Page 81 of Second Chance

“A weak man feels big if he can bully his brother’s girl into marrying him, making promises of wealth and power. Her broken heart fell for him.”

“Mother didn’t have any money,” I say to fill the momentary silence.

“She had all the money. He wanted it.”

I stare at my grandmother a moment before my eyes rove out the screen porch to the desolate land. The falling barn. The dried orchard trees. The overgrown fields.

“What happened?”

“He wanted to turn the property into subdivisions. Encourage more families. Grow the town. He’d be the hero. Then his brother returned.”

“He was a hero.” I recall the newsprint of Calvin in a uniform.

“He was. He wanted to be worthy of your mother, and that’s why he left. He didn’t know his brother would steal her. Calvin was too late.”

I nod, looking out at the yard, but I feel the weight of Magnolia’s eyes on me.

“What does this have to do with me? Why is she calling me Calvin?”

“You look exactly like him. Sound like him, too.”

“Kip?” I mutter, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my thighs as I clasp my hands together. A growl fills my voice. I hate the comparison.

“Not Kip. Calvin.”

My head pops up and my eyes narrow, trying to read this older woman and her statement.

“What are you saying?”

“We’ll never know the truth. There weren’t fancy tests back then. But she believed it was a strong possibility you were Calvin’s.”

“But that means—”

“We all have our reasons for decisions we make, Denton. I’m guessing Calvin never left her heart even though he left her behind.” Magnified eyes peer at me through thick glasses. I swallow the bile in my throat. Then, my father’s treatment rushes through me. His hatred. His hands. I wasn’t his, and he resented me.

“What do you mean I sound like him?”

“There was a lilt to his voice. An edge. And he could sing.”

My breath hitches. No wonder my father didn’t want me to learn the guitar. He didn’t want to hear me hum. It was a hint I didn’t belong to him.

“Did she tell Kip?”

“She did. And that was her mistake.” Magnolia lowers her head. “She was more frightened of him then ever after.”

“After what?” I snark.

“She planned to leave him, and he followed her.” The rest falls silent between us.

“Calvin died,” I add for her. If Kip killed his brother for his wife’s infidelity, he got away with it. Power. He craved it, and he had people in his pocket to cover for it.

“That he did, and so she stayed. A real Daisy Buchanan.” Magnolia’s shoulders fall, the reference to a literary heroine who is weak and resolved to remain with the abusive, cheating husband after the death of her lover makes me sick. Resolution might have been the decision my mother made to remain with the man who killed her lover, who wasn’t the father of her son. “He became mayor a year later, using the town’s sympathy to play into his campaign.”

We must accept the decisions we make. My mother made hers. I want to believe she still could have run away from Kip. It was her choice to stay. I didn’t want to hate my mother, not on her deathbed. I’d already lost empathy for her when I was a child, and she didn’t protect me. I tried to be a man as I grew and take the beatings to keep my father from her. As a teenager, resentment developed. I don’t want to sympathize with her plight at losing the love of her life, but a niggling feeling develops in my chest.

“I’m telling you these things to give you peace at her death.” I scoff in response, but Magnolia continues. “Don’t you be seeking a deathbed explanation from her. She doesn’t need to be prodded for admission of all her sins. Those are between her and her Maker.”

I nod. I’ll never have the full story. I’ll never be able to change the past. I have a plate of misunderstanding and more resentment at the injustice of my childhood. Did she love Calvin yet marry my father? Not my father. Kip. Did she ever love Kip? When did she have the affair? Why? Again, I return to love, and for the briefest moment, I understand my mother. Her heart belonged to someone she could never have, and my thoughts leap to Mati. Maybe Mother and I were more kindred spirits than I imagined.

“You said Mama had all the money. How did Kip get the land for the subdivision? The one where Mati lives.”

“I have a theory,” Magnolia begins, pausing as she looks out at the land stretching as far as we can see. “When your mother told your father—told Kip—the truth. He blackmailed her. He threatened to expose her, and she’d rather save face than save herself. He would have hunted her down anyway. Who knows what goes on in marriages behind closed doors, but I’d bet she sold her soul, signing over things she didn’t own to him. The land is in my name and wouldn’t pass to Caroline and Rosalyn until I pass away, so whatever dealings he did weren’t legal. Denton, I have no doubt you realize Kip Chance was an evil man. Caroline warned me not to fight him over that sliver of land. Thankfully, he died before he could get his hands on more.”

I fall back in the seat again, staring out at the autumn meadows. I know what went on in their marriage. Excessive drinking. Domestic violence. Limitless infidelity.

“Do you want it back?”

Her head swings to me. “The land? What’s a little earth when you might lose your daughter, instead? I’d have sold my soul as well to keep her here.”

I understand her devotion to her daughter even if I can’t understand why. My mother would have been so much better off had she left my father, and so would I.