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“You know what? Butter isn’t the same anymore since I had Sebastian’s cherry butter at Four Kinds.”
“You know my son?” Her eyes narrowed as she sipped her martini.
“I briefly met him the other night. Best food I’d ever had.” I brought the roll to my mouth.
“You stay away from my son.” She pointed at me.
“Twenty-nine years ago, a woman named Genevieve Monet showed up at your house.”
The color drained from Barb’s face. “I remember.” She brought the glass to her lips. “She was pregnant with my husband’s child.”
“I’m that child.”
“I see.” Her death stare burned into my eyes.
“Henry, your father, is dead.”
“I know. Maybe I would have had the chance to know him if you hadn’t paid off my mother to leave town and never tell him about me.”
“Please.” She laughed. “Henry never would have accepted you as his child. He knew about Shaun and never once sought him out. What makes you think you’d be any different? Your father was a man who fucked anything with long, lean legs. He never took responsibility for his mistakes. When your mother showed up at my home that day, it was the final straw as far as I was concerned. I had four little boys I was raising. They were Henry’s priorities. Not some bimbo’s that he knocked up back in New York and Paris.”
“Don’t you dare speak about my mother like that,” I spoke through gritted teeth.
“I apologize. It wasn’t your mother’s fault. It was Henry’s. She had no idea that he was married and had four sons. He was a pathological liar, and unfortunately, your mother got caught up in his web of lies.”
“What exactly did you tell my mother?” I asked.
“Why are you here askingme? Obviously, your mother told you who your birth father is. She wouldn’t tell you the specifics?”
“My mother passed away last month. She left a letter with a family friend to give me after she died. Her last words to me were that she was sorry she lied to me and hoped that I could forgive her.”
“So she did keep her promise all these years. What did she tell you about your father growing up?” Barb asked.
“All she said was that he took off after he found out she was pregnant and never came back.”
“I see.” She finished her martini and held her finger up for the waiter.
He walked over with our food and set our plates in front of us.
“Another Martini,” Barb said.
“I’ll have a vodka martini, extra dirty,” I spoke. “Barb, I want to know your conversation with my mother.”
“I told her the same thing I told you the day she came to my home, sat on my couch, and cried her eyes out. She kept apologizing and said she had no idea he was married with children. He wasn’t wearing his wedding band, which didn’t surprise me, that asshole. I told her the cold, hard truth about that man. And if she thought he would leave me and his four sons for a second, she was living in a fantasy world.”
“Then you paid her off to leave and never speak of me?” I asked.
“I did. There was no way in hell I was about to have my son’s lives ruined with them knowing their father kept producing offspring because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants—First Shaun, and now you. My husband made your mother false promises in Paris he never intended to keep. He got what he wanted and knew damn well when he returned, that would be the end of it. He never expected your mother to follow him back. Thank God he was at work the day she visited. After convincing her what a piece of shit Henry Kind was and agreeing to take the money to start a new life for herself, I divorced him. I couldn’t live like that anymore, sitting and waiting for the next woman to knock on my door.”
“And how did that turn out for your sons?” I asked.
“They had their issues. I had my share of men over the years, as did Henry. Fuck, marry, divorce, repeat. He was on his fifth marriage before he died, which was barely hanging on by a thread because, once again, he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. That’s who your father was,” she spoke sternly, pointing her finger at me. “So, now that you know, you can go back to where you came from and move on with your life.”
“Excuse me?” I cocked my head. “I have five brothers and a sister whom I never got a chance to grow up with or get to know. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You are to leave my family alone. They’ve had enough trauma in their lives from everything that happened over the years. They don’t know about you, and they don’t need to. They’re happy, and I won’t let some stranger walk into their lives and turn them upside down. They’ve had enough change to deal with.”
I couldn’t believe the nerve of this woman.
