Page 26 of Tribute Act

“Nah.” But he smiled and his eyes, all dark and melty, were gentle on mine. It felt like his inhibitions had relaxed for the first time since he’d come to Porthkennack, and okay, it was probably the drugs, but it still made me happy. Made me feel like I could look at him the way I wanted to look at him all the time.

“You’ve done a really good thing,” I said.

He gave a little sigh. “I wish everyone would stop saying that. I just did what anyone would, getting a letter like that.”

I watched him for a moment. “I don’t think that’s true, you know. You’ve not seen Derek for years—in all the time he’s been married to my mum, you and I have never met till now, and that’s been, what? Sixteen years? You could easily have turned round and told Derek you wanted nothing to do with him or Rosie.”

He glanced at me. His expression was thoughtful, but I couldn’t read it. Couldn’t guess what he was thinking.

“Why would I do that?”

I paused. “Mum told me that the last time you saw Derek, you said you didn’t want to see him anymore. That sounds like a reason.”

For a long while, he didn’t say anything—his expression didn’t even alter. Then he sighed. “Is that what he told her?”

It was then I knew I’d made a mistake. This was not the time to be asking him about this stuff. I opened my mouth to change the subject, but he spoke before I could get a word out.

“I suppose I did say that.” His voice was oddly dreamy. “But that last time . . . it was at my mum’s funeral. He sat at the back. Then, after the service, he came up and asked me if I was okay. We’d had this big argument the night before, and I just . . . well, I just lost it. Screamed at him to fuck off.” He gave a short laugh, then winced again.

I knew I should stop him, but I wanted to hear this, wanted to know the worst, so I stayed quiet and let him go on.

“I’d never got angry like that at my dad before, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. It all came out. I told him I hated him, said I never wanted to see him again.” He paused. “I remember I told him that he hadn’t acted like a dad to me for years so what was the point pretending he cared because Mum had died?”

Abruptly he fell silent. My throat felt thick with emotion, and I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him. To be fifteen and feel so alone.

Mack said, “He didn’t even argue with me, you know? Just . . . stared at me. Then he turned round and walked out the church. And that was the last time I saw him.” He sighed. “Till now.”

“Jesus, Mack,” I muttered. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

I couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t take it in. That Derek had been so easily turned away by his own son, a boy whose words had obviously been prompted by grief and hurt—it shocked me.

Derek had been a good stepdad to me, and he was a pretty great dad to Rosie. But to Mack?

Fuck.

Was it fair to judge Derek? Maybe not, but I couldn’t help doing just that.

I thought back to that long-ago conversation with Mum and wondered how much she knew about what had really happened between Derek and Mack. Had Derek shared all the details with her? Surely she’d known he’d gone up there for his ex’s funeral?

Had she?

One thing about my mum—she adored Derek. At the height of the Dilly’s crisis, we’d had a few arguments over how unreliable he was, and she’d always defended him and expected me to excuse his behaviour. She used to say privately to me that he was like a little boy beneath the confident exterior: easily hurt, deceptively soft. She’d mentioned that his own childhood had been somehow, mysteriously, “difficult.” And maybe it had. What did I know? Could someone like me, secure and happy and doted on by two parents, ever really understand?

But when I saw Mack, half-reclining against the mound of pillows in his hospital bed, eyes closed, I felt so angry on his behalf. Not to mention guilty. Guilty that, while Derek had been playing happy families with Mum and me and Rosie, Mack had been left behind. Forgotten.

Mack’s lashes quivered, and he opened his eyes again. He looked right at me, oddly unguarded in this moment. It seemed that exhaustion was setting in now—there were shadows under his eyes, weariness in every line of his body.

“Do you want me to go?” I asked.

For several beats, he said nothing, then he murmured through barely moving lips, “You can stay a little longer.” Pause. “If you like.”

“Hold me.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll stay till you fall asleep.”

For a while we sat quietly, then he said, “I was okay after the funeral, you know.”

“Were you?”