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ChapterTwelve
“Mom, it’s okay. You can tell me anything. It’s just you and me.”
Jo couldn’t bring herself to look at her daughter. Her eyes glistened with the unshed tears as she continued to stare out at the water. The lump in her throat prevented any words from escaping her lips. She had dreaded this moment as soon as she found out over a year ago. Now, here she was sitting with the one person she was trying to protect from the truth. It turned out all her efforts had been in vain.
“Mom. Please. Talk to me.” Her daughter’s soft voice and hand, now resting on top of her clasped ones, caused the dam to break, allowing her tears to flow freely down her cheeks.
Finally, she turned to lock eyes with her daughter, who looked concerned and anxious. “I never wanted you to find out like this, sweetie,” she murmured, regret lacing her voice.
Tracy didn’t reply. Her brown eyes stared back at her mother, waiting for her to continue.
Jo took in a gulp of air before continuing. “The man that approached you, his name is Jared Hindle. He was your father’s boss and a partner at the firm.” Jo paused, trying to put her words together. Finding no other way to say it, she sighed resignedly before turning back to her daughter once more.
“Charles, at the time of his death, owed the firm half a million dollars for an unauthorized investment he made using one of his clients as the primary funder. The investment tanked, and he lost the money. He had to be working double-time to try and recover the lost funds, and he was under a lot of stress. I now realize that’s what led him to the bottle— to start drinking.”
Jo exhaled, remembering the first time she had discovered the smell of strong liquor on his work shirt. She hadn’t confronted him then, but the next time she had, his excuse was that he usually had one glass with his meal during the long days at work to relieve some of the stress. She hadn’t fully bought the story but had decided to let it go. Maybe if she had been more direct, she wouldn’t be having this conversation with Tracy, and Charles and Nick would still be alive.
“I found out a week after the accident that it wasn’t, in fact, an animal that ran into the road and caused Charles to lose control of the vehicle, but rather that he was driving under the influence. The toxicology report revealed that the alcohol level in his blood was higher than normal,” she finished while looking out at the horizon again.
When she turned to look at her daughter, she noticed the tears steadily rolling down her cheek as her mouth opened and closed, the shock of her mother’s confession rendering her speechless.
“I’m so sorry for not telling you, honey. I just wanted to protect you from all of this…I…I didn’t want you to blame your father for Nick’s death or for your memories of him to be tainted by this.” Jo gently reached over to touch her daughter, but Tracy pulled her arm away as if she’d been burned before standing to her feet, facing her mother.
Jo recoiled from the scorching glare fixed on her daughter’s face, and she gasped audibly. She’d never seen her daughter look this angry and directed at her.
“Oh, my Go—” a guttural sound left Tracy’s throat as she was unable to finish her statement.
Jo’s heart shattered at the sight of her daughter. “Trac—”
“How could you keep this from me? Who gave you that right?” her daughter threw at her accusingly.
Jo flinched again from the venom in her daughter’s tone. Salty tears blurred her vision as her heart burned with the regret she felt for hurting her.
“Tracy, I’m so—”
Before she could finish her apology, Tracy turned away from her and ran toward the path.
“Tracy! Tracy, wait!”
Her daughter didn’t stop. She continued running until Jo was no longer able to make her out behind the wall of trees blocking her line of sight. She collapsed in the chair as sobs racked her body.
* * *
“Jo, what’s going on? Tracy is back at the house crying and packing her bags, saying she and Josh are leaving the island.”
Jo heard the franticness in her sister’s voice, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at her. She was just too numb with the pain and the weight of what she’d done. She continued to stare across the horizon, the sun had long set, but it was still bright enough to see the reflection of the pink overhead clouds in the water.
“Jo, you’re crying,” her sister spoke softly as she leaned by the chair. Cora reached up to wipe away a few drops of her tears that refused to stop falling. “What happened, Sis? Talk to me, please,” Cora pleaded.
“Charles was under the influence of alcohol the night of the accident. He wasn’t swerving to avoid a wild animal. He lost control of the vehicle because he was drunk,” she informed her sister bitterly.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry, Jo,” Cora said sympathetically.
Jo released a dry laugh. “That isn’t even half of it. Do you want to know what my loving husband, who I held in such high esteem as a man of integrity, did, hmm?” she asked. “He invested one of his client’s retirement funds in a venture that he thought would work. Long story short, it didn’t, which left him with a debt of half a million to repay. You would think as his wife that he would have confided this to me, and we could have tried to work it out together, but no, he chose to turn to the bottle to work out his stress, and now his boss is harassing me to give back the money they had to reimburse the client or risk him making it public knowledge of what Charles did and what caused the accident.” After that mouthful, Jo felt drained. “Now, my daughter hates me because she can’t see that I only did this to protect her and what we have left,” she sniffled.
Cora pulled her sister from the chair and engulfed her in her arms. Jo clung to Cora as if her life depended on it as she released all the pain, the regrets, and remorse she had been holding in for so long.
“How could he do this, Cora? How could he do this to our family?” she cried.
