Page 10 of Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology #2)

TUESDAY

“What time is it?” Dad asked, strained and immediately angry.

Marcella looked up from washing his feet and glanced in the direction of the wooden wallclock. “It's two in the afternoon, Mr. Tailor.”

It'd been nine months since he'd been discharged from the hospital. Stage four lung cancer, they'd said. Nothing they could do to stop it, they’d said. Days to weeks left, they'd said.

But those doctors and nurses hadn't known my stubborn bastard of a father, and now, lying half naked in his hospital bed and looking more and more like a zombie by the day, he was still breathing.

I'd been aware of how unfair life was, but the fact that he'd managed to cling to life for the amount of time Laura should've been pregnant with our son was a real stab in the gut.

But I wouldn't wish for him to have any less time than he was allowed.

I might not have been a good man, but I wasn't a fucking monster.

“What are you doing in here then?” Dad sneered in my direction. “Aren't you supposed to be sleeping the day away?”

“I'm going out,” I told him, taking the notebook we used to keep track of his medication to write down instructions for Grace, who was arriving at any moment.

“Out?” Dad spit like I had some nerve. “What do you mean, you're going out?”

Marcella worked the soapy, damp washcloth up Dad's leg as she said, “Max looks nice, doesn't he, Mr. Tailor?”

Before I could lay my pen to the paper, I glanced at my clothes. Did I look nice? I wasn't sure, but I hoped so. It wasn't like I had much in my wardrobe to choose from, but I tried to make do with a black sweater I'd gotten from Lucy for Christmas a few years back and my least worn pair of jeans.

“He does,” Dad muttered. But he hadn’t said it as a compliment. He was suspicious.

“Grace is coming by in just a little while,” I told both of them as I scribbled down the meds Dad would need later, what he'd need done before she left for the night, and everything I'd need her to do for Lido.

I didn't like the idea of keeping him here all night while I was gone, but I wasn't sure I'd have enough time after my date—or whatever it was—with Melanie to pick him up before work.

“You shouldn't be relying on your sisters,” Dad scolded. “They have enough going on.”

I stifled a groan. He wasn't entirely wrong.

They had kids. They had households to run.

It was one of the reasons why I'd agreed to become Dad's primary caregiver.

But it didn't seem unreasonable to ask my sisters for help every now and then, apart from the brief visits they paid him when they had a few moments to spare. But I wouldn’t dare say that to him. I knew he'd only disagree.

“Lido is going to stay—”

“Absolutely not.”

Marcella smiled kindly at my father. “It might do you some good to spend time with him. He's such a nice dog.”

“Nice dog.” Dad snickered before pretending to spit. “Remember that dog you kids had, Maxwell? What was its name?”

My hand tensed around the pen as I stared at my scrawled handwriting. “Smoky.”

“Ah, that's right. And what happened to good ol' Smoky ? Do you remember?”

I glanced at the clock. Where the hell was Grace? She’d said she'd be here by now.

“Do you want to tell Miss Marcella what you did to that dog, Maxwell?”

He was speaking like I was an eight-year-old boy and not a forty-eight-year-old man, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, I was letting his words have an effect.

My cheeks burned with shame, my fingers clenched tight around the pen until my hand shook, and the breath held in my lungs threatened to combust.

I killed that dog . The confession sat at the tip of my tongue. You took him away, you got rid of him, but it was me who’d made you do it. It was me.

“Maxwell was a very irresponsible boy,” Dad continued, realizing I wasn't going to say anything. “He had promised to take care of the dog, but he didn't.”

Marcella uttered a sympathetic, “Ah.”

The woman was easily in her sixties, probably beyond the age of retirement. I imagined she'd experienced her share of disobeying kids and childish promises broken. But I also doubted she'd ever seen a dog euthanized because it had shit on the floor.

Marcella seemed like a good person.

My father, however, was not.

“Couldn't keep a dog he couldn't care for,” Dad said, weak but every bit as mean as ever. “Isn't that right, Maxwell?”

I swallowed against a torrent of anger and said, “Right, Dad.”

“So, now, don't you think, if you can't care for that mutt you've dragged into my house against my wishes, then—”

I cut him off by spinning on my heel and raising a finger.

Marcella startled, gasping quietly, before resuming her scrubbing of Dad's legs and working her way up to his waist and groin.

I looked down at my father, this frail skeletal version of him, and knew without a sliver of a doubt that I could snap him like a goddamn twig.

It wouldn't take much strength at all. One hand around his corded throat and a few moments of pressure were all it'd take to end his existence on this planet.

But I wasn't a monster, and I couldn't bring myself to do it, even as I remembered that one glorious moment when I'd actually fought back.

Back when he’d destroyed my book.

Dracula .

“What?” he spit, a wicked, wicked smile spreading across his lips. “What do you want to say to me, boy?”

The front door opened to the house, and Lido scrambled out of the room to greet our guest. Relief washed over me, traveling through my limbs, all the way down to my fingertips and toes as I lowered my hand and held my head higher.

“I'll see you in the morning,” I grumbled. “Have a good night, Marcella.”

“You too, Max,” she quietly replied as I hurried away from my father’s bedside.

Grace stood in the living room, her youngest at her side—my niece, a little girl named Anna, who'd just recently turned eight and looked exactly like her father.

I faltered at the sight of her, not expecting her to be there, but all the same grateful.

I was less likely to blow a fuse in the presence of a child.

Grace smiled as she rushed toward me, her arms outstretched. “You're getting scruffy,” she said as I enveloped her in a hug. “Why don't I see you anymore?”

“Because you're busy and I'm a prisoner here,” I answered matter-of-factly, hugging her tight.

“You sure that's all it is?”

“Yeah,” I said, and it was the truth.

I released my sister to ruffle my niece's hair. “Hey, kiddo.”

She sighed and brushed my hand away, and I bit back a laugh. It seemed that, overnight, my only niece had gone from a playful little girl to an unamused young woman. I wasn't sure when it had happened, but I did enjoy teasing her … just as I'd enjoyed teasing Lizzie and Jane.

Fuck .

“Hi,” she mumbled before turning her attention and a big grin to Lido. “Hi, boy!”

I looked at my sister and jabbed a thumb in the direction of her daughter. “She'd hate me if I didn't have this dog.”

“Well, isn't it a good thing we gave him to you?”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help but smile at the memory.

Just a little under nine years ago, right before Christmas, Grace and Sid had come by my place with a little wiggling bundle of black fur, certain that having something to care for would keep me from finding temptation at the bottom of a bridge.

They'd been right.

Even if some days were harder than others, Lido always made them just a little better.

“Well, look, I gotta run,” I said, glancing at my watch and realizing that, unless there wasn't any traffic, I was likely to be late. “Do me a favor and keep Lido away from Dad.”

Grace frowned. “Why's that?”

I pulled in a deep breath and shook my head. “Just … don't ask,” I muttered, grabbing my jacket from the newel post.

“You got it, Serg.”

The nickname made me smile for a quick second.

If you spent enough time with someone, the lines between your habits and theirs were bound to blur, and that was exactly what had happened with my sister and Sid.

I couldn't even pinpoint when she'd begun to use that name, which was more a term of endearment at this point than anything else, but I liked it. And it made me miss my friend.

“How's Sid doing?” I asked, pulling my jacket on.

“Good,” she said. “He misses you.”

“I miss him too,” I admitted, sighing like a forlorn lover. “Things have just been …” I released a disgruntled huff that should've left me blushing with shame, but I didn't have it in me. Not after what Dad had said about my dog minutes ago.

“I know,” Grace replied. “But, you know, it's never a problem if you're like, Hey, come sit with Dad for a little while so I can go on a date with your husband . Whenever you want, just call me.”

“I'd never hear the end of it from him,” I muttered, rolling my eyes toward the hallway.

“He isn't your warden or something.”

I barked a harsh chuckle. “Yeah, sure. But anyway, um”—I patted myself down, in search of my keys, finding them quickly in my jacket pocket—“I left all the instructions in Dad's room. Everything's written down. Marcella should be here for another hour or so. You should be good to leave around—”

“Max,” Grace said gently, laying her hands against either side of my chest, “go. We're fine.”

I looked down at her, biting the inside of my cheek as my mind traveled back in time to a moment thirty years ago, when I had been eighteen and she was fourteen and she was begging, begging, begging me not to leave.

And I knew then that it was only for her benefit—hers and Lucy's.

We were all scared of what would happen if I left them here alone with him …

but somehow, it was fine. Possibly the best thing that man had ever done was keep his promise to me that my sisters would be safe.

And now, thirty years later, she was telling me to go. For me.

I exhaled and nodded. “All right. Call me if—”

“I know,” she said. “Get out of here. Have fun.”