Page 15 of Sterling Clay

“Better.”

Our eyes meet. My brother, like all my younger siblings, took some hard knocks while growing up. Our Dad doled out abuse like one might toss out playing cards. You never knew what you’d get, and yet some seemed to be dealt a losing hand more often than others. Maybe the harshness came about because Stone and Judd were gone, and I was a man in Dad’s eyes, so the younger set were thought to be weak when that’s hardly been the case for any of my siblings. We each have strengths in varying forms.

Stone is fiercely protective and bears a burden of guilt he doesn’t need to wear. Knox and Sebastian have always been scrappy; fighters in a sense. Vale is the lover, but her sweetness covers battle scars I’m worried she’ll never address. Ford appears to have a tough outer shell, deflecting harsh words flung at him like weak arrows, bouncing off his thicker skin. Judd was not so fortunate as a child. He tucked hard words beneath his pillow and wrestled demons he didn’t need to fight, but still his perseverance has carried him far.

As for me, I seemed to know how to play the game with our dad. How to dance around muddy water and duck the thunderclouds in his voice. Didn’t mean he didn’t hurt me emotionally or insult me verbally, but I never experienced his fist.

And I always felt a little sorry for him.

The love of his life died by a condition brought on by her final pregnancy.

The child—Vale—was spared, but our mother was gone.

Dad was left to raise seven children from ages twelve to newborn on his own.

His position, however, did not excuse his behavior. He needed help but refused to get it for himself or allow it for his children. He was a sad, lonely, pathetic man, but heartbroken, nonetheless. While child-rearing had been our mother’s greatest joy, she had been his, and he simply did not know what he was doing without her. He chose bottles of Jack for comfort over his kids, drowning in depression and abuse that scarred each of us in our own way. Frustration and helplessness ate at me for what our father did to my siblings and me. Internally, I raged with anger when I was younger, and a need to save them all, especially Vale, our only sister.

Dad and I had our brand of conflict. A complicated relationship that involved strong differences of opinion on how to run this business. Harsh disagreements about who was doing the running. His name might have been on the title of this company, but I was the one working my ass off to keep it afloat, working against the tide of creditors he’d pissed off or owed. Our family was constantly poor until our father died when I was almost twenty-two. The debts were steep. The money nearly non-existent.

I rebuilt Sylver Seed & Soil. Stone raised our siblings.

Our positions were a strange marriage of brother and brother, trying to parent the younger set. Stone had the role of bad cop, although he was hardly a disciplinarian, and eventually did join the local sheriff’s department. I was good cop, but I don’t believe I deserve the title. I just had more patience, empathy maybe, for our family situation.

I didn’t fault my father. I didn’t hate him. I also didn’t love him in the end.

“Heard you have a house guest.” Knox continues, giving Tillie a good scratch behind her ears. Her enjoyment is so loud I can hear her purr from my own desk chair where I take a seat. I’m shakier than I thought I’d be after so many days of rest.

“You’re so fucking nosy.” I chuckle. Knox loves gossip, although he isn’t one to feed into rumors. He’s just curious by one resident saying this and another resident saying that. He’s friendly with everyone and happy as a man can be having been reunited with his high school sweetheart a little over a year ago.

I don’t have to ask who told him about Mavis. Stone most likely.

“You sure about her.” He stops eagerly scratching Tillie and swipes a hand down her back before moving her off his lap to the floor. She gives him a sassy glare over her shoulder and saunters out of my office like it’s his loss she isn’t in his lap anymore.

“Mavis?” I counter. “She’s been helping me while I’ve been sick.”

“More like taking care of you.” Knox arches his left brow, the one with a scar through it.

I scoff, but he’s right. Mavis did take care of me.

“And you’re used to being the one doing the caring,” Knox states, reminding me of the family joke about that damsel in distress syndrome.

“I was the damsel.” I flutter my lashes and press my hands together, bringing them beneath my chin in mocking jest.

Knox laughs but then his expression turns serious. “I’m worried about you.”

“Me?” I chide, feeling my forehead furrow. “Or her?”

Knox purses his lips. “You know her story, right?”

I turn to my computer, turning it on, and waiting for it to boot up. “She hasn’t told me anything.”

Knox sighs. “But you know, right?”

My brother isn’t only our company brick layer and patio expert, he’s also a volunteer firefighter for Sterling Falls because he has a hero complex, complements of nearly twenty years in the Navy.

While leaning back in the desk chair, that moves with my position, I glance at Knox. “I think she should tell me her version.”

I don’t want hearsay, although Knox knows some hard facts about Mavis.