Page 17 of Ebbing Tides

Lucy forced a smile even though the old man's eyes were closed. “She tried, Daddy. She tried as best as she could.”

My eyes flicked toward her. Did she believe that? Did she believe our mother had triedat all, or had she only said it for his sake? God knew Mom had been sick. So incredibly sick until she succumbed to whatever demons had lived with her in her head, but had she ever tried to—I didn’t know—get rid of them? Had she ever tried to get help?

Maybe I was a coldhearted bastard for thinking that way, but it was hard not to. She might’ve been sick and broken, maybe even more than me, but I was her child. A mother should protect their children and not allow them to live in a world of abuse and fear.

A mother didn’t leave her blood on the floor of her child’s former bedroom. A mother didn’t do iton purpose.

I squeezed my eyes shut, shoving the memory away before it had a chance to take hold and run wild through my veins.

Hell, even my father had a greater capacity for putting in an effort than my mother ever had. Even in all his years of hatred, it only told me that he cared to some degree. Hate requiredthought. Mom could never muster that.

I might hate her more than I hate him, I thought, and how funny that I’d never considered that before.

Dad grunted in reply, and I turned to find him scowling. And in that moment, I knew that, for once, we agreed on something. That our mother had done a lot of things, buttryingwas unlikely to have been one of them.

“You miss her,” Lucy guessed, stroking his hand.

Dad grunted again, the response indiscernible.

“It's okay,” Lucy said softly. “You don't have to say it. We know.”

I cleared my throat for the sake of having something else to do and looked at Lido, sitting beside the couch in Dad's office.

“I have to get to work,” I announced to put a stop to this talk of Mom.

Lucy looked up at me and nodded. “Okay. I'll get him set up here for the night.”

“Always leaving me,” Dad grumbled, a look of disapproving disgust on his face.

I turned to him to find his eyes now open, looking directly at me.

“What?” I asked, despite having heard exactly what he'd said.

He screwed his mouth up like he'd gotten a taste of something sour. “You could never stand to be around me. You always leave. You're just likeher.”

Lucy turned to Dad, startled, her mouth flapping. “Daddy, what—”

“I'll see you later,” I interrupted quickly before rushing out of the room. “Let's go, Lido.”

“Yeah, there he goes,” Dad called from behind me, his feeble voice reaching out with its icy fingers. “Never did know how to stick around. Ungrateful bastard. That wife of his probably threw herself off the porch. Killed herself to get away from him. Just like his mother.”

My brain drowned out Lucy's shocked words of harsh disapproval, her insistence that none of it was true. And partially, she was right. We all knew Dad had driven me away again and again and again. His doctors had warned us that there could be some confusion and forgetfulness, especially toward the end or when he was particularly hopped up on his wide array of medications, and obviously, it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that was what was happening now.

But he wasn't wrong about everything.

Mom had killed herself, and although nobody had proof, the fact that she had chosen to take her life in my childhood bedroom sent as much of a message as any.

The brutal commentary had left me rattled all the way to the cemetery. Tears sprang to my eyes at random intervals on the twenty-minute drive, and Lido nudged my shoulder with his snout until I managed to compose myself, time and time again.

Fuck him, I kept thinking.

“Fuck him,” I kept saying aloud.

For nine months, I had cared for the old son of a bitch.

For nine months, I hadstayed.

The moment he had told me to, I had.