I don't ask how he heard. In a place like Saltford Bay, news travels fast.
"Just passing through." I remain standing near the door, every instinct telling me to leave.
"Your ma," he says with false casualness, rummaging through a cabinet. "How's she doing?"
"Dead."
I don't soften the words, watching him sag with the news he should have learned years ago. For a moment, something like grief flickers across his features before hardening into familiar resentment.
"You could've told me about your ma." His hand stills on a bottle, and he flicks it open with his thumb. I watch the all too familiar motion, a sick feeling settling in my stomach. “She was my mate after all.”
His mate? What did that man ever do to deserve that title?
"You don't deserve to call her that.” I’m surprised by the even tone of my voice when I feel so unbalanced inside. “And you don't deserve anything from me."
His face hardens, and he takes a long swig of the beer. Some liquid drips from the corner of his mouth where his chipped tusk protrudes. I watch it leak down his chin and add to the stains on the front of his tank.
"Did you come here just to judge me? Thought you were too good for this house."
My gaze catches on the bottles, the cracks in the drywall, the old dent in the doorframe shaped like a fist. The same dent that's been there since I was twelve, when his jealous rage got the better of him and I stepped between him and my mother. The final straw in a string of final straws that finally gave my mother the courage she needed to leave.
“You’re still drinking before noon. Not much has changed in twenty years, I see.”
"Mind your own business." His mouth takes on that mean curve that used to make me shiver in fear. "Do you even got a mate yet? Someone to warm your bed and put up with your self-righteous bullshit?"
“I do,” I tell him, but I give up nothing more. I don’t ever want Rona’s name in his mouth. “And I would never treat her how you treated Mom.”
“Oh, you’ll see.” He leans in, his top lip lifting in a snarl. “You’ll see how you feel when she wants to run around town, flaunting herself at every man around like bait on a fishing line. I bet you won’t let her.”
The old patterns of his manipulation attempt to surface, but they find no purchase. I'm not the frightened boy who used to cower in this house.
"Like father, like son," he sneers when I don't answer.
The words hang in the stale air between us. Once, they would have cut deep. Once, I would have believed them. Once, I was terrified of them.
"I am nothing like you." The words come out slow and certain, a belief snapping into place with crystalline clarity.
Standing in this rot clarifies everything. Years of fear and distance crystalize into a final realization.
I am not him. I will never be him. The fear that has haunted me dissolves like morning mist.
I think of Rona's trust, her belief in my goodness, and I know she was right. I think of the way she looks at me, like I'msomeone strong and dependable. The way she melts into my arms without fear, without reservation.
My father is a broken man who chose violence over love, alcohol over family, isolation over connection. I chose differently every chance I got. I always will.
I turn away from Farmouth Rooke, walking away without looking back. I leave him behind and with him, the ghosts of a past that never truly belonged to me.
I step back out into air so cold it scours my lungs clean, not looking over my shoulder as I walk away from the house that filled my younger years with fear. I climb into the SUV and turn the key. The engine coughs, then steadies, and so does my breath.
The house shrinks in the mirrors as I drive away, and a thought lands with the weight of revelation and relief. I’m ready. I’m ready to be the man my father never was.
A man Rona deserves. A man that perhaps I deserve, too.
Chapter Seventeen
Rona
Thekitchentableisset for two, ceramic bowls arranged just so, steam whispering from the pot of vegetable soup on the stove. I'm wrapped in Darhg's oversized hoodie, sleeves pushed up to my elbows, surrounded by his scent and warmth like a cocoon. Winter dusk turns the frost-etched windows to pewter, and the lamplight makes everything golden and peaceful.
