Chapter 84 Bonus Chapter 12: Dinner for Three

Chapter 84 Bonus Chapter 12: Dinner for Three
White shirt. Sunlight. A smile so bright it hurt.
Exactly like this.
Only Nathan’s hair was whiter now, and the lines on his face had deepened.
But when he smiled, nothing had changed.
At the restaurant, Nathan chose a table by the window. Sunlight spilled through the glass and warmed the white tablecloth to a pale gold.
Across from them sat a woman.
No.
Across from them sat no one.
Only an empty chair.
But Nathan spoke to that empty chair in a gentle voice, his eyes bright.
“What do you want to eat?”
“Steak? Okay. I’ll have the same.”
“Mason, your sister says she wants steak too.”
Mason looked at the empty seat. Sunlight rested on the white chair back. No one sat there.
But he smiled.
“Sure.”
That night, the three of them had dinner together.
In Nathan’s world, Chloe sat across from them.
She ate steak, drank grapefruit juice, and talked to him.
Mason played the obedient younger brother and helped Nathan preserve the fantasy.
He poured water for the empty seat, passed napkins to the empty seat, and called the empty seat “Chloe” with a smile steady enough to fool anyone who wasn’t looking too closely.
Nathan was pleased.
He smiled and said, “Mason, your sister says you’re very thoughtful.”
Mason smiled back. “As long as Chloe’s happy.”
On the drive home, Nathan was behind the wheel.
Outside the windows, streetlights slipped backward one after another, orange light flickering through the car in intervals, like a silent film playing across their faces.
Nathan suddenly said, “Your sister says she wants to move in with us.”
“Sure,” Mason said. “I’ll clean up the guest room.”
“No need for the guest room.” Nathan smiled, so tender it almost broke something. “She’ll stay with me.”
Mason paused.
He thought of the bed in Nathan’s bedroom, the one with half of it forever empty.
For as long as Mason could remember, half of that bed had been untouched.
One side was folded perfectly. The pillow sat straight. The sheets had no wrinkles at all.
Like an exhibit.
Like a grave.
“Okay,” he said.
He looked out at the streetlights racing past the window, orange light flashing across his face again and again.
His eyes began to sting.
Not for himself.
For Nathan.
Nathan loved one person so much.
So much he could only meet her again inside a dream.
So much he had to create a world where she still existed just so he could keep breathing.
Cool wind slipped in through the cracked window.
Mason blinked hard and did not let the tears fall.
He was grown now.
Twenty years old.
He couldn’t cry in front of Nathan.
He had to save all his tears for when he was alone.
2025 · Winter
One day, Nathan took Mason back to the old house.
The house stood on the South Side of Chicago, a two-story red-brick place with cracked front steps and weeds growing wild through the yard. Nathan came once a month to clean, so it was never truly dirty, but the air inside still carried the smell of a place that had been empty too long.
A house waiting for people who never came home.
Nathan opened the walk-in closet.
Inside hung a row of garment bags, lined up neatly like soldiers waiting for inspection.
He unzipped one of them.
Inside was a wedding dress.
White satin, covered in tiny pearls.
Under the dim yellow light, the pearls held a soft glow, like moonlight scattered over water. The skirt was enormous. When Nathan eased it open, it nearly filled the whole closet, layers of tulle blooming outward like clouds. Like a dream someone had folded carefully away and refused to wake from.
It was beautiful.
So beautiful it barely looked like something that belonged to this world.
Mason had never seen the dress before, but he knew.
“It was Chloe’s?”
Nathan nodded. His fingers brushed the skirt, moving lightly over the pearls, so careful he looked afraid he might break it. “She never got the chance to wear it.”
“She can wear it now,” Mason said. “Now that she’s back.”
Nathan smiled.
It was faint, but real.
The smile of a man who had waited too long and, at last, believed the answer had come.
“Yes,” he said softly. “She’s back.”
He hung the dress on the rack again and took two steps back, studying it.
The light fell across him, stretching his shadow long against the wall, like a quiet tree.
“Mason, do you think it’s pretty?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“I think so too.” Nathan’s voice dropped, almost to a whisper. “She’ll look beautiful in it.”
Mason stood beside him and said nothing.
He looked at Nathan’s profile. Nathan was smiling, but Mason knew it was not a real smile. It was the expression someone wore when he was trying with everything he had to convince himself, I’m happy. The curve of his mouth, the light in his eyes, every detail was exactly right.
Too right.
Like a painting so perfect it stopped feeling real.
Mason did not expose him.
He only walked over and stood with Nathan, looking at the wedding dress.
The closet was quiet. Only their breathing filled it, along with the occasional sound of cars passing on the street outside.
“Dad.”
“Mm?”
“She’ll love it.”
Nathan turned to look at him.
The light sat in Nathan’s eyes, and there was too much there. Gratitude. Sadness. Relief. Reluctance. Mason could not separate them. He only felt that his father’s eyes were deep enough to pull a person under.
“Thank you, Mason.”
“For what?”
“For…” Nathan paused. “For waiting with me.”
Mason shook his head.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
He hesitated, then added, “Dad, whether Chloe comes back or not, I’ll stay with you.”
Nathan went still.
Then he smiled.
This smile was different from the one before.
The one before had been performed for himself.
This one was for Mason.
The lines at the corners of Nathan’s eyes deepened, but the light in them grew brighter.