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It was now, because the clawing at my throat and my mind and my soul was too much, and I couldn’t fall into it. “You said the words. Since when are you separated?”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Apparently, she’s been fucking dad. She and I were fighting, she compared me to him, and I threw her out. But she hadn’t been a part of us for a long time.”
“Holy fuck.” This was way better than my own misery. So why did part of me feel bad for my brother? “Why didn’t you…?”
“Say anything? How eager would you be to tell people your wife was fucking your dad? You can’t even admit your husband died.”
Fuck this. Hudson didn’t get my sympathy. “That’s why you’re not in the running to take over.”
“It is.”
“Good. That means I win.”
“Don’t sacrifice everything for this.”
My laugh of disbelief slipped out before I could stop it, and the turmoil raging in my head threatened to become a spew of unintelligible words. “I know Tony is dead. I realize that.” Admitting it out loud when I refused to let myself so much as think the words sliced through me. Could emotional wounds bleed? “I’ve already lost everything. At least this way, I get something back.”
Because fuck the brother and father who pushed me out. Fuck them all.
“Sawyer—”
“Best of luck with your divorce, dude.” I hung up before I had to listen to Hudson say anything else.
The dryer buzzed from the room behind me, but I was stuck in the mire of my thoughts. I was spiraling into a place I refused to be, and I couldn’t stop myself. All I could think about was watching Tony become someone else as he wasted away those last few months. As he surrendered to the same type of cancer that killed my mother.
I didn’t want to be—
“Mr. Sawyer?” Kurt was standing in front of me.
Great. The one person in this fucking place I didn’t mind seeing was a kid who reminded me too much of myself at his age. “Why are you here?”
He pointed toward the front office of the motel. “My mom is the night clerk. What are you doing?”
“Laundry.” I should get back to it…as soon as I pulled my head on straight again.
“So you’re waiting? If you’re not busy, can you answer questions for me about tanks and remote controls?”
I definitely could not, because that was Tony‘s thing, and I needed those thoughts out of my head. “I’ll try. What’s up?”
“Did zombies kill your dad?”
Oh. Wow. Not what I expected. “No.”
“Was it Nazis?”
This took an unexpected turn. “I’m not that old, and my dad isn’t dead.” Though I suspected Hudson wished he was. “You realize zombies aren’t real, don’t you?” Pretending was one thing, but reality had to be established sometimes.
Which was why there was a gaping hole in my heart I couldn’t patch.
“I know.” Kurt sighed. “But sometimes it’s easier to make-believe.”
“I understand that. Did zombies kill your dad?”
“No. If he had to die though, I wish it had been zombies. We’re allowed to hunt those.”
Whoa. Dark sentiment from a kid. I got it, though I shouldn’t encourage it. “There have been a lot of times I wished I could get rid of the same thing that took my mom from me.” I needed to move away from this conversation. I wasn’t going to discuss death and life and everything in between with a ten-year-old.
As much as I’d wished back then that any adult would be that kind of honest with me.
