he did, in fact, leave
Some very naive part of me, despite everything, despite a lifetime of profound difference between us, hoped something good would come of this. It wasn't until I had my therapy session today that I started crying.
***************************
They shook hands in front of the terminal. Nobody watching would ever have imagined that once upon a time they had eaten ten thousand meals together, or that only an hour an earlier they were momentarily as close as they had been back before either had written a book or touched a girl. A plane took off from Newark, roaring in Nathan's ears.
"He did say 'Bastard,' Nathan. He called you a bastard."
"What?"
Suddenly Henry was furious-and weeping. "You are a bastard. A heartless conscienceless bastard. What does loyalty mean to you? What does responsibility mean to you? What does self-denial mean, restraint-anything at all? To you everything is disposable! ... Do you really think that conscience is a Jewish invention from which you are immune? Do you really think you can just go and have a good time with the rest of the swingers without troubling yourself about conscience? Without troubling about anything but seeing how funny you can be about the people who have loved you most in the world? The origin of the universe! When all he was waiting to hear was 'I love you!' 'Dad, I love you'-that was all that was required! Oh, you miserable bastard, don't you tell me about fathers and sons! I have a son! I know what it is to love a son, and you don't, you selfish bastard, and you never will!"
- Philip Roth, Zuckerman Unbound