The room went deathly silent. The students glared at him with eyes full of judgment.

Brody stepped out from the crowd, his face twisted in mortification as he grabbed his father’s arm. "Dad, just go back to your room! Stop embarrassing me and Mom in front of everyone!"

Alan Moore fought back, prying his son’s fingers off his sleeve. He wouldn't leave. He turned his desperate gaze toward Luciana. "Tell me! Tell me exactly what I did wrong!"

He had done everything by the book. He had been a devoted husband, a man who stayed faithful to one person for a lifetime. How was that a mistake?

Luciana’s brows locked together in a harsh, cold line. She stood up, looking down at Alan from her pedestal of professional success.

"Killian understands the meaning of class and dignity. Your mediocrity and ignorance are the only things that turn every situation into a disaster," she said, her voice dripping with chilly disappointment. "Alan, this is entirely on you."

"You chose to live your life as a deadbeat who can’t do anything but leach off others."

Alan’s hands trembled, but it was his heart that throbbed with a dull, searing pain. He stared at her, unblinking. "A deadbeat..."

The whispers of the crowd pricked at him like thousands of needles:

"What a textbook loser. Can he do anything besides make a scene?"

"How could someone like that ever be good enough for Professor Moore? He’s nothing but a stain on her otherwise brilliant career!"

"No wonder the Dean never invites him to the gala. If I had a husband like that, I’d be ashamed to be seen with him, too!"

The ridicule and laughter washed over him like a rising tide. For a fleeting second, Alan felt untethered. He felt as if he had been dragged back thirty years to those agonizing, early days of their marriage. The neighbors who mocked him for his lack of a degree, the relatives who looked down on him because he didn't have a high-status corporate job.

They had circled him then, too, just as they did now, staring with casual contempt at his calloused hands and graying hair. They stood high above him, treating him like an old, broken-down workhorse that could no longer pull the cart.

"Dad, stop making a scene! Come with me!" Brody grabbed him again, his movements rough and impatient.

Alan looked around the room. He saw Killian Daniels sitting elegantly on the sofa, sipping tea as if he owned the world. He saw Luciana turning her back on him, her posture rigid with cold indifference.

He stood there for a long time, the weight of the realization finally snapping his resolve. His spine, which had stayed straight through decades of thankless labor, finally sagged.

"You’re right," he whispered. "It was my fault..."

Amid the echoes of their mocking laughter, his vision blurred, and he collapsed.

***

When Alan woke up, two days had passed.

Brody was sitting by the bed. When he saw Alan’s eyes flicker open, he exhaled, though the relief looked more like a forced effort. "Dad, you're awake?"

He paused, his tone shifting into that of a parent scolding a toddler. "At least you know you were wrong now. Don't pull another stunt like that again. It’s exhausting for me to deal with."

Alan studied his son in silence for a long time, watching the confusion creep across Brody's face before he finally let out a hollow, bitter laugh.

"I spent thirty years in the wrong," Alan said, his voice raspy. "The day your mother left for her first business trip, I should have walked out on you all and gone to live my own life."

That would have been a far better fate than living to be picked apart by a room full of vultures.

Brody froze, his face flushing a deep, indignant red. "Dad! What are you talking about? Is that the kind of irresponsible garbage a father should be saying?"

Just then, his grandson, Felix, burst into the room. The boy, whom Alan had raised almost single-handedly, didn't bother with greetings. He walked straight up and shoved Alan’s injured leg.

"Grandpa, I’m hungry! I want you to make me your signature braised pork ribs!"

Felix barked the order like a master speaking to a servant, his eyes full of impatient entitlement. "Hurry up! I’ve been waiting for you to get out of bed for hours!"

Alan looked down at the boy he had sacrificed his own health to raise. Felix had the same brow, the same sneer, and the same sense of unearned entitlement as his mother, Charlotte, and his grandmother, Luciana.

Alan calmly reached out and pushed the boy’s hand away.

"Go ask your Mr. Killian to make them for you," Alan said, his voice flat. "He’s so cultured and capable. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to cook for you."