“It’s congestive heart failure. I’ve had it for decades.”
“Two, specifically,” I comment dryly, and my mother nods. I focus on drawing air into my lungs, running through memories I thought I’d made up. Images of her lying unconscious on the ground, others where we were laughing so hard that she had to clutch her chest. The diagnosis and the timeline make sense, but the man sitting opposite me doesn’t. “You’re my father?” I question shrewdly. The smile drops from his face.
“Of course he is,” my mother frowns, looking between the two of us. “Rhys, you’re our son, and we’ve been waiting for you for so long.” They’ve been waiting for me? Drawing back on my heels, I remove myself from the mini reunion I’d found myself in. Suddenly, the comfort I was buying into feels more like a trap.
My mother’s breath hitches, causing her to cough. The sound is thin and wet, as her companion immediately redirects his attention to adjusting her blanket and checking the machine. His hands are gentle, reverent despite the callouses that cover them from manual labor. The kind of care I didn’t know he was capable of. My chest twists violently, but I’m unable to drag my eyes away.
This picture isn’t right. This man destroyed me.
My mind splinters, sliding backwards to a place I don’t want to go. He cradles her so carefully, with so much love, but those same hands taught me what fear tastes like. I remember being small, hiding in corners that were never dark enough, counting breaths so he wouldn’t find me. I remember flinching at footsteps, the way my stomach would hollow out when his shadow filled a doorway. Love had no place, and safety was a privilege I never earned.
Now he’s here, playing the devoted husband, the gentle caregiver, rewriting history with every soft touch. All that leaves is for the doubt to creep in, the sickening whisper asking what if I deserved it, what if I imagined it, what if this version of him is real, and the terrified boy I was is a lie. My heart slams against my ribs, panic crawling up my spine.
Reading the anguish playing across my face, my father’s eyes pinch, his voice almost too quiet to catch.
“He didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Who?” I ask breathily, my tongue seeking my missing lip ring out of habit.
“Arthur,” his head lowers, the air sawing out of him. “My brother.”
“Your half-brother,” my mother interjects in a tone that suggests this is a long-standing argument. Reaching out to curl her hair behind her ear, his arm lowers into her lap, his gaze somewhat distant.
“I don’t like this word, but he calls himself the bastard child. The result of an affair my father had with a young maid. She was barely seventeen, and despite my father’s insistence that he pay her off, she begged to remain working for us. She raised Arthur and me at the manor, and when I took over the estate, she stayed on as the head housekeeper, even playing a part in your childhood.”
“You’re talking about Fiona, aren’t you?” Clayton raises a brow, his arms folded as he leans in the doorframe. My father nods. A roaring between my ears compresses my skull, the half-spoken truths becoming infuriating.
“Just tell me what happened,” I huff roughly. Perhaps my parents, my real parents, have rehearsed this story multiple times over, but I’m done with the secrets. I need it all laid out. Shifting to a neighboring armchair, my father sighs, taking his wife’s hand on instinct.
“I trusted him, far more than our father did. He believed Arthur to be selfish, greedy, and I was foolish to try and see the good in him. Due to his…heritage, he was never considered a legitimate Waversea. This was the sixties, and children born out of wedlock were frowned upon. Upon his passing, our father named me as the sole beneficiary in his will.
“I tried to help Arthur. I made sure he and his mother were cared for, but it was never enough. Then Della became sick, fainting spells and shortness of breath. When she was diagnosed, I decided to sell all Waversea assets, including the academy. I just wanted a quiet life with my wife and son. I wanted to make memories, enjoying whatever time we had.”
The couple share a loving exchange, their hands tightening. Mirroring them, Harper’s fingers slide into mine. Keeping them locked, I lift my arm around her head and pull her into me, pressing my jaw against her hair.
“It was all planned,” my father drags his gaze to his lap. “Della needed a VAD fitted. Ahh, it’s a ventricular assist device, which helps to keep her heart pumping. We found a private clinic with fantastic aftercare, and in our absence, Arthur would stay at the manor to oversee business and take care of you.” Those blue eyes find mine, the regret laced in them profound.
“Except Arthur had a plan of his own. We always did look alike, many people would comment on it. He used the moneyI gave him for plastic surgery, fixing the dent in his chin and correcting his nose. By the time Della and I returned, he’d taken control of everything. My social security number, my bank accounts, my shares, the manor. Every pin number, password and keycode. I couldn’t access anything.”
“But surely a simple blood test would have proven you to be the real Phillip Waversea,” Clayton interjects. He’s shifted closer, the story drawing him into the room to settle on the edge of a sideboard. Opening his mouth, my father is interrupted by Harper’s sigh of understanding.
“It’s the medication.” Peering down at her, I note she’s sharing a guilt-filled glance with my mother. “The Kavanagh’s are helping Arthur to blackmail your parents by withholding your mom’s medication. Without the money for private care, no social security means no health insurance.”
“That’s a part of it, yes,” the real Phillip agrees, “but he’s also been blackmailing us with you.” All heads in the room turn, four pairs of eyes burning holes into the sides of my head.
“Me?” I look up in surprise. My father nods.
“Arthur threatened that if we tried to make contact, or make the truth known…well, let’s just say you wouldn’t be sitting here with us now. As long as we stayed away and didn’t interfere, he promised to keep you housed and safe.”
“Safe,” the word bursts out of me in a round of bitter laughter. “Well then, mission accomplished. I’m safe.” I stand before I become hysterical, laughing my way out of the room, then out of the house. Dropping into a rocking chair on the porch, I look up at the sky, babbling and cursing about the ridiculousness of it all. My parents have been hiding out here for twenty years under the assumption that Arthur was tucking me into bed at night and sneaking me second desserts after dinner.
The laughter cracks somewhere in my chest, shattering like glass under pressure, and before I know it, I’m folded forward inthe chair, elbows on my knees, hands clawing into my hair as the sound chokes itself off. It comes out wrong after that, too harsh and far too raw, until it isn’t laughter at all. It’s grief. It’s rage. It’s every swallowed scream from a childhood spent surviving instead of living.
I press my palms over my face like I can hold myself together by force alone, but the tears slip through anyway, hot and humiliating, dripping off my inked knuckles and onto the warped wood of the porch. My shoulders shake violently, breath stuttering, years of fear and fury finally finding an exit now that the truth has ripped the door off its hinges.
I don’t hear Harper approach at first, don’t register the soft creak of floorboards or the way the air shifts. I only feel her when she’s there, sliding down onto my lap sideways, her arms winding around me. Her scent hits me next, her vanilla shampoo cutting through the fog in my head. When her fingers begin to stroke slow, steady lines along my spine, something in me finally receives permission to fall apart. I cry into her shoulder, into her hair, my body wracked with sobs that aren’t pretty or quiet, and she doesn’t tell me to stop. She just stays there in my lap, acting as the anchor I cling to until my lungs remember how to work again.
It doesn’t fix anything. Not the past, not the damage, not the mess waiting inside that house, but through the haze of tears and exhaustion, I see a thin thread of light cutting through the fog. I feel her warmth cradling me until I have nothing left to give. I suppose that’s the point. Only when I hit rock bottom can I start to swim back up. Only when I surface can I start to rebuild, and I’m not ready for that.
