Page 90 of Ebbing Tides

It wasn’t how I’d wanted them to find out. It wasn’t how I’d wanted to tell them. The timing was awful. But I had been in the moment, fired up and full of rage toward our dying father, and it had just happened.

That didn’t stop me from feeling terrible for it.

I paced the length of the porch with my hands deep in my pockets and my head hanging, silently berating myself for snapping. For not waiting. For ruining my sisters’ last moments with the father who never hated them.

It was never anything I held against them. Hell, maybe I should have. Maybe it should have angered me to no avail that they could love a man who made their older brother’s life miserable. Yet it didn’t. If anything, I was grateful that he had not only held up his end of the bargain when I went into the service, but excelled. He had proven to me that I had no reason to worry about their well-being and lifted a weight from my shoulders and—

Made me useless.

God, they hadn’t needed me since then. I’d made a deal with my father, I’d enlisted Ricky to watch out for them while I was gone, and in turn, I had given them the tools they needed to live without me.

I stopped my pacing and looked out over the porch steps, the front lawn, and that big oak tree I had first kissed Laura behind thirty years ago. Dad’s life was the only thing that tethered me to this house of horrors, and when he was gone, there’d be nothing left. I could go back to living in my house with the view of the lighthouse from the back deck. I could watch my sunrises daily and take my dog for walks around a neighborhoodI loved. There was anticipatory relief in those thoughts, and I couldn’t wait, but with it also came dread.

I had waited nine months for the old son of a bitch to finally die, but facing it now …

“I don’t want to do this,” I admitted to the night.

But what choice did I have?

It was happening, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do to stop it.

The door opened behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I watched as Lucy and Grace cautiously stepped onto the porch.

“Is he …”

They shook their heads in unison.

“His breathing has slowed a little,” Grace said, wrapping her arms around her middle. “It’ll be soon.”

Lucy looked up into my eyes. “We read the letter.”

I turned from her gaze and nodded. “I’m sorry. I should’ve waited. It was bad timing—”

“It changesnothing,” she interrupted.

Then she charged forward and threw her arms around me, pressing her cheek to my chest. Grace came to join her, and when I was sufficiently tangled in their twin embrace, I folded them into my arms, tucking them in and protecting them from the cold, just as I’d always done.

“You are the best brother anyone could ask for,” Grace said.

“Nah,” I muttered. “I think I'm just okay.”

Lucy shook her head. “You’re our hero. You always have been. And we were always too blind to ever thank you for it.”

“You never needed to,” I told them, meaning every damn word.

Grace looked up to meet my eyes. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have said it.”

“So”—Lucy took a step back and cleared her throat while Grace kept an arm around my waist—”you have another mom—a real mom—somewhere out there.”

I sucked in a deep breath and glanced in the direction of Dad’s office window.

“No,” I muttered. “She died, apparently. About twenty years ago.”

“Oh.”

Lucy sent a rueful sigh into the night as Grace hung her head.

“I’m sorry,” she added.