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“I don’t want to hurt her, Gus. It’s the last thing I want to do, and that’s the problem. She’s been married before. She thought she was in love. She thought she was in love, and that guy abused it. What if I do the same? What if there’s something wrong with me?”
“Why would you think that?”
“You tell me, Gus. You tell me. What makes a man like our dad love somebody? What makes him...? There has to be something fundamentally twisted in me, doesn’t there? Because in the same way that he looked at all of you and just... Hated you... He loved me. What the fuck must be wrong with me?”
“Oh. So now we’re responsible for the way Dad treated us?”
“No. Hell no. That isn’t what I meant.”
“You didn’t make Dad love you, any more than I made him set me on fire, Brody. That’s bullshit. That’s an excuse.”
He had to tell him. He had to.
“No. It’s just... It’s not the same. I... Gus, I know where Dad is.”
Gus got still. Silent, his hands rested flat on the table, his lips pressed into a firm line. “You, what?”
“I know where Dad is. I’ve seen him. Lots of times, actually.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“It’s been a long while, but yeah. I found him, after he left, and I... I’d go visit him sometimes. Make sure he wasn’t drinking himself into an early grave by...having a drink or two with him at the bar and driving him home. I paid... Remember ten years ago when I said I bought a truck? I didn’t. I lied to you. I mean, I did buy a truck. But I only spent about half the money on that.”
“I just thought you got a really bad deal,” Gus said. “I remember that truck. It was kind of a piece of shit.”
“It was. It surely was. Because I used the rest of the money to pay for a surgery that he needed.”
Gus looked...at a loss. And it made Brody feel worse than he’d ever imagined it could. “You took our money, and you paid to do something to heal that bastard?”
“Yeah,” Brody said. “I did. Because that’s how much I wanted someone to love me. I made a really dumb decision, I betrayed you, and...”
Gus set his elbows on the table and tented his fingers, resting his chin on the tips of them. He was silent for a long moment.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, Brody. I can’t understand. I... I’d kill Dad as soon as look at him. I sure as hell wouldn’t save him.”
“I don’t blame you for that. I kept that from you, and it’s been killing me. Because all the things that you guys think of me... I guess you’re right. I guess you are right. I... I was always in the middle. I knew that what he did to you was wrong, but I wanted so much to have Dad the way that I did, that I didn’t oppose him. And then... And then later, I didn’t cut him off.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Gus said, after a pause.
“You just said you couldn’t understand,” Brody said.
“And I don’t. Because I think about that man, and I see the bastard that tried to kill me. But I’m not mad at you. Because the thing is, he screwed all of us up. Deep. So badly. We didn’t even have a chance. And you know what, as messed up as it is, it probably says good things about you that when you love someone, it’s not all that easy to stop. That you’re not an asshole who would’ve left him to die.”
“Maybe it means I don’t love the rest of you enough.”
“Bullshit. Here you are. Working with me. Here you are, every day. Here you are in my kitchen telling me all this even though it kills you.”
“This is the problem. The way that I feel... The way that I’ve loved people... I don’t know how to do it right. I don’t know how it looks when it isn’t twisted. I don’t know how it looks when it isn’t a mess. How do I ask her to be part of that? To be part of me?”
“It seems to me she’s the one that’s doing the asking. And this goes back to what I was saying. You can’t tell a woman what she wants. You can’t tell a woman what she can handle. They don’t like it. Ask Alaina. She just about took my eyes out over that. I don’t need you to be the same messed up that I am, Brody. That’s the bottom line. You don’t need to want to kill somebody. Even on my behalf.”
“I do hate him,” Brody said. “It’s just...”
“That’s the thing. We didn’t really have much of a chance. Who showed us what love was? We had each other. And it wasn’t perfect. Because how could it be? We are a product of where we came from. But I met a woman who loves me. And that taught me some things. It changed things. Loving her has changed me. I understand myself, the world, in a way that I didn’t. And because of that, I think I’ll be a pretty good father. At least, I hope I will be. The same as I think you’ll be a good stepfather to Benny.”
“Getting ahead of yourself,” Brody said.
“Yeah. I know. But that was going to be your next excuse. If I know one thing, it’s that if you wait until you feel like you’re good enough, you’ll make excuses until the end of time. But if you just... If you just let it go, if you just have to decide that the world is a damned miserable place. Or at least, it can be. And if you have the opportunity to seize some happiness in it than you damn well should.”
