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“Last night. The Judge called me.”
Finley rolled her eyes, wished her mother would stay out of her life.
Wait. What? “She called you? Not one of her minions or my dad?Shecalled you?”
Jack gave a nod. “Don’t blame her,” he said. He consistently gave the Judge the benefit of the doubt, no matter that she had not given him that same latitude.
“You always give her too much leeway,” Finley argued.
“She has a right to be worried,” Jack said pointedly. “She’s your mother, and Detective Graves told her you were in the vicinity of where Brant’s murder happened—in the ballpark of time of death. I checked with Nita, and she confirmed you were in the area for a meeting.”
“I was at the Turnip Truck,” Finley griped. “I can’t help what happens nearby where I’m shopping for veggies.”
“Ruth told me you lied about why you were there.”
The Judge was guessing. Fishing around for a reaction, and she’d gotten the one she wanted from Jack. Damn it.
“Why do you put up with her?” Finley demanded, shifting the focus. “After a lifetime of friendship, she suddenly kicks you out of her life five years ago, and now she’s bending your ear about me like she doesn’t privately and publicly shun you most of the time.”
“What happened back then wasn’t her fault,” Jack said wearily. “It was mine. I had fallen off the wagon, and she was trying to help me. I did things ... said things, Fin. Terrible things. To her.”
A full five seconds were required for Finley to fully absorb his words. “What kind of things?”
Jack never hurt anyone—except his opponent in the courtroom, and that was expected. He and the Judge had been best friends for decades.
All this time she had wondered what happened. Wanted to know. Both the Judge and Jack had stayed mum. She visually examined the sadness and defeat on Jack’s face. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.
What if this was some awful something she couldn’t unhear? There were things like that. Things you saw or heard that couldn’t be unseen or unheard. Things that stayed with you forever, sucking the life out of you.
“I told her a secret I should have kept to myself.”
The scent of coffee snapped Finley from her troubling musings and had her holding up a hand. “Pause right there. We both need coffee.” She had a feeling he needed it worse than she did.
She hurried into the kitchen. Rinsed old coffee dregs from a couple of mugs before filling them. She walked back into the living room with two steaming mugs of coffee. She passed one to him and said, “Continue.” Though she was even less sure now that she wanted him to.
His continued hesitation caused her tension to escalate even as she guzzled coffee, scalding her throat. She winced, had to stop doing that.
“I guess it’s time you knew,” he stated with a big sigh. “I’ve kept you in the dark too long.” He shook his head, peered into the mug of hot brew. “I was a fool. I spent most of my younger years madly in love with her, but I never told her. That was my first mistake.”
Finley almost dropped her cup. “You were in love with my mother.” It wasn’t a question. She’d heard him just fine. The words had somehow burst out of her, like an echo bouncing off a rock wall.
“Yeah.” He tested the coffee and then downed a slug. “She loved me, too, but not that way. And it was best she didn’t. I knew by the time I was nearing the end of law school that I had a serious drinking problem. She didn’t need a man like me, but that didn’t keep me from wanting her. When she married your father, I tried to move on. I went from one disastrous relationship to another. Nothing stuck. Eventually, I told myself it didn’t matter. I had plenty of companionship, and by then I had you.” He smiled at Finley. “When your mother asked me to be your godfather, I almost cried. It meant so much to me. And for a long time, it was enough. I poured my heart and soul into work. The work, mine and Ruth’s friendship, and you were enough. Hell, I even grew to love Bart.”
Finley managed a choked laugh. But she understood what he meant. “I’m pretty sure he loves you too.”
“Which makes what I did five years ago all the worse,” Jack said, the weariness or maybe sadness back. “It was late one night, and I stopped by the Judge’s office to talk about a case. Everyone was gone. It was just the two of us. I’d fallen off the wagon weeks before, but I’d managed to keep it hidden. Until that night.”
Finley held her breath.
“I don’t know what snapped or short-circuited in my brain, but I tried to kiss her. Told her I’d always loved her. Couldn’t stop. Then I crossed a line even she couldn’t forgive me for. By then I was angry and shouting. I said you should have been my daughter, not Bart’s.”
Finley wanted to be angry that Jack would do such a stupid, selfish, disrespectful thing with no regard for the impact on her father—but she couldn’t. What she felt was sympathy, sadness. Regret. For both of them. For her mother too.
“The way she looked at me.” Jack stared into his mug once more. “Such pain and shock. I had betrayed her. All those years I never told her how I felt, and then I pretended to be something I wasn’t. That’s what she said. I pretended to be her friend and acted as if nothing had changed after she married Bart.” He exhaled a big breath. “She was right. I was wrong. No matter how many times I apologized, she wouldn’t let me back into her life.” He looked straight at Finley then. “I don’t blame her either. I’m an alcoholic. She can’t trust me. She loves Bart, and she wants to protect him.”
Everything Jack had just said somehow opened Finley’s eyes. She’d never considered that her mother might be protecting her father in some way with this standoff. The Judge always seemed to put him in second place behind her and what she wanted.
The reality that Finley might have been wrong all this time was a hard pill to swallow. But there was one glaring question.
