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CHAPTER 29: LINCOLN
I try calling her again, and she’s not picking up. I tried Sam, too, but she didn’t answer, either.
I decide to just go home. I figure it’s the best place to be if she’s trying to reach me, but I’m worried since she won’t answer her phone. Since Sam won’t, either, I assume they’re doing something together. Focusing on their boys or something like that.
Still, the edges of anxiety are creeping in as I wonder whether they’re okay. I’ve called her at least five times in the last ten minutes, and she hasn’t answered.
I need to talk to her before that story prints tomorrow. I need to confess everything.
My mother is upstairs when I return home, and I kick my shoes off then pace around my family room as I try to reconcile everything that’s gone down tonight. My father betrayed me, and somehow it’s my fault? I can’t seem to wrap my brain around any of that.
My mom’s voice interrupts my pacing. “What happened with your father?”
“Did he ever tell you what really happened with Joseph Bailey?”
Her brows pinch together. “About the accident?”
I shake my head. “About the intentional injury.”
“What?” she breathes.
“The night it happened, he came home and told me what he’d done. He knew Joseph would need rehab, and he rolled the dice and won that he’d have to leave town and take his family with him. He said he did it for me. He was worried about my future because I was tangled up with Jolene, and he wanted me to focus on football. He never told you that?” I can tell from the way her jaw is hanging open that this is news to her.
She slowly shakes her head. “Oh my word. That man…” She clenches her fists. “I don’t know if I ever really knew him at all. He tore apart my friendships, he ripped you from me, and now he’s demolishing our family.” She sinks onto the couch and starts to cry.
I sit for a beat and put my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into me. “I’m so sorry, Mom. You deserve better.”
“So do you.”
“We all do,” I concede.
“Why are you telling me this now?” she asks.
“He’s working with a reporter, and they’re planning to print the story tomorrow,” I say. “When I found that out, I punched him.”
“In the face?” she asks hopefully, and I chuckle a little even though none of this is very funny.
“Yeah.”
“Good. He had it coming. But why are they printing it if it’s a secret they’ve been holding onto for so long?” she asks.
“He wants Jolene and me apart, and he will stop at nothing to get exactly that. I knew what he did and I never told a soul, and he’s banking on that now.”
“You never told her?” She looks surprised.
I shake my head. “How could I when all he talked about was how family is the most important thing? I believed him.”
She sighs. “You know, he really took a turn when he had the idea for the bar. He wanted Joseph’s money to start it up, and then he wanted Joseph out. So he may have told you it was all about you, and you may have believed him because he’s your father, but looking at it now…I can assure you it had more to do with his own selfishness than with you dating Jolene. For what it’s worth, I always thought she was a lovely young lady that has grown into a beautiful woman.”
“It was about the bar?” I echo. I feel totally blindsided by this new information.
I always thought it was about Jolene and me because that’s what he told me.
That motherfucker. He may be my father, but I can’t fathom how he could do that to his own son.
I need to find Jolene before the story runs. I need to get a hold of her, but she’s still not answering.
My chest aches as I feel the physical loss of the man who was once my hero. I suppose I should’ve mourned that loss a long time ago since he hasn’t been that man for a long time, but these truths I’m learning tonight are hitting me with a heavy grief I wasn’t expecting.
