Page 23 of Jonny’s Redemption

“Heard them fighting. Dad admitted it, but he did it ugly. Told my mother since she’d wanted to wait until they got married, and she wasn’t seeing to his needs, Carla was.”

That was mean. Mean and gross.

But before I could say anything Jonny continued, “Another fight, he told my mother he loved them both. He struggled with what he was doing but he couldn’t choose.”

Then Jonny was on his feet and he shouted, “The motherfucker couldn’t choose!” Icy blue eyes sliced to me and I couldn’t contain my flinch. “Can you believe that shit?”

“No, Jonny, I can’t.”

“The asshole had a wife at home and a girlfriend.”

I knew how that felt. Only I didn’t because I wasn’t a son who looked up to his father. I was a daughter whose dad treated women like shit.

“My dad knew about Doug. Went to see him. For years my father drove his lying sack of shit ass to Pennsylvania once a month to see his son. You wanna know who didn’t know? My mother. Not until Carla got so sick she couldn’t take care of Doug did that jackass tell my mother that his love child existed. After that, my mother was gone. She was there but she was gone. A woman forced to raise her husband’s child by another woman. No, not by another woman, my father’s girlfriend. The girlfriend he’d been with for as long as he’d been with her. Then he expected her to keep it a secret.”

“Jonny.” I started to stand but froze when his eyes narrowed.

“Don’t come near me.”

Shit. I hated that but I understood.

“Okay. I’ll stay here as long as you know I want to come to you.”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.

Jonny leaned forward, tagged a bowl full of seashells off the table, and side-armed it. Glass shattered and shells scattered across the living room.

“God fucking dammit!” he roared.

Then with a face full of thunder that would’ve scared the pants off me if I hadn’t known down to my bones that Jonny would never hurt me, he heartbreakingly continued.

“I didn’t learn that shit because they sat me down and told me. I learned it because Doug was older and he’d heard the fights, too, fights he understood more than I did. He had ten years of seeing a man who he didn’t know as his father but as his mother’s friend. I don’t know how long Doug knew before he decided to spread his joyful news with the family but he was sixteen and in an argument with our dad about using the car. Then it all came out. How my dad went to see him, how he knew he was really Carla and Calvin’s son. Of course, this was news to me, but not to my mother. The whole time I watched her, and she fucking knew. That’s why she was drinking. That’s why my mother checked out when Doug came to live with us. And after that, they fought more and I snuck out of my room to listen to every argument I could. One would think since the secret was out we’d talk about it, but no, not them. I was told that family business was never to be discussed and Doug used the information to blackmail his way out of trouble. From then on, he got every fucking thing he wanted as long as he didn’t tell anyone he was Calvin Spencer’s son.”

The thunder left his face but pure disgust slid in.

“You wanna know what I got?”

No, I did not. I didn’t want Jonny talking about his father or his brother. I didn’t want to hear more about his mother’s drinking. Or how he’d lost her. I didn’t want to hear the devastation in his voice, not ever again.

But for him, so he could say what he had to say in hopes he could be set free, I’d listen.

“What’d you get, darlin’?”

“I got saddled with the burden of their lives. Their lies, his cheating, her drinking, Doug’s manipulation, Carla’s death. That’s what I got. And even now, both of them dead. Both of them leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, I’m still expected to keep the secrets of two assholes who did nothing in life to warrant my loyalty. Two fathers who cheated, lied, and hurt their children. Fuck that. Fuck them. And if I didn’t think it would drive my mother to her grave I’d shout it from Fountain Park that Calvin Spencer was a fraud.”

Jonny took an angry step toward me and leaned in deep when he said, “That’s in me, Roberta. That piece of shit made me the same as he made Doug. And we all know what was in my brother, pure asshole. That’s—”

“No!” I shouted and got to my feet. “No way, Jonny, you’re not doing that.”

“What?” He threw his arms out wide. “Finally telling the truth?”

“That’s not telling the truth. That’s bullshit.”

“Bobby—”

“Oh, no. I listened to you. I heard everything you said, Jonny, and I’m sorry you went through that, the same as I’m sorry I had to survive my childhood instead of being able to be a kid and enjoy it. But you are not them. You’re not your father and it’s total crap.”

Jonny was standing a few feet away from me scowling. It wasn’t the dirty look that concerned me, it was the hurt in his eyes. Icy blue, so beautiful they could warm me straight to my bones, so expressive. Now they were wounded and torn. I hated that. Hated it.