I glance over my shoulder at them and see Rex holding him back. Gone is the quiet man with shadows haunting his eyes. In his place is the monster the war created and used to destroy its enemies. I’ve only glimpsed this version of him a few times since he’s returned and it makes me fear for the day he unleashes it fully because I don’t know if Luke will be able to put him back.
I turn back to our father and show him a shark’s smile full of promise.
“Remember that feeling when you were laid out in that field for all those hours? All alone, no one to help you, no one that loved you enough to care to check on you? How helpless you must have felt, how much regret for all the ways you lived your life wrong to come to that point?”
I release his throat and stand tall so I’m towering above him and look down my nose at him, showing him just how much disdain I feel for him.
“Remember that feeling and embrace it because that’s all you have left now until you take your final breath. You’re not our father. You’re nothing and none of us will ever see you or give you a second's worth of thought for you from this point on. I hope you choke on those regrets and the devil laughs and laughs when you finally go to meet him.”
I step back, ignoring the grunts he’s making, and look at my brothers.
Rex sneers at him and spits out, “I hope it takes you a long and miserable time to die, you piece of shit.”
Luke reins in his monster and grits out, “Charlie Rawlins was ten times the man you ever were. The world would be a better place if it had been you that died instead of him. Fuck you and fuck every breath you take until it’s the last one.”
As one, the three of us turn and walk out, never once looking back at the man that gave us nothing but pain our whole lives.
Rex
Rage and sadness and regret taint the air on the way back from town for all of us. All this time, all these years with her lost because of one bitter old man and the hate that fills him. I don’t know what he threatened her with to make her run instead of fight but I know Rain. Or at least I did. It had to have been pretty bad for her to choose walking away instead of staying with us. I need to know. I need her to tell me so I can let it go and try and move forward.
When we come up on the approach to her place, I tell Chase to turn. I haven’t slept and all the whiskey I drank has burned off but I know I won’t be able to settle until I speak to her again now that we know a little of what happened.
He makes the turn with a grim expression and I know how hard this must be hitting him. He’s had so much anger stored up over the years at what she did and now he has to wade through all of it knowing it wasn’t her fault. There’s a lot of baggage that we’ll all have to sort through now.
He pulls onto her dirt driveway and shuts the truck off while we all pile out. I glance back at Luke and watch every emotion cross his face like a slideshow. Anger and then heartbreak, guilt, and then back to anger. He shakes his head and takes a step back and then another and another until he whirls around and strides back down the driveway, crosses the road and tears up the hill toward our place and disappears.
“Fuck. This is going to eat him up, knowing she left to protect him. All these fucking years…” Chase mutters and scrubs at his face before looking at her trailer. “Are you sure you want to do this now? It might be best to take some time, think about how we move forward with what we now know.”
I shake my head. I’m determined to get the answers to the burning questions itching under my skin and start walking toward the stairs. We both hear the sound of the back door slamming closed so we change directions and walk around to the back. We find her there sitting on the top step of the rickety deck Charlie built that’s only big enough for a rusted BBQ grill and a couple faded and worn lawn chairs.
Her elbows are on her knees as she stares down into a steaming cup of coffee in a chipped white mug. Her hair is back to a golden sheet of smoothness that frames her face on both sides and when she spots us coming toward her, her expression goes blank and her eyes cool. All traces of the wild girl I fell in love with from last night are gone and she’s back to that polished empty shell she came back to town as. Rain huffs out a sound of annoyance.
“Really? Before I’ve even had my first cup of coffee? Do we really need to do this again?”
I stop at the bottom of the stairs so her face is still a few inches above mine but I’m close enough that she can’t ignore me. Chase quietly stays at my back, letting me take the lead and say what I need to say.
“What did he threaten you with?”
Her face stays blank but I catch the way her throat moves when she swallows hard.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Can we just…not?”
She plucks a pair of sunglasses from beside her and slides them on to cover her stormy grey eyes but I’m not having it. I’m up the first two steps in a flash and snatch them back off of her face causing her to flinch back.
“It was about Luke, wasn’t it? Tell us what our father did, Rain. We need to know. Last night you said…”
Her face comes to life with anger and a hint of panic as she cuts me off.
“That was drunk me! Nothing I said last night meant anything. Just let it go.”
I huff out a laugh. “Yeah, drunk and me are best buddies these days. I know that when drunk and me get together is when the real truth comes out, Stormy.”
I step back down to the ground and cross my arms over my chest. “We put it together. We figured it out and the old bastard confirmed it not even an hour ago so cut the shit and tell us what happened.”
Her eyes take on a glassy sheen but she just lifts her chin and stares past us at the trees lining the edge of the lawn. I don’t know if she’s still trying to protect us or if she’s just that fucking stubborn. I drop my arms and take a step forward again but Chase stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
He moves forward, climbs the stairs, turns sideways, and sits next to her but one step down from the one she’s on. He drops his head back against the rail and starts to talk, every word dripping with weariness.
