The phone rang at 11:30 PM. In the quiet of the Pritchett household, the sound was like a gunshot. After the grueling emotional marathon of the "Coal Digger" incident—and the delicate peace we'd finally brokered between Gloria and Claire—the late-night ring felt like a direct threat to the stability I'd worked so hard to build. In this house, midnight calls were never about good news. They were usually the heralds of drama, or worse, the arrival of a ghost from the past.
I was in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water to wash down the lingering adrenaline of the day, when Gloria appeared in the doorway. She was wearing her deep purple silk robe, her hair perfectly cascading even in sleep, but her eyes were wide with a mix of dread and a reluctant, ancient spark of recognition. She answered the wall phone with a hand that trembled just enough for my enhanced vision to catch.
"Hello?" Her voice was wary. Then, it hardened, losing that breathy, nostalgic tone it used to carry whenever his name was mentioned. "Javier. I told you after the last time—after the La Jolla disaster—that Mason does not want you calling this late. We have a life here. A stable life."
I set my glass down on the granite island, the soft clink echoing in the silence. I could hear the voice on the other end perfectly. It was a cocktail of gravel, expensive cologne, and unearned confidence.
Gloria looked at me, her expression a complex map of exhaustion and lingering protective instinct. She covered the mouthpiece with her palm. "He says he is at the airport. Again. He says he has 'changed,' Mason. He says he saw the news about the game on the Spanish channels in Bogota."
I reached out and took the phone from her. My grip on the receiver was firm, a silent promise to her that the old patterns wouldn't repeat. "Javier. Last time I saw you, I told you to stay in the shadows. I told you that if you couldn't be a father, you should at least be a memory. Why are you in LA?"
"Mason! My lion, my cold-blooded king!" Javier's voice was as smooth as silk, though I could hear the roar of a jet engine and the rhythmic chime of an airport terminal in the background. "I have seen the news! The 'Pritchett Miracle' is the talk of every club from here to Bogota! My friends in Macau, they send me clips of you on the field. They say, 'Javier, is this your boy? This giant who moves like a leopard?' I realized that our last meeting... I was not at my best. The woman in La Jolla, she was a distraction! A weakness of the flesh! I have come to make amends to my firstborn."
"Manny is sleeping," I said, my voice dropping into a register that was calm but carried the weight of a physical blow. "And Jay is five seconds away from coming down here with a golf club and a very justified grudge. You don't get to 'make amends' with a phone call at midnight, Javier. You don't get to use my highlights as a reason to play father."
"That is why I am here! I am not just a voice on a wire!" Javier let out a boisterous laugh that grated against my nerves. "I have a car waiting outside—a new Ferrari, black as the night, faster than the one I had in the village! I want to take my sons to Vegas. A real trip this time, Mason. No 'emergencies' involving horses or beautiful women with sad stories. I have already cleared my schedule of all distractions. I want to see the man you have become. I want to stand in the light of your glory and tell the world, 'This is a Delgado!'"
"You want to bask in it," I corrected, my Total Recall flashing through dozens of scenes from the show where Javier used Manny's small victories to inflate his own ego. "You're not here for us. You're here because I'm a winner, and you can't stand being left out of the winner's circle. You want the credit for the 'Miracle' without having endured the crash."
There was a brief silence on the other end. For a second, the bravado flickered. "You are hard, Mason. Harder than the stones in the mountains. But you are still my blood. Give me tomorrow. One day."
"Fine," I said, catching Gloria's worried glance. "You want a chance? You meet us at the club for lunch tomorrow. Not a midnight run to Vegas, and not a 'grand gesture' in the driveway. At the club. In the daylight. And Javier? If you're even a minute late, I'm changing the locks on the gate, updating the security codes, and telling the detail that you're a stalker with a history of delusions. Do you understand?"
"You have no poetry in your heart, mi hijo," Javier sighed, though I could hear the smirk returning to his voice. "But you have a king's command. I will be there. With the Ferrari."
I hung up without saying goodbye. The click of the receiver felt final. Gloria was leaning against the counter, her arms wrapped around herself. "You are very hard on him, Mason. Sometimes I see him in you, but then you speak, and you sound like a judge."
"I have to be the judge, Mom," I said, walking over to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. The sheer size of my hand made her look fragile, a reminder of the physical gap the accident had created. "If I give him an inch, if I let him play the hero for one night, he'll take Manny's entire childhood and turn it into a footnote in his own biography. He needs to know the rules have changed. He needs to know that this house doesn't run on his whims anymore."
I looked toward the hallway that led to Manny's room. My brother was a poet, a dreamer, a boy who still believed that a Ferrari could solve the problems of a missing father. I wouldn't let that dream be weaponized against him again.
[INTERVIEW - MASON]Mason: "Javier saw me as a kid he could ignore when I was just a scrawny boy in the background. Then, after the accident, he saw me as a threat he should avoid because I called him out on his lies. Now? Now that I'm the star quarterback, the 'Miracle Kid' with a body like a Greek statue, he sees me as an asset he wants to claim. It's a classic narcissist move—he wants to 'brand' my success as his own. But he forgets one thing: I have the 'Total Recall.' I remember every broken promise, every missed birthday, and every 'emergency' from the original timeline. I'm not just his son; I'm his parole officer, and he's one violation away from being deported from my life permanently."
I spent the rest of the night sitting in the dark of the living room, watching the front gate through the window. I didn't sleep. My body didn't need as much rest as a normal human's anymore, and my mind was too busy calculating the variables of tomorrow's lunch. Javier was a master of the "pivot"—if he couldn't charm me, he'd try to subvert me through Manny. If he couldn't win over Jay, he'd try to make Jay look like a boring old man.
But I had the script. I knew every move in his playbook before he even thought of it. Tomorrow wouldn't be a reunion; it would be a demonstration of who really held the power in the Delgado-Pritchett family.
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