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Marshall shrugged. “You must have seen my show. I finally booked a solid part.”
“I don’t watch your show, Marshall. But Billy saw you on it.” Although it felt strange to call his father by his name, it seemed even more so to call him “Dad.”
“Oh.” Oddly, he seemed deflated. “I always hoped you did. I thought you boys would be proud.”
Galen frowned at him. This conversation was so surreal it confused him. “That’s why you did the show?”
“No, but it seemed like a good bonus. I wanted you to see I’d started fresh. Away from all that…” He glanced around again, then pulled Galen down to the lounge chair. “I’m not into anything criminal anymore.”
Then why was he being so weird? So surreptitious? Galen wasn’t sure he believed him. “Okay.”
“You have to believe me.”
Marshall seemed almost desperate for his agreement. “Okay,” he said again. “I mean, I’m sure you don’t want to go back to prison.”
“Shh. No one here knows about that. I have a new life now. I’m a different person. Legit.”
Slowly, it was starting to make sense. “So you’re a person without sons now.”
Marshall winced at his bluntness. “It’s better for everyone that way. Back then, I was fucking everything up and people were coming for me. After I got out, I stayed away to protect you all.”
Before Galen could stop himself, he blurted, “Bullshit.”
“Hey. Watch it.” That frown…Galen remembered that frown. It used to make him rush to obey. Not anymore.
“Then why didn’t you tell us that was what you were doing? Instead of just ignoring us?”
“Because…” He could see his father casting around for an easy answer, one that Galen would accept. “It wasn’t safe.”
“Why wasn’t it safe?” That explanation could possibly fly. Nothing had been safe back then, after all.
“I didn’t want them using you guys for leverage.”
“Who is ‘them’? Is it the one…the man I saw that night? With the knife? The one who threatened me?” His voice sounded rough as pine bark. He met his father’s eyes—blue like Billy’s—and the memory flashed between them.
And finally he caught something real in his father’s expression.
“Yeah, it was him. His people. I…”
“Just tell me. Please.”
Marshall dropped his head in his hands with a groan. “Fuck. I thought all this was behind me. I was going to testify against them. They had a drug operation, and I was stupid enough to get involved. Low level, but I saw things. They found out and ambushed me, but I got away. I went home and that’s when you saw me. They probably would have killed me except for you. Instead they told me to take the fall for someone higher up. I went to prison instead of testifying. I didn’t want anyone else mixed up in it, so I cut off all ties. Clean break. As if I died. I thought it would be best.”
Galen’s hackles rose at the way Marshall so casually referred to a “clean break.” “What if I’d told someone?”
“Then you would have been in danger. That’s why I told you to stay quiet.”
“I kept it secret.”
“I knew you would. Good boy.” He gave Galen that special smile that he’d always longed to see from him. But it felt empty now. Manipulative? Good boy?
“But I never understood it. Any of it. All I did was block it out.”
“Well, sometimes that’s best. You do what you have to do to survive, right?”
He shifted on the plastic lounge chair, clearly preparing to get up and leave. “Wait. These people. Are they still watching you?”
“No.” He snorted. “They can watch me on TV if they want. I did my time. It’s over.”
