Page 83 of The Art of Drowning

“You were ours.” Mom finally joined the conversation. Her eyes were red-rimmed and they looked haunted and full of more pain than I’d ever seen. “You were ours. When Alice got pregnant, we were all so happy. We all wanted you. We were going to raise you, all four of us. You were so wanted. So desperately wanted. Because she didn’t know if Mark was the father or not, she put your dad on the birth certificate. She wanted a way to tie us all together. It’s what saved us from having to fight for you when they died.”

“And you just never thought I needed to know any of this?”

“We were going to tell you. So many times. It’s just…” Mom stopped talking and her face crumpled. Dad scooted closer and draped an arm around her. They looked older and more fragile than ever before, and I wondered what kind of toll keeping this secret had taken on them.

“How exactly do you explain something like this?” Dad said, rubbing Mom’s back as she tried to collect herself.

I sat with that for a minute and tried to imagine myself in their position… and I couldn’t. Maybe if I’d known my whole life that I wasn’t theirs, it might have been different. It might have been easier to explain had I known all along.

“But I’ve seen my birth certificate.” My eyebrows scrunched together and the world tilted a bit. Damien squeezed my hand, reminding me that I wasn’t alone in this.

“Because your father was on the birth certificate, and Alice was… gone… I was able to adopt you.”

“When did Sam find out that I wasn’t really yours?”

The silence was deafening. “You were a teenager. You and Sam. I can’t remember why he was in my office, but he was looking for something.” Dad ran a hand down his face. “He found the adoption papers. The inheritance.”

“Inheritance?”

“It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get you through college. It was all Alice and Mark had left and we saved it for you. Sam was upset.”

“Why didn’t you tell me after Sam found out?”

“He said you’d hate us. He thought that your father had some kind of affair, so we had to tell him the truth. Sam was… different after. Angrier. More jealous.”

“And you just… didn’t tell me.” The bottom dropped out of my stomach. “I need to go.”

They nodded. They just sat there and fucking nodded, like this was the outcome they expected all along and they’d resigned themselves to it. Were they even going to try and get me to stay? Were they sorry they lied?

“Why the DNA test?” It was Damien who asked. His grip on my hand tightened, anchoring me in place even though my body screamed at me to leave. “I mean, Sam already knew the truth. Why bother getting the DNA test at all?”

“Sam got sick. We all got tested to find out if we were compatible to donate stem cells. We needed to know for sure, in case Callum ever got sick.”

I nodded and managed to get to my feet, though I was certain I couldn’t feel my legs. “I need to leave.”

Damien held my hand and kept me upright. He practically carried me to the car and deposited me in the passenger seat. And the thing that struck me the hardest was that neither one of them asked me to stay. They didn’t beg, or plead, or even follow me to the door. They sat at the table and watched me go, and I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.

“I know it won’t help, but I really need to get drunk.”

Damien reached over and put his hand on my leg. “I’ve got you.”

I closed my eyes and leaned against the headrest and pretended for a few minutes that this was all a bad dream. When the car came to a stop, I opened my eyes and realized that Damien had brought me to Ginny’s bar, where he’d run into me after the funeral.

“You seemed to like this place,” he said as he killed the engine. “And there’s a hotel across the street for when you’re done.”

The day had been absolute shit, but maybe it wasn’t all bad, I thought, as I practically launched myself across the front seat and kissed Damien full on the mouth. He let out a surprised sound before he managed to kiss me back. I tried to devour him, but he eased up and eventually managed to put some distance between us.

“Let’s put a pin in that.” He motioned to the bar. “Do you still want to get drunk?”

“You fucking bet I do. I think I deserve it after the shit show this day has been.”

He kissed me briefly. I could see the worry in his eyes, and the love, and the determination to look after me and make things better. “Then let’s go.”

FORTY

damien

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