Patrick’s face drained at her words, and the rest of us exchanged confused looks.
“Oh, they don’t know that side of the story, do they, sweetheart?” Mary asked, and she seemed to be growing a bit of a backbone right before our eyes.
“That’s enough,” he warned her, but she was on a roll now.
“He was in love with your mother,” she said to Noah, to Logan, but her eyes avoided mine. “All through high school.”
“Mary,” Patrick warned again, his voice climbing.
“But Laurelei saw Patrick as a friend. She always had. And when she and your father fell in love, it drove Patrick mad.”
Mallory watched her dad like she didn’t know him at all. “Is that true?”
He didn’t answer. His eyes were murderous as he watched his wife betray him.
“Oh, it’s true,” Mary answered for him. “Believe me. As the woman who loved him, watching him love her was a heartbreak I’ll never forget. Laurelei was my best friend,” she said, her eyes blurring with tears, and I thought back to the night she was on my mom’s porch. “I knew he liked her, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until she rejected him.”
“That’s why I saw all those pictures of you with Laurelei when you were younger,” Mallory whispered, shaking her head. “You weren’t just friends. You loved her.”
“He wouldn’t let it go when she turned him down,” Mary continued. “Why? Because of all the men she could have fell in love with, she fell for John Becker — the sacred little barrel boy Patrick’s father loved more than his own sons.”
“He was a liar, and a brat, and a disrespectful little shit and he didn’t deserve her!” Patrick cried out, slamming his fist on the table. “He didn’t deserve her,” he echoed again. “And he damn sure didn’t deserve half of my grandfather’s company.”
“Which is exactly why you told our family lawyer to never speak of your father’s Will, isn’t it? Because he had one, and you knew what was in it, and you paid everyone off who you needed to in order to keep that a secret.”
Mary was fuming, and the rest of us could only watch, wide-eyed.
“I wouldn’t have done what I did if it hadn’t been for you, you lying bitch, and you know it!” Patrick fired back, and then to everyone’s shock, he pointed a finger at me. “Because of him.”
The silence that fell over us was sticky and wet, but it lasted only a split second before his finger was on his wife, again.
“I told you to get rid of him, but you couldn’t do that, could you? No. You couldn’t part with your bastard child, so you took him to Laurelei. To my Laurelei. And to him, to John fucking Becker, to the one man you knew I hated. You told them our biggest secret and left me forever in debt to him. It’s because of you that I hated him so much. It’s because of you that I did what I did to get rid of him.”
Mary’s bottom lip was trembling, a tear staining her cheek, but she held her head high, returning her husband’s gaze before she finally looked at me for the first time that night.
When she did, my heart leapt into my throat.
“What is he talking about?” I asked. At least, I thought I did. The voice that came from me didn’t sound like my own. It sounded distant, like it was in another universe altogether.
“Jordan, I am so sorry you had to find out like this. I never intended to tell you at all,” she said, her voice shaking, face crumbling. I swore she shrunk seven inches in that single moment.
“Tell me what?”
Sydney reached for my hand, grabbing it in hers with a squeeze, but I couldn’t look away from Mary as my pulse continued to race.
“I’m your mother, Jordan.”
She whispered the words, or else the beating of my heart in my ears was so loud I registered it as a whisper. Either way, I said nothing in return, but I felt my brothers watching me closely with bent brows.
“I… God, I am so sorry to tell you this way,” she said, sniffing back the tears pooling in her eyes. “I was lonely, upset, betrayed by Patrick and his undying love for Laurelei. And I am as ashamed to admit it today as I was ashamed to engage in it then, but… I cheated on Pat.”
Mallory’s jaw dropped along with my stomach.
“I did it because I was sad, or maybe to get his attention, to…” She sniffed, shaking her head. “To feel something. I was so numb. And then there was this sweet, caring, funny, kind, amazing man making me feel so special.”
She shook her head with glossed eyes, as if she was remembering another version of who she used to be.