The Night Marcus Wouldn't Stop Knocking

Marcus Webb had been sober for eleven days when he drove to his father's house at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday. He sat in the driveway for twenty minutes, engine running, hands on the wheel. He had called twice. No answer. He could have left — told himself he tried — and no one would have blamed him.

Instead, he got out and knocked.

His father, Raymond, had not spoken to Marcus in three years. The estrangement was real, the wounds were deep, and Raymond had every reason to stay in bed. But something about the persistence of that knock — not frantic, just steady, like a man who had made up his mind — pulled him to the window. He looked down at his son standing in the porch light, and something broke open in him.

He went downstairs and opened the door.