he asked silently. But there was no answer.
He remembered her dying of cancer, how she held his hand until the very last day and whispered, “Live, Peter. Live for both of us. And find someone to fill your life with meaning.” And he had found it. He had found that meaning in a tiny, dying infant. But now that meaning was lost. Michael had disowned him. And Peter knew he deserved it.
George sat opposite him, straight as a soldier on parade, but the fists clenched on his knees betrayed his inner tension. He thought of his daughter, Anna. What a girl she had been! Cheerful, stubborn, with dimples in her cheeks when she laughed. She had dreamed of being a journalist, of traveling the world. Instead, an early, senseless death at nineteen. He blamed himself. Maybe he had been too strict with her, maybe he hadn’t given her enough love, enough attention. And now, his grandsons. One raised in comfort, but with a perpetual shadow of grief in the house. The other raised with love and care, but in a lie. Which of these fates was worse?
Daniel paced the room like a caged tiger. He was overwhelmed with emotions. Anger at Peter, which still hadn’t subsided, and resentment for himself, for his lonely childhood. And a strange, incomprehensible pull toward this new, suddenly found brother. He wanted to break down the door, burst in, yell at him, demand answers, and at the same time, hug him, comfort him, tell him that they were together now, that they were family. This duality was tearing him apart.
Around midnight, Peter stood up.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said in a hollow voice. “This is unbearable.”
He walked to Michael’s door and knocked softly.
“Michael, son, I’m begging you, open the door. Let’s talk.”
Silence from behind the door.
“Michael, please!” Peter’s voice broke. “Don’t be silent. Punish me. Yell at me, hit me, just don’t be silent.”
Silence. Peter slumped against the door, pressing his forehead to the cool wood.
“I know I was wrong,” he whispered, and the tears he had been holding back all evening streamed down his cheeks. “I’ll do anything. If you want, I’ll leave, disappear from your life forever. If you want, I’ll go to the police and confess everything. I’ll do the time. Just tell me what to do.”
He wept, unashamed of his tears. An old, broken man who had lost everything. George and Daniel watched him, and even in Daniel’s heart, something stirred. He saw not a criminal, not a thief, but simply a heartbroken father crushed by grief.
And then, a sound came from behind the door. A quiet, barely audible thud. Then another dull thump.
“Michael!” Peter cried, jumping to his feet. “Michael, what’s wrong?”
He started jiggling the handle, but the door was locked.
“Michael, open up!”
In response—silence. But now it was a different, sinister silence.
“His heart,” Peter whispered, his face turning chalk-white. “He has a weak heart. The stress… He could have…”
He threw himself at the door, trying to shoulder it open. But the old oak door wouldn’t budge.
“Move!” Daniel shouted.
He took a running start and kicked the door hard. The wood splintered. Another kick. The lock burst with a crack, and the door flew open.
Michael was lying unconscious on the floor. Beside him was an overturned chair and sketches scattered across the floor. His face was pale, his lips bluish.
Peter pushed everyone aside and rushed to his son. His medical instincts took over instantly, suppressing the panic and despair. He pressed his ear to his chest.
“Pulse is thready,” he snapped, “breathing is shallow.”
“Call 911! Now!”
George was already dialing on his cell phone. Daniel stood frozen in the doorway, staring in horror at his motionless brother. Peter unbuttoned Michael’s shirt and began CPR, giving rescue breaths. He worked with a clear, swift, almost automatic precision. But his eyes held a look of pure terror. He, who had saved him from death eighteen years ago, could now lose him because of his own lie. It was the cruelest irony of his life.
“Hang on, son,” he whispered, leaning over Michael. “Hang on, my boy. Dad’s here. Dad’s with you.”
He no longer hesitated to call himself a father. In this critical moment, all conventions, all lies, fell away. Only one all-consuming force remained—a father’s love for his child. And that love was the only truth in this shattered world.
The wail of an ambulance siren tore through the night’s silence, its flashing blue lights dancing on the walls of the old house, turning the drama into a grim spectacle. The paramedics worked quickly and efficiently. Michael, pale and limp, was placed on a stretcher, hooked up to monitors. Peter, who hadn’t left his side, gave them clipped instructions, stating the diagnosis, listing the medications Michael was on. His professionalism, which had returned in the most critical moment, commanded respect. He was a doctor again, fighting for a life.
“I’m riding with him,” he said firmly as the stretcher was carried out.
“Only one passenger,” the paramedic grunted.
Peter looked at George.
“You go,” the old colonel said. “You’re needed more. Daniel and I will follow in a cab.”
The ambulance doors slammed shut, and the vehicle, siren blaring, sped off into the night. Daniel and George were left alone in the strange, suddenly empty house. Daniel walked over to the spot where his brother had lain. Sheets of paper were scattered on the floor—the sketches Michael had dropped when he fell. Daniel bent down and picked one up.
It was a portrait. A portrait of Peter Wallace. The old doctor was depicted sitting in his armchair with a book in his hands. But it wasn’t the likeness that was so striking. Michael had managed to capture not just the facial features, but the soul. In the drawn Peter’s eyes, there was weariness, wisdom, and an infinite, deep tenderness. It was the look of a father gazing at his son. Daniel turned the sheet over. On the back, written in pencil, were the words: “To the best dad in the world. Happy Birthday!”
Something inside Daniel broke. All his rage, all his resentment, suddenly seemed petty and insignificant in the face of this simple, childlike love and the tragedy that had just unfolded before his eyes.
He looked at his grandfather. George stood by the window, watching the departing ambulance, his shoulders slumped. For the first time in his life, Daniel saw his unbending colonel grandfather look so vulnerable.
“He loves him,” Daniel said quietly. “This Wallace guy, he really loves Michael.”
“Yes,” George replied just as quietly. “He does. Maybe even more than I loved my Anna.”
The hospital greeted them with sterile silence and the smell of antiseptic. Michael was taken to the ICU. Peter wasn’t allowed in. He sat on a hard bench in the hallway, staring at the closed door, his face as gray as the hospital walls.
George and Daniel sat down beside him. The three men, enemies just that morning, were now united by a common anxiety. They sat like that for several hours. No one spoke. Each was lost in his own thoughts. Peter prayed, for the first time in many years. He prayed not for himself, but for the boy lying behind that door. George remembered holding the newborn Daniel, just as tiny as the other one he had thought was dead. And Daniel? Daniel thought about the brother he had just found and might immediately lose.
Finally, the ICU door opened, and a doctor came out. Young, tired, but with a clear gaze.
“Are you relatives of Michael Wallace?”
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