Page 8 of Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology #2)

“Yeah, well, some people go down quickly,” I said, thinking about every soldier I'd seen fall on the battlefield. Thinking about the lives I'd taken. Thinking about my wife. “Others are more stubborn.”

A harsh chuckle rumbled from the bed beside me, and I turned to see my father's withered lips curl in a wicked smile. “Like father, like son,” he whispered, his voice fragile and weak. Like it might snap beneath the strain of speaking.

A handful of quips tugged at the end of my tongue, demanding to be spoken, but as badly as I wanted to say them, I forced them back down.

Lucy rushed to his side, taking his hand in hers. “Hi, Daddy. I'm here.”

His smile was sweeter somehow. An immediate shift at the sound of her voice in his ear. “Grace,” he whispered.

“No, it's Lucy, Daddy.”

He nodded, eyes still closed. “I'll get you two sorted out one day.”

She laughed, her face showing every bit of the grief she felt. “You'd think forty-four years would've been long enough to tell us apart.”

The truth was, Dad could tell them apart. But now, in the state that he was in—a sort of limbo between death and being alive—he confused them often.

“Your mother could never tell you apart,” he said, then coughed.

I grabbed a tissue and stuffed it into his other hand, but he scrunched his nose with disapproval and tossed the tissue away.

“Your mother was never right,” he managed to say. “Sick. Always sick. Could never get her head on straight.”

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 tried at 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 it on 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 required thought . 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, but trying was 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 like her .”

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 had stayed .

The moment he had told me to, I had.

But now, in whatever deluded frame of mind he was in, he could only think of the times I'd left—and on his command!

So, yes, fuck him.

But fuck me too.

Fuck this miserable life that could never ever, ever show me a bit of mercy, even in the darkest of hours.

Fuck .

I squinted ahead of me at the small white building I holed myself up in night after night.

It was true I was due for an eye exam, and I might've suspected I was in need of some glasses—age would do that to a guy, I guessed—but there was no mistaking the woman standing beside the door, dressed in much more appropriate attire for the weather.

“You skipped the slippers this time,” I joked weakly, climbing out of the truck and keeping the door open for Lido to exit.

I hoped she couldn’t sense the vile belligerence circling my brain or the tension in my stance.

She smiled, her cheeks turning rosy with embarrassment. “I decided that, if I was going to get lost again, I might as well be prepared.”

Good Lord, was she beautiful, with her reddish-blonde hair pulled back in that kind of ponytail that bounced and swayed with every step.

A black headband was stretched over her ears, matching in color with the leggings and leather jacket that must've been at least two sizes too big for her frame.

She was wearing makeup now too. A smudge of brown lined her inky lashes.

Her lips, painted the color of rose petals. Full, soft, welcoming to my—

Nope, stop that.

I hastily turned my head and noticed a car parked not far from my truck. Not sure how I'd missed that when pulling up. Distracted probably.

“And you didn't walk this time,” I commented.

“Nope, but I'm making a habit of lying to my kids and brother-in-law.”

Turning back to her, I lifted a brow. “Charlie doesn't know where you are?”

She shook her head, seeming unashamed. “I told him I was running out to grab a few things at the store. I said I wanted to get out of the house without having three little boys begging me for everything they saw. He said he’d keep the gate open until I came back. I feel so scandalous .”

That last comment left her smiling, but her eyes held an unmistakable guilt.

“But you … came here?” I lifted both brows now in question as I flipped through my keys for the one to open the office door.

“Well, as it turns out, I don't think I can go this entire week without having a cigarette,” she admitted, leaning her back against the wall beside the door, lifting her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

“Ah, I see. So, you're addicted.”

“I'm …” She pursed her lips and looked beyond where I stood, toward the gravestones and mausoleums and the ghosts between the trees. “Actually, can I be honest with you?”

I couldn't imagine why she would be when she'd only just met me twenty-four hours ago, and still, I shrugged as I opened the door. “Sure.”

She turned to look at the open doorway, but didn't make a move to enter.

Unsure if I should or not, I gestured inside.

She watched my hand, then met my eye before pulling her lips into a reluctant smile and leading the way into the building with Lido at her flank.

I wasn't sure what I'd expected from this impromptu visit, but I absolutely hadn't expected for her to slip her arms from the jacket and drape it over the other chair in the office.

Like she was making herself at home. Like she wanted to be there. With me .

“I came up here with this idea to get away for a while and give the boys some time with their uncle,” she explained, casting her gaze around the room.

“It's not like I haven't visited before.

It's … it's been years since Luke died, and we come up here for Christmas and sometimes for a few days in the summer.

But, um … there's just …” Her hands fidgeted with the too-long sleeves of her dark gray sweater.

“This feels hard. Being here. Spending time with Charlie. It feels different, and I—”

She cut herself short when her gaze swung to mine, and she laughed, her cheeks deepening still in hue. “Oh my God, why am I talking about this with you? I don't …”

She held a hand to her cheek, her eyes twinkling with the residual emotion and … something else. Excitement? Bewilderment? Whatever it was, I knew the feeling.

“Why do I feel like I know you?” she asked, her head tipping to the side, her eyes taking me in.

I huffed a soft chuckle as I dropped my gaze to the floor, nodding. “I don't know, but I've been thinking the same thing since last night,” I said as I pulled off my coat to hang on the hook beside the door. “There's something about you that I … you just remind me of—”