I taught Blaze how to drive.
I taught both Blaze and Canyon how to play football.
I grew up quickly. I had to.
But Mom needed me and I don’t regret a minute of it.
“I need to tell you something,” Mom said, taking a very deep breath. “I should have told you a long time ago, but there was never a right time. I mean, when was the right time? Ugh. Okay. So, remember what I told you about your dad?”
I sat back in my chair. “My dad?”
I hadn’t seen my dad since Canyon was born.
I was six.
I only remember my dad in snapshots.
I remember playing football with him in the backyard.
I remember that he was a big, strong man.
I remember he looked a lot like I do now.
I remember he was stoic.
“You mean about why he left?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said breathily.
“You told me that your marriage was very rocky and that he just left one day and you never saw him again,” I repeated her words back to him.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s mainly true. I just didn’t tell you the rest of it. I didn’t tell you that… God, this is hard. I didn’t tell you that we were not the first family that he left.”
I shook my head.
Her words didn’t register.
I repeated them in my head.
We were not the first family that he left.
What did that mean?
“I don’t… I don’t understand,” I said.
Mom started to cry. And she said, “You have a half-brother. An older brother.”
I stood up at this point.
The chair dragged on the floor.
“No. No, I don’t believe you,” I told her.
Disbelief washed over me.
I felt like the world as I knew it was collapsing in on me.
“I'm so sorry,” she said to me. “I never meant to hurt you. I just never knew the right time to tell you. But I have to tell you now. I have to tell you before... before he does.”