I hated to admit it, but it ruined the memory of her a little. The perfect image I’d had of my mother was no more. Now, she was like a mirror having a tiny crack near the corner, or like one of Michelangelo’s statues with a missing chunk of marble.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more about my mother’s past, or my real father, but in the end, I asked anyway.
“How?”
My father leaned back in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. “How what? How did he die?”
“Yes.”
He answered short and curt. “Alcohol overdose.”
A sarcastic chuckle left my lips. “So, that was why you always got onto me when I partied last year. Addiction runs in the family. On both sides.”
My father’s voice was stern. “No, I got onto you because you are a teenager who has a bright future ahead of him. And because you are my son.”
I ignored him. “You stayed with her after she cheated on you with your brother?”
It was a hard thing to wrap my head around. How could his own brother do that to him? Christian and I would never fucking do that. It was breaking the code. It was wrong on so many levels.
A heavy breath was shared between us both. “Your mother had her ups and downs, Ollie. I loved her when she was up, but I gave up on her when she was down. It led to some bad times between us.” He cleared his throat and leaned forward, resting his elbows in front of him. “I’d just found her stash of pills a few months after she’d had Christian. I was livid, threatened to take him away from her. We fought. She left for a few days and came back like a new woman, apologizing. She swore she’d never do them again and that she’d be a good mom from there on out.”
“And then what?”
“And then she told me she was pregnant, and I did the math. Long story short, she ended up telling me she had slept with James, my brother. I had no idea how we would proceed. I was pissed as hell. I wanted to strangle them both. We were set to all meet shortly before you were born to talk. I had calmed some, and we all needed to figure out how to proceed. But he never showed, so I went to his house. That’s where I found him, lying face down in a pool of vomit. He drank himself to death and choked on his own puke.”
My father’s words were like a sucker punch to my stomach. I wanted the conversation to stop. It was too much. So much negativity and pain. I felt for my father. I truly did. It was the first time in my entire life that I looked at him and felt bad.
He wasn’t a good dad when my mother died. He was absent and left Christian and me to deal with the trauma on our own, but sitting here looking at him, the broken pieces of his soul were shining so bright I needed to shut my eyes.
Daniel Powell was not a bad man. He was just broken.
“I’m sorry.” There it was. I had said it. It was in the open. I was sorry. He shouldn’t have had to go through that. None of it. Maybe it was why he was the way that he was. Maybe that was why he had been absent for so long.
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Ollie. I’ve been trying to do better by you and your brother. I’ve been trying to be present. To make up for the way I had acted before.” He paused before adding, “I should have told you and your brother all of this a few months ago when some of the truth about your mother came out. But there just never seemed to be a good time.”
I nodded, still feeling completely warped inside. “I get it, Dad.”
The side of his lip twitched. “So, you’re still calling me Dad then?”
A chuckle came out of my mouth involuntarily, and it helped ease the tension just a little. “I guess.”
My dad smiled, looking relieved when the door clamored open.
A policeman gestured for us to leave, and my father and I slowly followed after him.
“Let’s finish this conversation at home. I think we probably need to include Christian in this, too.” I nodded to my father as we walked down the long hallway, trailing the officer.
“They’re right outside, you know.”
I stopped walking. “Who is?”
“Your brother and Hayley.” My dad put his hand on the doorknob after grabbing a slip of paper from the officer with my fine information. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “And the girl. She was the one to call me.”
“Piper called you?”
He nodded, ready to push through into what I assumed was the lobby of the station. “Yes. And on my way over here, the first thing I said I was going to do was ask what the hell you four were doing out there street racing, but I’ve decided I don't even want to know. Just stay the hell out of trouble from here on out. You got it?”
“Yeah, okay,” I answered, preparing myself for the worst.