Page 43 of The Dearly Departed

He had only come once, and it must have been thirteen, fourteen years ago.

It was when I threatened him in Leonard’s office.

How old had I been then? Nineteen, maybe twenty? It was so long ago, well over a decade. It was the most time he’d ever gone without coming back to remind us that he still existed. So much that I’d almost allowed myself to forget the lowlife who’d acted the part of my brother’s and my sperm donor.

But here he was again … and on the day Leonard was suspiciously missing.

Why?

And why did he look so … put together and rich?

“You’re just gonna ignore me and pretend I’m not here?”

I aimed my gaze toward the street to watch the cars as they whizzed by. It was a fairly busy road. Traffic built regularly during the daytime hours and got quieter at night, when most of the world was asleep. The sound of passing cars and rumbling trucks had become a comfort over the years since we’d moved into the funeral home. But now, the beeping horns and squealing tires added to the irritation tugging at my nerves.

I was on edge. Worried about Leonard, but not wanting to voice that concern to anybody out loud. And now, added to that, I was bothered that my father had crawled out from whatever slimy corner of the underworld he dwelled in.

Why? I asked myself again. Why now?

I bit my inner cheek, pushing microscopic bits of nothing with overly aggressive shoves of the broom. I didn’t want to speak to the man. Didn’t want to acknowledge him at all. I wanted him to simply evaporate into thin air and never return again. But right now, he was here, Leonard wasn’t, and there was no way this wasn’t somehow connected.

I just didn’t want to acknowledge what it might mean.

What it probably meant.

But I have to.

The broom stilled. My hands tightened around the handle until I thought it might splinter and break beneath my harsh grip. A torrent of anger and hesitancy warred against my tense nerves as I squeezed my eyes shut while I fought for the willpower to do what I knew I needed to do.

Then, with an exhale, I opened my eyes to turn and look at Gerald Crowley in his expensive, tailored suit and said, “Fine, I’ll bite. Why are you here?”

One side of his mouth curled into a satisfied smile after he’d gotten what he wanted—my attention.

He took a step toward me, as if by my talking to him, he’d gotten my permission to approach. “I came to invite you to my birthday party.”

“Your birthday party,” I repeated with a frown, enunciating each word.

He nodded. “Today’s my fiftieth birthday, my boy, and I’m having myself a little shindig.”

I knew my parents had been young when they had my brother and me. If I pushed my mind hard enough, I could still remember the youth in my mother’s eyes when she forced her face to smile at me, though she looked exhausted beyond her years. Yet, despite all that, it still startled me to learn that my father was only seventeen years older than me. It raised the question of how old my mother had been when I was born and how old she’d been when she died, and if I thought Gerald Crowley had the answers, I’d ask.

But I doubted my father knew much about my mother, if anything at all.

She’d been an easy fuck when he couldn’t find anyone else to use. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

So, instead, I stared him down and said, “You’re having a birthday party, and you want me there.”

He tucked his hands into the pockets of his navy-blue slacks and rocked back on his heels.

“Thought it was time to turn over a new leaf,” he said, seeming unnervingly genuine.

Then, before I could settle into the discomfort of his tone, he turned to stroll the length of the porch as he added, “And I think I have something that might be of interest to you.”

I glowered at his portly frame as the hairs on the back of my neck bristled, like a wolf threatened by a gun-toting hunter. My hand reached around to my back pocket to touch the handle of my butterfly knife, itching to whip it out and sink its sharpened blade into the base of his spine. But to kill him would be to silence him, and he had answers I needed.

“Speak,” I demanded.

My father looked over his shoulder and cocked his head, as if considering the command, then replied, “Nah. How about you come to my party, and we’ll chat at my house?”