Page 46 of Among the Sins of my Father

“Is it okay if we talk?”

It’s the first time she’s spoken to me since that breakfast where she ran sobbing from the room. All the other times, she’s been like a shadow hidden in the corner, unseen and unnoticed.

She walks in without invitation. Her eyes scan the room until they land on the beanbags in front of the large screens and she sits down delicately, legs crossed at the ankles. She looks out of place. Lost.

“She’s okay, you know. Ette,” she adds at my confusion.

“You’ve seen her?”

“She’s staying with me. We’ve got our own wing of the house. Dommie will join us when he’s found. He always wanted a little sister. He’ll be so happy to meet her.”

I don’t say anything as I lower myself to sit on the edge of the bed. Something tells me it’s better just to let her talk.

“He came back to me that night, did you know that?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Your friend had left me for dead. He crept back into the house to make sure I was okay. You have no idea what it was like laying there before he came. I was certain I was going to die. I could feel the blood draining from me. I was so cold.” She shivers as though the memory is so strong it’s overwhelmed her. “Dommie was the one who made the call to the ambulance. He was the one who saved my life. Then he had to run away to save his own.”

She glances up at me then. I recognize the look in her eyes. It’s the same look she gave me when she was begging for help. This time, I’m the one who lowers my gaze to the floor.

“He had no idea of the girl’s connection to Mr Priest, or to you. As far as he was aware, all he knew was she was the girl his father had an affair with and got pregnant. She was the woman who did this—” she points to her scars, “—to me.” She sighs. “He knew that his father thought she was dead and when his uncle came to him and told him she wasn’t, he thought he was doing the right thing, he thought he could win his father’s favor by keeping her.”

I let myself sink to the floor, drawing my knees to my chest and leaning against the side of the bed.

“He was a messed-up child. A messed-up teenager. It makes sense that he is a little messed-up as an adult. But none of it is his fault. All he wanted was for his father to love him.”

“I know you love your son, I loved him too, but it doesn’t excuse what he did. It doesn’t—”

“I was the one who asked my brother to get rid of her.”

“Of who?”

Mary swallows. “Of Hope.” She pushes her hair back, giving me full view of her scars. “Do you know what it was like for me to discover the man I loved, the man my family hated yet I always stood up for, was fucking a teenager?”

I flinch at her words. For some reason they seem harsher coming from the mouth of someone so quiet and demure.

“I hated her. I truly hated her. It was bad enough coming home one day to find them in my bed, but when I found out he’d gotten her pregnant it all got too much.” She lets out a snort of air. “I was going to confront her when it happened. I climbed into the car, drunk and high as a kite on whatever pills the doctor had given me to calm my nerves, but I never made it to her place. This happened first.”

Again, she points to her scars. It strikes me strange that after all these years they still appear red and raw, as though they’ve been freshly opened.

“Once I was out of hospital, I thought that maybe if I had the child to love, the daughter I’d always wanted but never got the chance to have, that I might find some peace with his betrayal. But deep down I knew it would never happen. That’s why I went to my brother. He told me he’d had her killed. He told Aaron he’d searched for her and found her dead. The child was supposed to come live with us. She was supposed to heal our family. Instead, all this destroyed it. My brother never liked Aaron and as an extension of that, he never liked Dommie. He lied to me. He lied to us all, and then he used Dommie to exact his revenge. You can’t tell me he didn’t know what would happen when he sent Mr Priest our way. He knew it would be the end of us.”

“But you survived.”

“Part of me did, yes. The other part died in that car crash.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I’m hoping by telling you my truth, you might share your own. You’d tell me if you knew anything, wouldn’t you? You’d tell me if that Mr Priest has my son?” She crawls across the ground and kneels in front of me, hands planted on my knees. “I can tell you’re a good girl, Everly. You’ve got a good heart. You’re not like your father or my brother or that upstart of a son he has.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her. To put her out of the misery of the unknown, but in revealing the truth, it will break her heart.

“Please,” she whispers. “The police are desperate for information and so far I’ve refrained from telling them the truth in the hope—”

Mary’s gaze swings to the door as Michael walks in. His arms are laden with various bottles of alcohol. “What are you two talking about, huh?” He places the bottles on the top of his mini-refrigerator.

Mary gets to her feet, running her hands over the wrinkles of her skirt. “She’s concerned about the girl. I was attempting to allay her fears.”

“Very kind of you, Mary, but you know I can answer any questions she has.”

“Sometimes it’s nice to talk to someone with a little less testosterone floating through their system.” It’s the snarkiest comment I’ve ever heard from Mary and I clap as Michael rolls his eyes.

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