Page 56 of The Dearly Departed

“Do you want my honest answer, or …” I tipped my head and waited for his reply.

But instead, he said, “I noticed you took quite an interest in my daughter.”

I laughed at that. “Your daughter,” I repeated with a roll of my eyes.

“Yes. Analise. My daughter." His eyes glinted with a challenge as he added, "Also your stepsister, I might add.”

I laughed again. “Okay.”

His head reeled back to hit me with an incredulous expression. “Oh? I’m married to her mother, aren’t I? If she’s not your stepsister, what exactly is she?”

“Funny how you can own your relationship to her, but not to your sons,” I countered with a bitter edge. "Does she know you abandoned us? Does your wife know you let their mother die on the streets?"

"Abandoned you?" He laughed, holding his round belly like I'd just told the funniest joke he’d ever heard. "Kid, I have been showing up consistently throughout all these years, and it's you who kept pushing me away. Don't blame your shitty attitude on me."

"I was a—"

"And don't you be puttin' your mother's blood on my hands," he continued, lowering his voice. "She killed herself. That's never been my fault."

"She was waiting for you. She thought you were going to—"

"She put a whole lot of weight on the shoulders of a homeless junkie," he replied in a tone that was something close to gentle. "I was no different from her, Abraham. I made a lot of promises, sure. Ones I was never gonna keep. You want me to own up to my blame in that? There you go. But I didn't kill her. She was gonna die with or without my help. It was only a matter of time."

I swallowed before grunting an incoherent reply. I knew he wasn't wrong. I wanted him to be. I wanted to dump all the blame for my mother's overdose on his shoulders, but I wasn't a stupid child anymore. I had to acknowledge that he couldn’t have been responsible for her death when he hadn’t even been present for it.

And maybe that’s part of the problem.

But I didn’t say that to him. Not now.

Instead, I circled back and said, "Saying you've been showing up consistently is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"

He shrugged casually. "I came around when I could."

"When it was convenient," I corrected. "Or when you needed something. And the last time was, what, fourteen, fifteen years ago?"

"I've been busy," he replied flatly.

I glanced behind me toward the mansion and sniffed a sardonic chuckle. "Oh, yeah, I can see that."

"This is just the tip of the iceberg, Abraham," he whispered in a harsh tone. "You have no idea what I've got goin’ on here. If you remember, I tried to bring you in on it. I did. But you turned me down."

I pulled my hands from my pockets and crossed my arms over my chest as I asked, "What are you talking about?"

His lips curled into a slow, devious smile. "Oh, son, just you wait. I have a feeling you'll be very impressed."

I snorted. "Somehow, I doubt—"

"Gerald."

A new voice joined the mix, and I turned to see a man with a buzz cut, wearing black slacks and a button-down, walk out onto the stone balcony. I vaguely recognized him. He’d sat between me and Leonard at the table, but he was as silent as the man who had raised me since I had been a teenager.

Now, he kept his hands folded at his waist, keeping his distance as he bowed his head—a stance of respect, of submission.

I looked back at my father, wondering what exactly it was he had goin’ on, as he put it, to have another man treat him in such a way.

"Sir. You're needed inside."

My father turned toward him, a look of exasperation on his face. "Dean, can't you see I'm in the middle of a conversation here?"