While they were doing whatever TV slang for tidying up is—folding the pooches or clearing the banana—I slunk off to steal a baked potato from ITV. It did not make me feel substantially better. But finally Oliver, Jon Fleming, my stolen baked potato, and I were sitting round the kitchen table, sharing an uncomfortable moment.

“So,” I said, “what with you filming pretty much constantly since we got here, I couldn’t introduce you to my boyfriend.”

“I’m Oliver Blackwood.” Oliver offered his hand, and my father gave it a firm shake. “It’s good to meet you.”

Jon Fleming gave him slow nod that said You have been judged and found worthy. “And you, Oliver. I’m glad you could come. Both of you.”

“Well”—I made a gesture that came as close as I could get to “fuck you” without literally giving him the finger—“that’s nice, but we’ll be leaving soon.”

“You can stay the night if you want. You can take the annexe. You’ll have your own space.”

Part of me wanted to say yes if only because I was pretty sure he was banking on me saying no. “We’ve got work.”

“Another time, then.”

“What other time? We had to rent a car for this, and we spent the whole afternoon watching you shoot a shitty TV show.”

He looked grave and regretful—which, when you were a bald man in your seventies with more charisma than conscience, was very easy to do. “This wasn’t what I wanted. And I’m sorry my work got in the way.”

“What did you want?” I stabbed my potato with a wooden spork. “What was the plan here?”

“There isn’t a plan, Luc. I just thought it would be good for us to spend some time together, in this place. It was something I wanted to share with you.”

I…had no idea what to say to that. Jon Fleming had given me nothing my whole life. And now he suddenly wanted to share, what, Lancashire?

“It’s a very beautiful part of the country,” offered Oliver. God, he made the effort. Every. Single. Time.

“It is. But it’s more than that. It’s about roots. It’s about where I come from. Where you come from.”

Okay. Now I had something to say. “I come from a village near Epsom. Where I was raised by the parent who didn’t walk out on me.”

Jon Fleming didn’t flinch. “I know you needed me in your life, and I know it was wrong of me not to be there. But I can’t change the past. I can only try to do what’s right in this moment.”

“Are you…” It genuinely upset me that I was having to say this. “Are you even sorry?”

He stroked his chin. “I think being sorry is too easy. I made my choices and I’m living with them.”

“Um. That sounds a lot like a no.”

“If I’d said yes, what would it change?”

“I don’t know.” I made a show of mulling it over. “I might not think you’re a colossal prick.”

“Lucien…” Oliver’s fingers brushed my wrist.

“You can think what you like of me,” said Jon Fleming. “You’ve got that right.”

There was this pressure building inside me, hot and bitter, like I was going to cry or vomit. The problem was, he was being so reasonable. But all I could hear was I don’t give a shit. “I’m supposed to be your son. Don’t you care how I feel about you?”

“Of course I do. But I learned a long time ago you can’t control other people’s feelings.”

My potato wasn’t protecting me anymore. I pushed it away and put my head in my hands.

“With respect, Mr. Fleming.” Oliver somehow managed to sound both as conciliatory and as unyielding as my dad. “I think it’s a mistake to apply the same standards to magazine reviewers and your own family.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I got the impression that Jon Fleming was not a big fan of being challenged. “Luc’s a grown man. I’m not going to try to change his opinions of anything, least of all myself.”

I could feel Oliver’s stillness beside me. “It’s very much not my place to say,” he murmured, “but that position might come across as trying to evade your responsibility for considering the impact your actions have on other people.”

There was a small, unhappy silence. Then Jon Fleming said, “I understand why you feel that way.”

“For fuck’s sake.” I looked up. “I can’t believe you responded to being called on your bullshit with the same bullshit.”

“You’re angry.” He was still fucking nodding.

“Wow, you’ve got a real insight into the human condition there, Dad. I can see why ITV thinks you’re a music legend.”

He folded his hands on the tabletop, long, gnarled fingers interlacing. “I know you’re looking for something from me, Luc, but if it’s for me to say I regret choosing my career over my family, then I can’t. I’ll admit I hurt you, I’ll admit I hurt your mother. I’ll even say I was selfish, because I was, but what I did was right for me.”

“Then what,” I pleaded, feeling way more like a child than I was comfortable with, “am I doing here?”

“What’s right for you. And if that’s walking away and never speaking to me, I’ll accept that.”

“So you’ve asked me to make an eight-hour round trip to tell me you support my right to decide whether I come and see you? That is fucked up.”

“I see that. It’s just I’m increasingly aware of how few opportunities I might have left.”

I sighed. “Credit to you, Dad. You really know how to play the cancer card.”

“I’m only being honest.”

We stared at each other, locked in this weird stalemate. I shouldn’t have come. The last thing I needed was Jon Fleming finding new and creative ways to tell me he’d never wanted me. And now I couldn’t even walk away without feeling like the bad guy. My fingers folded desperately over Oliver’s arm.

“You’re not being honest,” he said. “You’re being truthful. I’m a barrister. I know the difference.”

Jon Fleming glanced at Oliver, somewhat warily. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

“I mean everything you’re saying is perfectly unobjectionable when taken at face value. But you’re trying to make us accept an entirely false equivalence between you abandoning your three-year-old child and Lucien holding you accountable for a choice you admit to making freely. They are not, in fact, the same thing.”