Chapter 10 - The Table of True Blood
That evening, as the sun began to set over the Charles River, painting the Boston skyline in brilliant shades of gold, rose, and violet, Marcus, Eli, and I sat at an outdoor table at a high-end seafood restaurant overlooking the water.
The waiter set down a large silver platter loaded with steamed lobster, fresh oysters, warm garlic bread, and roasted vegetables.
Marcus raised his glass of sparkling wine. Eli raised his glass of lemonade, and I raised my glass of Pinot Noir.
"To Eli," Marcus said, his voice echoing with genuine pride. "To the newest engineer at the greatest institute in the world. May your code always run clean and your dreams always build high."
"To Eli," I echoed, clinking my glass against theirs. "My son. My greatest achievement."
Eli smiled, his eyes bright as he looked between the two of us. "To family. The real kind."
We drank.
The food was rich, hot, and delicious. The conversation flowed effortlessly—filled with laughter, plans for the future, jokes about Marcus's terrible golf swing, and excitement for Eli's upcoming robotics lab rotations.
There were no toxic demands. There were no fake smiles. There were no passive-aggressive insults, no hidden ledgers, and no threats of conditional love.
There was only peace.
As I took a slow sip of my wine, watching my son laugh under the golden twilight, my mind drifted back for one brief second to that sun-baked patio in Highland Park—to the shredded paper, the spilled scotch, and the angry old man who thought money and blood were the only things that held the world together.
He had been wrong about everything.
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Blood merely makes you related. But loyalty, sacrifice, and unconditional love—that is what makes you family.
I held my son's hand across the table, squeezed it tightly, and welcomed the beautiful, unwritten future we were going to build together.
