Page 23 of This is Why We Lied

Mercy wondered how dumb Dave really thought she was. Cottage ten was on the back end of the Loop. The leaking toilet was in cottage three, directly behind her.

Still, she prompted, “And?”

Dave shrugged again. “I tried to do the right thing. It wasn’t my fault what happened to him, but I thought maybe an apology would help him work through some of the trauma. Wish somebody would be that nice to me.”

Mercy had been on the receiving end of Dave’s half-assed apologies. They were not nice. “What’d you say exactly?”

“I don’t know. Something like, let’s leave the past in the past.” Dave shrugged again. “Tried to be magnanimous.”

Mercy bit her lip. That was a big word for Dave. “What’d he say?”

“He started counting down from ten.” Dave hooked his thumbs into his pockets. “Like, was I supposed to feel threatened? I told you he ain’t smart.”

Mercy looked down so he wouldn’t see her reaction. Will Trent was a foot taller than Dave and had more muscle on him than Jon. She would’ve bet her stake in the lodge that Dave had scampered before Will could reach the count of five. Otherwise, Dave would’ve been carried off the mountain in a body bag.

She asked him, “What’d you do?”

“Walked away. What else could I do?” Dave scratched his stomach, one of his many tells when he was lying. “Like I said, he’s kind of pathetic. Dude was always quiet, didn’t know how to talk to people. And he’s up here at the campground after how many years? Some kids, they never shake what they went through. Not my fault he’s still screwed up.”

Mercy could say a lot about people who wouldn’t let things go.

“Anyway,” Dave groaned out the word. “What you said in the family meeting. That was just you talking bullshit, right?”

Mercy felt her spine stiffen. “No, it wasn’t just bullshit, Dave. I’m not gonna let Papa sell this place out from under me. From under Jon.”

“So you’re gonna take almost a million bucks away from your own kid?”

“I’m not taking away anything,” Mercy said. “Look around you, Dave. Look at this place. The lodge can take care of Jon for the rest of his life. He can pass it on to his kids and grandkids. That’s his name on the sign by the road, too. All he’s gotta do is work. I owe him that much.”

“You owe him a choice,” Dave said. “Ask Jon what he wants to do. He’s practically a man. This should be his decision, too.”

Mercy felt her head shaking before he finished. “Hell. No.”

“That’s what I thought.” Dave snorted in disappointment. “You’re not asking Jon because you’re too much of a coward to hear his answer.”

“I’m not asking Jon because he’s still a kid,” Mercy said. “I won’t put that kind of pressure on him. Jon will know you want to sell. He’ll know I don’t. It’d be like asking him to choose between us. Do you really want to do that to him?”

“He could go to college.”

Mercy was shocked by the suggestion. Not because she didn’t want Jon to have an education, but because Dave had bullied Jon for years into thinking college was a waste of time. He’d done the same thing to Mercy when she’d started taking night classes to get her GED. He never wanted anybody to do more than he had.

“Merce,” Dave said. “Think about what you’re trying to pass up. You been wanting to get off this mountain as long as I’ve known you.”

“I wanted to get off the mountain with you, Dave. And I was fifteen years old when I told you that. I’m not a baby anymore. I like running this place. You said I was good at it.”

“That was just—” he waved his hand, dismissing the compliment that had made her feel so damn proud. “You gotta see sense. We’re talking about life-changing money.”

“Not the good kind,” she said. “I’m not gonna say what I’m thinking, but we both know how hateful you get around money.”

“Watch it.”

“There’s nothing to watch. It doesn’t matter. We might as well be talking about the price of hot-air balloons. I’m not letting you take this place from me. Not after I poured my heart into it. Not after all I’ve been through.”

“What the hell have you been through?” Dave demanded. “I know it wasn’t easy, but you always had a home. You always had food on the table. You never slept outside in the pouring rain. You never had some fucking pervert shoving your face into the ground.”

Mercy stared past his shoulder. The first time Dave had told her about the sexual abuse he’d suffered as a child, she’d been racked with grief. The second and third time she had cried along with him. Then the fourth and fifth and even the hundredth time, she’d done whatever he’d asked to help him out of that dark place, whether it was cooking or cleaning or something in the bedroom. Something that hurt. Something that made her feel dirty and small. Anything that would make him feel better.

And then Mercy had realized that what had happened to Dave when he was a child didn’t matter. What mattered was the hell he put her through now that he was an adult.