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“The only thing that makes me acceptable to them is that I’m on their side about Dad. Even though he didn’t treat me the way that they did, I disowned him the way that they did. We don’t know where he is. He’s a monster. We all hate him.”
“Sure,” she said.
“I have a hard time with it, though,” he said, the words a big angry ball in his chest as he let out a hard breath. “I do know where he is.”
“Brody...”
“Because I’ve seen him. After Gus ran him off the ranch... After Gus told him he better never show his face around here again... He got in touch with me. And I went to see him, Lizzie. So you see, the thing is... They’re right about me. I’m not on their team, and I never was. I wanted to be. But I was too hungry for that thing that only my dad could give me. I was too hungry to be... Loved. And for whatever reason, whatever twisted reason, he loved me. And I just couldn’t turn away from it. I told you, he taught me things. He made me feel important. And it was like... Sometimes, it was like I could pretend he was two different people. That a switch would flip when he was around the other boys and...”
The words got stuck in his throat. He could hardly breathe.
“I lived a double life, Elizabeth.” He didn’t deserve to call her Lizzie, not right now. “I’d go have a beer with my old man sometimes and then come home and sit across the dinner table and look Gus right in the scarred face.”
“It’s all bad,” she said. “That he made you feel like that, that he ever played you off of them, that he ever hurt them... You’re not the bad guy. You can’t be.”
“Now, that’s not fair. Because you know what it’s like to come out of a dysfunctional situation. And everything you’ve done as an adult... That’s to your credit, right?”
“I don’t...”
“And you were willing to give me credit for everything that we’ve done ever since taking over the ranch. But I can’t have credit and no blame. That isn’t how it works. As an adult, I made the decision to keep in touch with him for a while, even after Gus ran him off. And I... I him loaned him money, Elizabeth.”
“Why?”
“He needed it. He needed an operation, and I took money away from the ranch to give it to him. And I told Gus that I spent it on a truck. I did, but not all of it. I lied to him. I basically laundered money out from under my own brother to help our dad.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, more than ten years ago now. That was the last time. It was the last time I saw him, because I couldn’t bear it anymore. And...you know it wasn’t even the guilt, really. It was realizing my dad wanted money and not a relationship with me, not really. And then...that it hurts me to know that makes me think I’m even more messed up. What’s wrong with me?”
“Have you ever heard of Stockholm syndrome, Brody?”
“Yes. I am familiar. But I don’t need you trying to diagnose me with anything, when the fact of the matter is... It’s just all a mess. Inside of me, and I can’t make it not one. I hate him. With everything that I have. And I love him. I never wanted anything more than I wanted my dad to be proud of me. To love me. Even though I could see the things that he did, and I could see that his idea of what was okay wasn’t. So why the hell do I want that man to be proud of me? It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t. It never has. And I know that. Down to my bones, I know it, but it still is. Just like I know that he’s trash, and I still couldn’t throw him out like the garbage that he was.”
“Because you aren’t a sociopath, Brody. Just because he feels nothing, doesn’t mean you have to. He’s your father, and it’s actually not wrong for you to feel something for him. What’s wrong is what he did to all of you. It isn’t that I don’t love my mom. Or... Maybe I love the symbol of what I wish a mother could be. And I’ve taken that symbol and turned it into something... I don’t know.”
“Your mother didn’t hurt people. Not like that. Like you said, there are a lot of different kinds of abuse, but the way my father did it... It has a lot of victims.”
“I understand that. But you’re one of them.”
“Sure. It doesn’t... If Gus knew... What they think about me would be pretty set in stone. We had this distance between us... And there’s no way to get across it. Because the way we were raised was just too different.”
“Seems to me you were boiled in pots on the same stove. Might’ve been different burners, but it was the same fire.”
“I just don’t... I’m not the hero that you think I am. And you know what? It’s real tempting to let you think that I am. Because I like the way you look at me. And I like the way that... Benny seems to think I’m pretty great. So it would be better to let you just keep on believing that. But I’m a coward. That’s the bottom line. I wanted that relationship with my dad, and I kept it. I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t keep it. I didn’t know who I would be. Because I was the one that Seamus McCloud loved. And I didn’t want to lose that.”
And much to his surprise, she looped her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t make me hate you. If that’s what you were trying to do.”
“Can you see how messed up it is?”
“Yes. It’s totally messed up. And maybe if I was your brothers, I would be mad at you. But I’m not your brothers. I’m somebody who has also gone through some difficult things. Who knows what it’s like to try and make the best of a complex situation that nobody would choose. I know what it’s like to be...” She sighed. “Please try to understand what I’m saying is the way that I mean it, and not how it could come across. I’m tied to Carter, even though I don’t want to be. We have a common love. We made a person together. I would love to be done with him, and never see him again, not because I hate him so much, just because... He feels like a mistake that I made when I was a kid. I haven’t thought I was in love with him since I was twenty-three years old. It seems unfair to continue to have to negotiate having him in my life. But I do. I know what it’s like to be tangled around somebody whether you want to be or not. I get that it’s very different. But then... I also have a mother I haven’t seen since I was six, who didn’t treat me particularly well. And whose love I wanted all the same. Who I wanted desperately to be with and desperately to escape all at once.” She shook her head. “No. The problem is, I just understand how imperfect these things can be. And how we don’t get to control the way that we feel about them.”
He had never talked to anybody about his family situation before. Not people outside the family. It was so strange to have her opinion. And have it be so definitively... For him.
“My brothers...”
“Are great. But they’re not the ones I know. So, I’m going to go ahead and put my bias firmly in your corner.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
