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“This is gonna hurt you to hear. It’s why I put it off for so long, but I figure Wade’s right, you're old enough to know the truth. Maybe, you might be able to understand why I did what I did from it too.”
Her hand shakes in mine as more tears leak from her eyes.
Garrett stands with his arms crossed over his bare chest and a stern look on his face. He didn’t even bother getting dressed properly to come out here, and he looks kinda pathetic in just his sweatpants and open-laced boots as she continues.
“I never loved your dad, I tried for a lot of years to be happy with him, but there was always someone else. There was a man who owned my heart and my soul.” She sniffs back her tears bravely.
“You had another guy?” Garrett frowns at her.
“It was Hank.”
Shock has me dropping her hand from mine, and when I notice the look of horror on both my brothers’ faces I get up and move to stand beside them.
“You meanGrandpa…? No way!” Garrett shakes his head in denial. “Him and Pops didn’t see eye to eye a lotta the time, but he would never have… Not with his own son's wife.” Garrett refuses to believe what she says, while Cole flops down onto one of the crates behind him and scrubs his hands over his face.
“Well, he did, for over fifteen years,” she assures Garrett, tucking the hair that’s fallen out of her plait behind her ears and offering him a sad smile.
“What?” His eyes quickly light up with that flame of fury we only see before he gets destructive, and Cole must see it too because he shocks us all when he stands up and acts as a barrier to block him from getting at Mom.
“Keep it together,” he growls under his breath, and I don’t miss the way his eyes flick toward me like I’m the helpless baby brother who they need to protect.
“How did you…? Fifteen years is a real long time.” I shake my head, trying to make sense of what she’s telling us.
“Itwasa long time, and I suffered a lot of years being unhappily married to your father. Your grandfather made them bearable.”
“Wait…” Cole turns his attention away from calming Garrett down to look at her. “Is he our grandfather? Or…?” His words run out like he hasn’t got the strength to say ‘em.
“We were never sure.” Mom shrugs her shoulder back at him sadly, and when I see that switch flick in Cole’s head, it’s my turn to step up and be the one to block him. Thankfully, Garrett comes back to his senses and helps, because there’s no way I could hold Cole back alone, not when he’s in this state of mind.
“You fuckin’ whore!” Cole strains his body against us, and instead of breaking down like I expect her to, Mom accepts his words as if she feels like she deserves them.
“I don’t expect you to understand. I knew this confession would come with some judgment and a lot of hurt, which is why I held it off for so long, and I know how wrong it all must feel for you, but you wanted the truth, and that’s all the truth I got for you.”
Cole seems to weaken a little, and when Garrett gives me a nod to let me know we can release him, we carefully let him go so he can sit back down.
“So what happened? Did Pops find out? Is that why Grandpa…?” Garrett sits down himself, resting his elbows on his knees so he can massage his temple.
“Yeah, he found out. Ronnie Mason discovered what was going on, he got Leia Walker’s dad to use it to blackmail Hank into selling him that land before he’d become anyone in this town, but as soon as Walker signed those deeds over to him, he told your father anyway.” Mom wipes her tears.
“Son of a bitch!” Cole shakes his head, and I don’t know who he’s talkin’ about anymore, there are a lot of sons of bitches involved with this situation.
“I’m sorry, boys, but there's more, and if you thought what I just told you was hard to hear, I don’t know if you're ready to hear the next part.”
“What happened, Mom?” I find enough empathy to go back beside her and rest my hand on her shoulder. We may not like what she’s saying, but at least we’re getting to the bottom of shit.
“Your grandpa didn’t hanghimselffrom those rafters.” She looks up at Garrett because she knows he’s the one who found him, and I wonder if the same thought that is going through my mind is in his.
“No, Pops wouldn’t have done that, he wasn’t…” Garrett shakes his head again.
“You mean he wasn’t like you?” Her response is sarcastic and unexpected, yet no one reacts to it, we’re all too stunned.
“I thought so too, but the way he turned that day proved there’s a little of that Carson fury in all of you.”
“So, you're sayin’ our dad killed our Grandpa?” I need to hear it out loud before I can let that sink in.
“Yeah, and I know it for a fact because the sick bastard had me tied to that beam so I could watch him.” She drops her head and bursts into tears and both my brothers’ eyes widen in shock as I wrap my arms around her to comfort her.
“He gave me the choice.” She pulls herself together so she can continue. “I could either hang with him or leave. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye or take anything with me. Your dad was always real hung up about how his mom left him and his brother to move to Colorado, I don’t know why, but he wanted you guys to think I’d abandoned you in the same way. I couldn’t come back while he was alive, and there were days where I wished I’d have taken the rope instead of the coward's way out, but…” Her tears prevent her from finishing, and her body shakes as she cries into my shoulder. Both me and my brothers look at each other helplessly, none of us really knowing what to say.
