gently. It had been twenty years since their last Sunday walk there; twenty years since her ashes dusted the roots of the lofty, solitary oak. I wish you were here with me. I’m so lost. I’m numb. Please help me wake up.

Kevin’s gaze followed the trunk out to the leaves, just as they began to rustle. The gentle summer breeze reached his arm, curled around his shoulder and across the nape of his neck, filling him with a calming warmth. All five senses came into alignment. His mind quieted.

Kevin had forgotten what serenity felt like.

He took a step back with a knowing smile before descending the hill. Jogging in silence, his breathing settled into the cadence of his strides.

No more running.

Kevin closed the door behind him. The early morning light crept across the living room carpet. It was all familiar: recliner, corduroy couch, clunky TV, but home felt foreign.

He wandered to the dining room, or, more accurately, the study: one end of the dining table had been his desk when he was a teenager. His seat faced a large window, which meant it was also the portal to his daydreams. He tried to conjure a reverie now, but his newfound inner stillness was leaving him, and he was overtaken by something much darker.

Three shadows were sitting at the table. They each spoke in turn.

"Kevin, you made a series of clinical errors and you put a patient’s life at risk. We cannot allow that to happen again."

"We have to do what’s in the best interest of our community and the future of our group."

"This is your last day here."

Kevin had never responded.

The medical directors’ silhouettes faded away. Then, there was another presence in the room, at the liquor cabinet to his right.

Mom.

"Don’t tell your father," she whispered playfully, pouring a glass of whiskey.

Kevin glared at the throng of new bottles. Dad, how can you still drink like this after what it did to Mom?

He was startled by footsteps upstairs.

Pull yourself together. He slid from the doorway and crossed the foyer to the kitchen. He prepped a mug of Earl Grey: fifty-five seconds in the microwave. Start.

After placing a packet of Splenda on the counter, a framed photo beside the microwave caught his eye: his father giving him his first white coat in medical school. He reached into the cabinet for the animal crackers and slowly chewed a handful. Are you still proud of me?

"I didn’t even hear you come in last night." His father’s voice rumbled down the creaking stairwell. He emerged before him, a mountain of a man. More snow on the peak. Damn it, how is he even bigger?

"Hey, Dad."

Kevin hugged him and rested his head for a moment on Greg’s shoulder.

"Thanks for the wet hug."

Kevin felt his dad fight his urge to recoil from the hug, so he pulled back. His father checked his own newly washed scrubs for imperfections. The microwave beeped. Kevin nodded at it and dropped onto a chair.

"How was your flight?" Greg asked. "Save any lives?"

"Uneventful, thankfully. Is Alex awake?"

"Yes, finally. He had a late night with friends." Greg pulled out the mug and added sweetener. "Perfect. Thanks," he said after taking a sip, then glanced at Kevin’s book on the kitchen table. "What’re you reading?"

"The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Kind of like a self-help book. It’s-"

"Other people’s ideas of how you should live." Greg rolled his eyes and grabbed his white coat from its hook. He checked his pocket watch. "Action and experiences are what you need for real growth. Like what you just went through."

He just paraphrased a chapter.

"Thanks, Dad, I’ll try to remember that."

Greg rummaged through his briefcase, found his badge, and transferred it to his white coat.

Kevin’s eyes lowered.

"How are you?" his father asked.

If only it was a year ago, when he was a steady flame encased in glass. I’m leaving LA and moving back in with you. How do you think I’m doing?

"Living the dream."

"Look." Greg threw his coat over a chair. "They never should have fired you, but I warned you about that group. They run their new doctors into the ground, and you knew that when you signed the contract. You ignored the red flag."

Kevin gave him a defeated glance. "I couldn’t focus."

"Of course, you couldn’t. You were in no shape to handle anything else after your divorce. Kev, you were stretched so thin, but now you have time to heal. You’ll make it through this. I’ve always been your dad, and your coach. I used to give you a kick in the ass whenever you got into a slump in baseball. This is no different."

Slump? I’m barely hanging on.

Greg leaned in. "Get out of your head. Trust your gut."

"I didn’t tell you what they did." Kevin’s voice cracked. "I reached out to Dr. Sunder to help me intubate my patient and he ruptured her trachea and blamed it on me. No one believed me! I’m so fucked up I went to Mom’s tree today. God, I miss her."

His father’s eyes reached out to him, as his jaw went tight. "I wish there was something I could’ve done."

"You did." Kevin picked at the spine of his book before meeting his father’s gaze. "You got me in at Chicago Legacy, Dad. Thank you."

Greg nodded. "That was all you."

"I can’t believe I start in two weeks."

"You’ll be ready."

More footsteps. Kevin straightened.

Alex turned the corner and stopped.

"Hi." Kevin stood, matching his son’s six feet.

Alex finished buttoning his shirt, said, "Hi," and grabbed his tie from where it was flung across his shoulder.

"I can help you ..." Kevin reached out.

Instead, Alex handed the tie to Greg, and they assumed their positions in front of the mirror.

"Morning ritual," Greg said.

Kevin sat.

"How’s summer here in Chicago? Learning a lot from Grandpa?"

"It’s Long Grove"-Alex focused on Greg’s technique-"And yeah."

"All set." Greg patted his shoulders. "Geez, those muscles. You’re going to burst out of that shirt."

Alex blushed and adjusted his collar. He had a Hollywood face above a triangle torso with muscle definition that could grace the cover of an anatomy textbook. "Hardly. I haven’t been in the water in weeks."

Kevin, predominantly a land mammal, always marveled at how he had produced a state swimming champion. "There’s a YMCA down the street," Kevin said. "Lap pool."

Alex nodded. "I’ll check it out."

"I’m really happy to see you," Kevin blurted.

Alex paused by the door before picking up his backpack. He turned to Greg. "I’ll see you at the hospital. I want time to review that appendicitis case from our last shift."

Kevin reminded himself to keep breathing. Slow it down. "Have a good day at work. Your grandfather is lucky to have you as a volunteer."

"Thanks, Dad," Alex said.

Alex opened the door to the garage, but Greg stopped him. "I’m missing some of my cigarettes."

"Your cancer sticks? Sorry to hear that."

"I’m trying to cut back," Greg said. "Please don’t."

"It’s been a few weeks with no change, so I thought I’d help the process. How many times a day do you tell your patients to quit smoking?" Alex smiled and walked away.

"That kid." Greg’s nostrils flared.

Déjà vu. You can’t imagine how many times I’ve tried to get him to stop, Alex.

Kevin’s medical knowledge came with a heavy price. He knew his father’s vices were speeding up his doomsday clock, and that at the stroke of midnight there would likely be a brutal, sudden death.

Kevin couldn’t afford to be visited by another shadow. "I think he likes having you around and wants to keep it that way."

Greg listened out for the sound of the car door shutting. "Speaking of, when are you going to tell him?"

"I don’t know," Kevin said. "He’s already disappointed in me." 􀁇

"Sooner, the better. I think he’d appreciate any communication at this point."

You can’t be serious, Kevin thought. The tumor robbed Mom of her voice. What was your excuse, Dad, for not talking to me then?

They had spent five months listening to the sound of bloody phlegm being suctioned from her tracheostomy, watching her marshal what little strength she had into her thumb to push a button that auto-fed her morphine into her fading veins. All the while his father had demanded round after round of radiation and chemotherapies, ignoring Kevin’s protests.

Dad, I was trying to protect her living will and you shut me down. How could you not see that letting her go was the most loving thing you could have done?"

Sometimes a prolonged death was just as devastating.

Greg opened the side door. "I want to show you something. Let's go out back," he said.

Kevin hesitated, then followed.

The backyard was a semicircular enclave surrounded by trees holding hands. The trees towered over their fallen comrades who had been converted into a fence. Young Kevin had added insult to injury by carving his initials into the planks in plain view of a dilapidated deck facing it. The trees now looked in mourning at a fresh pile of timber with a sledgehammer on top of it.

"Your summer project," Greg said.

Kevin balked. "Aren’t I a little old for this? I can hardly assemble Ikea furniture, and you want me to build a new deck?"

Greg sized him up. "Seems like you’re in good shape. Tear it down, follow the blueprint."

"What about the guys outside Callahan’s? They need work and could get it done in a day. A one-man job will take weeks." Kevin glanced quickly at his father’s swollen belly. And it needs to be sturdy.

"That’s not the point. And you won’t be alone."

Kevin watched his father head back inside. Some welcome home this is. He sighed and looked to the clouds.

A crow was circling above him. Little did he know the bird had found him too, and a splatter of shit landed in his eye.

Perfect.