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Unable to deal with his grief, Matt latched onto anger. It was the only emotion he could control, so he wrapped it around himself like a blanket, letting it warm him from the inside out.
Anger at his father—and at himself—allowed him to do what came next.
Call his brothers and tell them Mom was dead.
Once that was done, the fury kept him moving through the next few days—the funeral, the burial—then it just kept burning over the weeks…months…years.
Until he got a midnight call from his father’s latest mistress, telling him Dad had died of a heart attack.
And that was when the anger faded, replaced by regret and sorrow and guilt so thick, he could hardly breathe.
* * *
“I left her alone,” Matt said brokenly, as he reached the end of his story. “I should never have left her alone.” He bowed his head because he didn’t have the strength to face his brothers’ wrath. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his gaze averted. “I’m so sorry.”
Neither Gage nor Conor spoke, the silence in the room drifting for several long minutes as Matt stared resolutely at his lap, drowning in a sea of anguish, the deafening beat of his heart thudding in his ears.
For all he knew, his brothers had stood up and walked out. He wouldn’t blame them. Matt had left their mother alone at her most vulnerable moment. She had a long history of depression, something she’d been taking medication for. It wasn’t until last year, during Gage’s intervention, that Matt learned from Conor that Mom had stopped taking the meds, which made his actions even worse. She’d had no life preserver that night. None at all.
“Matt.”
He jerked when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He hadn’t heard Gage move.
“Matt, look at us.”
Matt shook his head. Shame suffusing him. “I’m sorry,” he said again, though those words would never be enough, never erase what he’d done.
Gage’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “Look at us.”
Matt lifted his head. Conor was still sitting across from him, his brother’s pale, grief-stricken face the first thing he focused on.
None of the anger he’d expected to see was there. Instead, Conor’s face was lined with the same pain Matt was drowning in.
“You’ve held that in for a long time,” Conor said quietly.
Now that it was out, Matt felt drained, empty. He was out of words, out of emotions, out of everything, so he just nodded.
“You should have told us all of that when it happened,” Gage said.
Matt looked up at him. “I didn’t know how. I left her alone. I… It was my fault.”
Gage sighed. “No, Matt. It wasn’t. You spent years under Dad’s thumb, listening to all those bullshit lessons of his. You were just a kid when he started indoctrinating you. It’s easy to look back now and see just how big a narcissist he truly was, but at the time, when we were there, all we saw was our dad. The man who took us on family vacations, sat down to dinner with us every night, who gave us money when we got good grades in school, who went to our football games and school plays—occasionally,” Gage filled in, because Dad was out of town for work as much as he was in. “Sure, he was a cold, arrogant, selfish bastard, but he was still there, still our dad, and besides, we didn’t know anything different. Looking back at it now, we see it through the eyes of our family’s history, our experiences. Maybe you think all this shit should have been obvious, but Matt…nothing was obvious back then.”
“What’s that saying?” Conor asked. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty. We grew up in a tough house. Dad’s coldness, his high expectations, Mom’s depression. We were forced to find ways to adapt, to hold on. You threw yourself into your art, and then when Dad dragged you away from that, you used work as a way to deal. Gage escaped through video games, me into books. It’s a wonder we’re not all locked up in padded rooms right now,” he added with a thin smile.
“Why aren’t you angry at me?” Matt asked. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“We heard you,” Conor said in that gentle tone of his. Matt could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his steady-as-a-rock brother break, and he’d still have fingers left over. “We also heard you say you went back. Mom’s death wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” Matt insisted.
Conor shook his head. “She made that choice, and even if you’d walked into the house with her that night, I think…” His brother swallowed deeply, his voice thick. “She’d made her decision. If not that night, another.”
Gage knelt next to Matt’s chair. “You told me once that the only person standing in my way with Penny was me. You were right. So I’m going to offer you some similar advice. We don’t blame you, so there’s nothing we can offer to make this right for you. There’s only one person’s forgiveness you need right now, and that’s your own. Find a way to forgive yourself, Matt, and the rest will take care of itself.”
“I…” Matt started.
Can’t.
