Page 107 of Bad Boy
“Yes,” he replies calmly.
“Yourwifeexpected to raise my child as her own. Like some kind of sick and twisted patriarchal-male-heir bullshit.”
“What?”Gramps and I exclaim at the same time. She said this earlier, and my brain can’t compute.
What the fuck is going on with this town?
I’m starting to wonder if it reallywasbetter in Detroit.
“She gave me an ultimatum to either let her raise my baby as her own, or. . .” Mom trails off, unable to voice what we all know she means.
Get rid of me.
“Needless to say, I left.”
She turns an angry glare to Richard. “My own father couldn’t even stand up for me.”
I see him wince out of the corner of my eye, and I feel bad for the old man, but she does have a point.
“I did try, baby girl. You’re both so stubborn—”
“Donotcompare me to her. I wouldneverabandon my own child. I could believe all of that from her; she always hated me. But with you, it hurt even worse.”
“Rainy—”
“Who knows what would have happened to me if Logan didn’t step up. Yes, we’ve had our ups and downs over the years, but we survived and were doing okay there for a while.”
She’s in denial. That’s all I can say. There’s no other excuse for it. We were never doing okay. And saying Dad “stepped up” gives the prick far too much credit.
“Don’t look at me like that, Remi. I am not talking about the present day. Your father has clearly gone off the rails.”
I grit my teeth. He went off the rails two fucking years ago when he started hitting me, but I don’t tell her that.
“Rainy. Let me speak for a moment, please. I know things are getting tense between the three of us, but we’re all each other has. And we need to work this out.”
Mom leans back in her seat, arms crossed and looking more like my sister than my mother. Her sleek dark hair is pulled into a high ponytail, and her oversized sweater and leggings could put her in line at any Forever 21 store across the country.
“I know I was more focused on my companies than my family back then, and I took your mother’s word for the truth. She said you didn’t want to live with us or follow our rules. That you were moving away to be with Logan.”
It’s kind of a weak excuse, but if he trusted his wife to handle their daughter while he handled the businesses, maybe we can’t blame him.
And it’s like he read my mind.
“I know it’s not an excuse, but I tried to stop you from leaving, baby girl. Don’t you remember me hugging you and begging you not to go? You broke my heart, Rainy.”
“No. Your wife broke your heart. I was achild. I was scared and alone. I only had Logan, but he was six hours away at the beach. And the way your wife spoke to me was disgusting. She told me totake care of it.”
She looks over at me sadly, apologetically almost.
“I think she expected me to fall in line and do exactly as she said, like always. But it wasn’t her decision. At all. I couldn’t stay, not after everything she said. She told me what I did was embarrassing. That I tarnished our family name and became a stain on the Keller legacy.”
“Rainy. I didn’t know.” Richard sounds like he’s in physical pain, his voice cracking as he lowers his head, stooping his shoulders.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
This whole exchange has me feeling extremely uncomfortable, like I need a joint or a cigarette. Immediately.
This poor old guy has been stuck between his wife and his daughter for eighteen years.
