Page 56 of Forever Finds Us
Yes. Something’s being delivered today. I needed access.
You could’ve asked.
I did, but you were passed out.
A meme popped onto my screen of some actor tapping his chin and looking at nothing inquisitively, with the words “Gee, I wonder why” flashing above the image.
I sent a responding smiling devil emoji, but Merv’s voice jolted me back to her inquiry, and I set my phone face down on the kitchen table and sipped my coffee again, almost groaning at the lack of caffeine this time.
“Yes, it is important,” Merv said, “and yes, you do know why. I do, too, so just say it.”
“Mama—”
“Say it.”
“Fine.” It wasn’t a secret, I supposed. I’d just never said it to her face. “I stayed away because of Dad.” I paused. I wasn’t done, not by a long shot, but I didn’t want to hurt her, and the truth would do just that.
“Go on,” she said. “I know there’s more.”
“I don’t know if anyone else remembers, but I remember how different Dad was when Bax and I were young. Dad was happy. He loved us. He played. He smiled and laughed. But then… I don’t know what happened to him. He changed, and I hated him after that. I hated the way he treated Abey, the way he treated us like hired help instead of his kids. The way he badgered Dixon and yelled at him all the time. I hated the way he treated you.”
Sadness seeped out from her soul. It settled into the corners of her eyes, and she nodded for me to continue.
“And I hated the way you let him.”
She smiled softly. “There. Now you said it. Abey says we can’t keep secrets about how we feel anymore, and since you’re home, that applies to you too. I’m sorry, son. Sorry I didn’t stand up to your daddy. I’m so sorry for the way he treated your baby sister and brother and for not standin’ up for them. And I’m sorry we both hurt you and made you feel like you needed to run.”
The fear I’d felt since I was fifteen years old crept into my voice, and when I spoke, it slithered out of me, like dirty air. “I’m afraid I’m like him. There’s a… darkness inside me. A need to control.”
Merv nodded. How could I have ever thought she didn’t see it?
“You know?”
“I suspected. But Brand, your dad, he wasn’t in control. That’s where his anger came from. You’re not like him at all. You’ve made such a success of your life. We’re all proud of you. That need you feel isn’t about bein’ like your daddy. It’s about not becomin’ him. But you don’t have to worry ’cause you’re already twice the man he was.”
She smiled again, but the curve of her mouth trembled. I’d never heard her speak ill of my father. When he was alive, it would’ve been disobedient and almost blasphemous for her to talk about her husband this way. And I knew from my sister that it had taken Merv almost losing Abey in her life for her to admit how she’d felt all those years ago, but she finally had.
“I never stopped to think what life was like for you,” I said. “If you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”
“It’s not— There are things a mother doesn’t talk to her kids about. This is one of those things.”
“Mama, I can take it. I’m not twelve years old anymore.”
But she wasn’t listening. There was a far-off look in her eyes. She gazed out the window, but the mountains could’ve disappeared into thin air and she wouldn’t have noticed.
Bea and Clay were at the future site of Spitfire Inn, waiting for me when I rode Bax’s ATV out there, trying to shake the conversation I’d had with Merv earlier in the morning.
There was so much left unsaid, but I couldn’t tell her any of it, not without risking telling her the truth. That I’d spoken to Dixon. That I’d given him money.
And Bax might never forgive me for not telling him and Bea that Stuey’s birth mother was dead. I wasn’t sure I’d ever forgive myself for holding onto that secret. I still remembered the phone call when Dixon told me. When he blamed himself again for someone else’s choices and fate.
“Kel’s dead,” he’d said. “The mother of my child is gone, Brand. I don’t know what to do with that. It-it’s my fault. I should’ve protected her better. I should’ve done… somethin’. And now she’s just gone, and I’m alone, and there’s a kid in the world who’ll never know his mama. Why the fuck do I keep killin’ mothers?”
“Dixon, you didn’t kill anyone. Are you safe? Where are you?”
“I’m nowhere,” he said. “Not anywhere you can find me.”
And that was the last I’d spoken to him until he called to ask me to get him into another rehabilitation program, which I did. And now I was clueless again. Was he sober? Was he alive?
