Chapter 25 - The Prodigal Son’s Descent
I stared at the screen for a long time, the name *David* gleaming coldly against the dark glass. The last time I had seen him was across the wreckage of our ruined Thanksgiving dinner—when he had stood silently by while his wife, Jessica, insulted my life, and when he had watched me walk out the door without offering a single word of defense or farewell.
"Who is it?" Kevin asked, noticing the sudden stiffness in my posture.
"David," I said quietly, turning the phone around so he could read the message.
Kevin’s face hardened instantly. The bitterness of betrayal lingered deep within him, as it did in me. "Don't do it, Mom. He made his bed. He chose Jessica’s world, her status, her endless greed. Let him lie in it."
"I’m not rushing to save him," I said, slipping the phone back into my pocket. "But I want to know what happened. Jessica didn't just leave him for nothing. Empires built on sand tend to wash away very quickly when the tide comes in."
We agreed to meet David at a quiet, dimly lit diner on the edge of the city—far away from the high-society clubs where he used to parade his status.
When he walked through the heavy glass door, I barely recognized him. The sharp, tailored Brioni suits that Jessica insisted he wear were gone, replaced by a cheap, rumpled wool coat. His shoulders were slumped, his eyes sunken with exhaustion and dark circles of chronic stress. He looked ten years older than the man who had sat at the head of my dining table just over a year ago.
He spotted us in the corner booth and hesitated, his face flushing with humiliation before he slowly walked over and slid into the vinyl seat opposite us.
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"Mom... Kevin," he choked out, his voice cracking. "Thank you for coming. I didn't think you’d ever speak to me again."
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