Page 40 of Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology #2)

Lucy and Grace crowded both sides of my father’s bedside while I sat stiffly on the leather couch. The room was dark, save for a singular stained-glass Tiffany-style lamp on the desk, its soft light casting shadows across my sisters’ faces and glinting off their tearstained cheeks.

Felicity had waited until we arrived. She told us he’d been unresponsive since she had come earlier in the day.

“His vitals are low,” she had said, her face regretful as she gave us the news. “I’m not sure he’ll make it through the night.”

My sisters responded with tears as I listened to her instructions on what to do after his passing.

Felicity had given her condolences and left, and just like that, a person I had known for nine months was once again nothing more than a stranger.

Sitting on the couch, with my hands tucked into my pockets and my legs stretched out long, I thought about how unexpected it all seemed …

but it hadn’t been though, had it? It had been nine months.

Nine whole months of rigid routine, surviving, only to care for my tyrant of a father, yet suddenly, it seemed to have all happened in the blink of an eye.

A blip among the other moments that had come together to make up this life, and, boy, what a fucking life it had been.

What the hell do I do now? I thought, tipping my head back to lean against the wall.

I hardly remembered what life had been like before Dad got sick. What had I even done with my time? The thought of reverting back to any semblance of a normal life seemed unnatural and wrong, but once he was gone, I was free, wasn’t I?

Free . Fuck, I hardly knew what the word meant. Had I ever been truly free of anything?

“Max?”

I lifted my head to look toward Grace with her arms folded on the railing beside Dad’s bed, her hand holding one of his.

“Yeah?”

She pulled in a deep breath and dropped her gaze to the blanket. She seemed to hesitate, seemed unsure of herself, then said, “I’m sorry we didn’t defend you more.”

Taken aback, I furrowed my brow. “What? Where is this coming from?”

“I’m just … I’m just thinking about how horrible it must have been for you to watch us have a good relationship with him.

And I know you spent so long worrying about us when it turned out there was nothing really to be worried about at all, and I’m just so sorry it was like that for you.

” Her lips parted with a sob as she shook her head. “I’m sorry we didn’t do more.”

Her breakdown had come out of left field, and it left me momentarily stunned.

“Grace, don’t … i-it’s okay,” I stammered, swallowing. “Seriously. It’s fine—”

“Oh my God,” Lucy groaned, hanging her head. “Do not say that it’s fine . Stop saying everything is fine when it’s not.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to say?” I asked, lifting my shoulders to my ears with a helpless shrug.

“You want me to say I hate you both? You want me to say I’ve held a secret grudge against you my entire fucking life?

You want me to say that I’ve hated you for having a halfway decent relationship with this psychotic son of a bitch? That’s not going to happen. I hate …”

My voice trailed off as my eyes fell on the sick old man, lying in the bed.

Pain wrenched in my chest at the thought that this was it.

Oh God, this was really, truly it . The last time I would see him alive.

The last time we would breathe the same air.

Did I want to spend it saying the things I’d always wanted to say but never felt I could?

Lucy and Grace watched me expectantly, swiping tears away and sniffling loudly.

Their silence encouraged me to continue, and as my nose prickled with the tears I didn’t want to cry, I said, “I hate him. I hate him so fucking much. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t hate him.

But I don’t hate him for loving you guys.

That was the one thing he did right. I just hate that he could never love me too.

No matter what I fucking did, it was never good enough. Never ever, ever good enough.”

Grace reached for the box of tissues and grabbed one to blow her nose. Then she said, “It’s because you were his son. He was hard on you because he expected more—”

“No,” I interjected, shaking my head as I stood up and pulled the letter from my back pocket. I dropped it on the foot of the bed. “He hated me because he’d fucked up.”

With that, I turned from the bed and left the room, suddenly desperate to breathe air that wasn’t also his.

***

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 neighborhood I 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 changes nothing ,” 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.

“Don’t be. Apparently, she wanted me dead more than he did, so …” I laughed at the absurdity of it all. “Guess I can thank him for that. She was gonna throw me off a damn bridge if he hadn’t taken me in.”

The sadness in Lucy’s eyes was erased by sheer horror. “Oh my God, that’s horrible.”

“I bring out the best in people, I guess,” I joked with a wink.

Grace jabbed a finger into my ribs. “It’s not funny. You deserve happiness, like anyone else.”

“What are you talking about? I am happy,” I said with a lighthearted smile. “I have you guys, Sid, and Ricky. And of course, there's Lido. What more do I need? Nah, I’m good, really.”

A look was exchanged between them. One that said they weren't at all convinced of what I was saying.

But they weren't me. They didn't know how content I was capable of being—on my own, with my dog, and the occasional get-together with them and their families.

I'd existed for ten years like that. I could last another ten, twenty, thirty more— easily .

But do I want to?

Do I have to?

“We should get back in there,” I said, ignoring the doubtful questions in my mind.

Together, we entered the house. Lucy announced she needed to pee, and Grace headed into the kitchen for some water and a moment to think. And I hesitated outside Dad's office with my hand holding the doorknob in a viselike grip.

What if he's already dead?

I'd seen more than my share of dead men, but none of them had been my father. I could force my mind to disassociate on the battlefield, but I wasn't sure I could do the same with the man who had raised me, regardless of how that upbringing had been.

With a whoosh of air released from my open lips, I entered the room. I stood frozen in the doorway, my eyes trained on his chest, waiting for any sign that he might still be alive, and when he took the smallest of breaths, I emptied my lungs with a long, shaky sigh.