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“Have you been drinking, Tristan?” A smile spreads on her face as she settles into a couch. “I think that’s the best thing I’ve heard all day, and one of my best stallions just mated.”
I jut my chin at the portrait. “So, Erin, yeah?” I laugh, a sound that doesn’t betray my sadness. “How could you send your daughter to whore herself out? What kind of mother are—”
“My daughter?” Ellen crosses her legs, amusement in her icy eyes. “Think again.”
I remember Layla told me on the plane that her mom saw her as a stain on the family. I guess that was one of the few things she didn’t lie about. I clench my fist.
“So, that’s why?” I step forward, my shoe hitting the marble with anger. “You’re that desperate to keep Ruby from me? From her father?”
“Her drunk of a father?” Ellen smirks.
The door opens behind me, and Jacob walks in. He does a double take as soon as he sees me, but he walks quietly to join his wife on the couch. He’s in jean overalls that are stained with blood. I wonder what he was doing beforehand.
“You have no right to judge me,” I retort, my voice rising. “You don’t know what I’ve been through!”
Jacob speaks, “What you’ve been thr—”
“Yes!” I point my clenched fist. “I lost my wife! My wife! The mother of my child, and you think I killed her?”
“We heard the recording in the hit piece.” Ellen shrugs in her chair.
“Layla didn’t give it to you before giving it to Miles?” I blink in surprise. “That’s weird.”
“Erin?” Jacob stands and removes a cigar from his pocket. “She was working with the journalist?”
What is going on?
I set a hand on the chair opposite them, studying their face. “You weren’t working with Miles?”
They exchange glances. “We weren’t working with any goddamn reporters. The same reporters who reported nonsense about my precious Deanna?” Ellen stands too, her eyes suddenly moist. “Calling her a drug addict? Why would we ever work with them?”
“To get Ruby from me?” I open my hands.
“That’s why Erin was supposed to get evidence on you, but she couldn’t even do that right, could she?” Ellen scoffs. “She’s no blood of mine.”
Wait, if Layla wasn’t feeding Miles information, then who was?
“Layla—” my forehead creases as I take a deep breath, “—she never gave you anything?”
“Useless as always.” Ellen shook her head. “She rang three days ago to tell us she couldn’t do it anymore as if she had any usefulness at all in the first place. If not that you couldn’t keep your pecker in your pants—” She turns to Jacob, “—we wouldn’t have to deal with a fucking bastard.”
Jacob sucks on his cigar, avoiding his wife’s eyes. I stagger back, my head reeling with new information. Layla didn’t give them anything? Was she telling the truth when she said that? But— I don’t understand.
Who’s leaking the information if Ellen isn’t?
“You have some nerve coming here, though, after what you did to Deanna.” Ellen turns her anger on me, her voice echoing in the living room.
I collapse onto the couch, suddenly feeling tired. My head throbs from a deserved hangover as I bury my face in my hands. Silence settles between us, the weight of their accusations weighing heavily on me.
“You think I don’t blame myself?” I look up at them, tired of fighting. “You think I don’t wake up every morning wishing I’d been there for her? Most mornings, I hate myself despite Deanna telling me not to.” I return my face to my hands.
Jacob coughs, then speaks. “Wait, what do you mean she—”
“Deanna telling you not to?” Ellen interrupts him, her voice cracking.
I withdraw my head from my hands and stare at them. I see then that they aren’t angry; they are sad. They lost their daughter, and they have no one to blame for it, so they blame me. They’re hurting and living in the satisfying delusion that their lovely daughter didn’t kill herself, that I did.
I rise off the chair then and remove the sheet of paper from my pocket. I read it once two years ago and never did it again. I open it, and the brown paper is stained with drops of years-old tears.
