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Dad shook his head. “Just got back a few minutes ago.” Then, Dad had the audacity to wiggle his eyebrows. “Had a date with Genevieve. That woman has talented fingers.”
“Where’s Mom?”
Dad scowled. “I’m assuming bed.”
“She saw you tonight.”
“What?” Dad asked.
“At the restaurant. I’d made reservations for the two of us to dine there.”
“Why the fuck would you take her there?” Dad barked, as if Matt should know his cheating schedule.
Matt wasn’t going to stand there and take another of his father’s many dressing-downs. His gut was telling him something was wrong, so he left Dad’s office, heading to the stairs. He heard Dad calling his name, pissed at being ignored, but Matt disregarded him, climbing the steps to Mom’s room.
“Mom,” he said softly, knocking on the door.
There was no answer, so Matt opened it, praying she was asleep.
The moon cast enough light from the window that he could see the bed was empty.
Glancing over toward the bathroom, he saw light peeking from beneath the closed door. He forced himself across the room even though…
He knocked, but all he could hear was the constant drip-drip-drip of water.
He cracked the door a little, not looking in. “Mom?”
She didn’t reply, so he pushed it open completely.
Dark red blood congealed on the snowy-white tiles.
Matt’s eyes locked onto the puddle, refusing to move, to see anything else. He didn’t want to look into the bathtub. He didn’t need to because he could see enough to know…
The blue-tinged skin of a lifeless arm hung over the edge of the tub.
Her arm.
“Mom,” he whispered. While inside he was screaming, No! No! No!
He didn’t hear Dad walk in, but he smelled the cigar smoke as his father stepped into the room, roaring with rage. “What the fuck? How could she do this to me?!”
To him?
Matt turned to his father, fury erupting like lava from a volcano. He led with his right, punching his father square in the face, then shoving him back against the wall hard.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dad barked.
Dad didn’t get it. He’d never get it. And the rose-colored glasses Matt had donned in regards to his old man shattered instantly, opening his eyes to all the things he should have seen.
The selfishness, the lack of compassion, the arrogance, the evil.
You know who you are, Matt. Look deeper.
His mother’s last words to him.
Matt hadn’t bothered to look the first time she’d said that to him all those years earlier. He’d been so busy emulating an asshole, turning himself into one in the process, just so he could earn his father’s favor.
Now…now he didn’t have a fucking clue who he was.
