Page 33 of Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology #2)

SATURDAY

I knew what I had said. I knew I’d sworn I wouldn’t let Dad and whatever Mom had written to him in that letter ruin my time with Melanie.

And when I’d said it, I’d meant it. That wasn’t what I wanted, not for a second.

For crying out loud, this woman was the brightest silver lining against every dark cloud to hang over my life for the past twenty years.

Those hours with her in the past had pressed against my heart, even in the bleakest times, as a reminder that good, unexpected things did happen, even to damned, cursed men like me.

Even when everything had been taken from me, over and over again, those hours had been mine.

Nobody could take them from me, and, fucking hell, I didn’t want anything to take her from me now.

But still, despite my resolve and determination, that letter taunted me.

After Melanie left sometime around midnight, I tried to focus on anything but the envelope on my desk, ripped and open and ready for reading.

I stared at the cameras, fought for feigned interest in a few of the frames. Tried to convince myself I had seen something where there was nothing.

I tried reading the book I’d started over a week ago but not had time to read since Melanie stumbled through the cold and back into my life. But Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story did little to hold my attention when something else begged to be read instead.

I even tried working myself through the exercises of my youth in the military.

Push-ups, burpees, squats. Lunges, planks, stretches.

I’d never stopped doing them; I tried to keep myself in shape, but now, I huffed my way through drills, mentally berating myself every time I thought about those words in my mother’s handwriting.

But even dripping sweat and struggling to catch my breath, I’d felt them, like every dot over an i was an eye watching me, taunting me. Beckoning with a come-hither stare.

I couldn’t stop.

Even though I had to get back to Dad’s house, had to sleep, had to get to Sid and Grace’s house later for whatever shenanigans they had planned for the day, I couldn’t stop .

And for just one day of my fucking life, I wished I could.

“It’s going to haunt me until I read it,” I muttered to Lido on the car ride to the house I had grown up in.

The house Mom had died in.

The house Dad would one day take his last breaths in.

“I need to know what it says.”

Lido watched me with worry and unease. His brows rising and falling as he dropped his snout to my shoulder.

“It’s okay, buddy,” I assured him. “I’ll be okay.”

But I couldn’t have known that, could I?

It was ignorance at its finest, although I remembered exactly how Melanie had looked when she read the words scribbled on that page.

It was bad. Whatever it was, I knew it would change me.

Hell, maybe it would change everything , and I was a fool to believe for a second I’d be okay.

Yet there I was, taking that letter and walking down the hall to Dad’s office, where he lay, sleeping.

He looked so peaceful, like a child in a sick, old man’s body.

The blankets tucked up beneath his chin, his lips parted and his chest rising and falling gently.

The whir of the oxygen tank filled the room—an ominous sort of white noise to play as a background track to this pivotal moment in my stupid, shitty life—as I sat on the couch and laid the letter on my thigh.

Outside the closed door, Lido scratched and whined, begging me to let him inside, knowing I needed him. Knowing I'd need the feeling of his soft, smooth fur beneath my palm as I unveiled whatever monster lay dormant inside this folded piece of paper.

But I had started this life without his comfort. I had endured many of its cruelties without him too. What was one more to add to the list?

I trained my eyes on the man in the bed, just feet away from where I sat. Feeling as weathered and broken as he looked, I lifted the letter from my lap.

“What is this, Dad?” I whispered, knowing he was unlikely to hear me when his slumber was so deep. “The fuck have you been hiding from me, huh? Is the reason why you've hated me all my life in here?”

The sound of his oxygen tank pulsing was the only sound that came from his bed, and I was seething with rage.

I had no idea what I'd find in that letter, and yet I was already livid because I just knew that whatever it was, he could've told me it years ago.

He could've said it at any point in my life, but he hadn't.

He'd chosen to keep it from me. And if I hadn't come across this letter, this goddamn letter, I never would have—

Stop. I have no idea what's in here. Just read it. Then be mad.

I exhaled, my lungs quivering. Then, with a preparatory inhale, I pulled the letter out, letting the envelope flutter to the floor as I quickly unfolded the page.

Something in my soul knew that reading these words would alter the course of my life, and I squeezed my eyes shut, asking myself silently if I truly wanted to do this.

If it truly mattered that much. But then I remembered the look on Melanie's face, the horror and shock, and I decided that, yes, whatever was in here … I deserved to know.

Even if it broke me, even if it sent me to the bridge …

I deserved to know.

So, I opened my eyes and began to read.

***

Richard,

By now, you know that I chose to end this waste of a life. If you're wondering if it was a difficult choice for me to make, then I would say that, even after forty-four years of marriage, you still don't know me at all.

I should have killed myself when your whore dropped that baby on our doorstep.

I should have killed myself when you forced me to mother your little bastard.

I should have killed myself when you demanded we have another baby.

Oh, I knew you were trying to make me feel better.

I guess you were trying to make me feel whole after years of raising a child who wasn't mine.

You narcissistic asshole, I'm sure you thought I should've thanked you for filling my womb with your seed and for letting me birth your daughters, but fuck you, Richard.

One of your children was one too many in this world.

I should have killed myself before I married you.

I should have killed myself before I met you.

What a worthless life this has been.

Know that it is the sweetest relief for it to finally be over.

Margaret

***

My hands trembled furiously as the letter fluttered from my fingers to the floor at my feet. Ragged, stuttered breaths whispered past my lips, and my eyes, wide and unblinking, filled with hot tears.

Ahead of me, my father slept, his oxygen machine aiding his lungs to empty and expand. Sustaining his undeserved existence.

The edges of my vision blackened, and an unnerving sensation of calm shrouded over me.

I was losing consciousness, passing out.

The shock, the horror, the reality of my mother, Margaret Tailor, never truly being my biological mother was too much, far too much for my heart, my mind, my body to comprehend.

No! I slapped myself, and a sob gasped from my lips as I shook my head and stared ahead at the true villain of my story.

That man, that evil man who'd led me to believe that the life I endured beneath his roof was the only life I could've known.

But there was another woman out there, another woman who …

God, could I have been hers? Why hadn't I been?

Did she not want me?

I clapped a hand over my mouth as an unhindered wave of tears poured over my cheeks and into my beard.

“The hell is wrong with you?”

A staggered breath fell from my mouth as I stared ahead at my father, now awake, and in a rush, I pushed myself to grab that letter from off the floor, stood on unsteady legs, and barreled toward his bedside.

“What is this, Dad?” I demanded, shaking the pages in his face. “ What the hell is this ?!”

His face took on an expression of terror as he shook his head. “Wha … I don't … I don't know—”

“Oh my God, you piece of shit, tell me the fucking truth for once in your miserable life!”

He trembled in his bed as he aimed his gaze at the letter in my hand. Confusion blanketed his face. “I-I don't … I don't know …”

A rush of unnerving calm fell over me as I stood back. Reason grabbed hold. Of course he didn't know what it was. He never opened the letter. He never knew what she'd written.

“Mom's suicide note,” I informed him in a cool monotone, standing tall and looming over his withered body.

She's not your mom , a voice in my head reminded me, and I grimaced. You never knew your mom. It's his blood in your veins. Only his.

Dad's brow crumpled, his face twisting with rage and disgust. “You … you went through my things. Y-you had no right—”

“What rights do I have, exactly ?” I interjected, my voice like a whip, cracking through his feeble attempt to scold me. “You didn’t think I had the right to know about my mother?”

“You don’t know—”

“When the fuck were you going to tell me about my mother? When the fuck were you going to tell me that Lucy and Grace aren’t …” Emotion threatened to strangle me, and I swallowed against the torrent of new tears before they had the chance to soak my face. “That they aren't …”

I couldn't get the words out as I turned to look away, to stare at the door. On the other side, Lido whined and scratched, more frantic than before.

Oh God , I thought. They’re not my sisters. Not fully. Oh my God .

“Your mother was a sick, sad woman,” Dad croaked weakly. “You knew that. She—”

“She said a woman … your whore … dropped a baby off at the door,” I muttered through clenched teeth, shoving aside all thoughts of Lucy and Grace. “Tell me that baby was me, Dad. Tell me the fucking truth !”

Silence fell over the universe with the snap of my voice. Even Lido startled at the sound, but his presence was felt, remaining on the other side of the door.