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I find myself telling him the complete truth.
“I think they’re worried that I’m going to collapse any day now, that this whole . . .” I trail off and wave a hand around to encompass . . . everything. “This whole thing of being the owner of the teams, of taking care of the boys, of having to give fucking testimony that my father wasn’t physically abusive so that the boys’ mother goes to prison for murdering him, that it will all hit me at once. I don’t know if they’re expecting a mental breakdown or what, but I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other.”
“Well,” he says with a crooked smile that looks just a little bit wrong, a little bit forced. It doesn’t put me on alert, though, even though it should’ve. “As someone who actually did have a bit of a mental breakdown, I think you’re dealing with more than enough to warrant one.”
“Shit, sorry, that was insensitive. I didn’t mean—”
“Dont even worry about it,” he says with some force, though I can tell he’s trying to be nice about it. “It’s the truth, and I’m never going to be sorry for needing what I need. Especially when I did escape from an abusive ex, so . . .”
I feel horror come over me in slow motion, as if it’s taking over me one cell at a time, and each one is a blow to my head, my heart, my ego even.
“Oh no, no, no,” I protest way too loudly, and this time even stand up, though I don’t know why the fuck.
“Jim was an abusive piece of shit in many ways, but not physically. I don’t deny that being married to him was probably hell on earth, but she’s claiming self-defense, and she could take the boys, and she signed away her rights, goddammit. She was prepared, even before she had them, to give them away, and she never even took them to daycare, never read them any bedtime stories or had dinner with them, she never watched a movie with them, never interviewed the damn nanny candidates.”
I know I’m ranting but I can’t seem to stop.
“She wasn’t shy about only marrying Jim for the status, and she knew that the only way to marry him was to get pregnant, all of our mothers were. And they still did it! They all fucking sold us to that piece of shit so we could be pawns in his life. But that wasn’t enough for him either, because he wanted sons.” I spit out the word with all the venom I possess. “So he ignored my sisters all their lives and put all his fucking attention on me, on how I represent him, how I was supposed to be a carbon copy of that motherfucking asshole.”
Chest heaving, I stop all at once, and look on in horror as Sunny processes every word I just said.
He finds the only thing in the world he could say to make me laugh.
“That’s . . . a lot.”
It’s more of a snort, but it’s still more than I thought I’d have in me.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “You don’t owe me any explanations.”
That just won’t do.
“Oh yes I fucking do. I’d be fucking pissed if I found out my boss was about to testify against an abuse survivor for shits and giggles, and I need you to know I’m not doing that, not really. I will never lie for him. Not about the fact that Jim manipulated everyone with money, with power, with his attention, and even his affection. But the boys’ mother, hell, my mother, they all knew what they were getting into. My sisters saw it, and I saw it when he was thinking about marrying Amanda.
“I swear she knew that she had to give him children to get anything out of that marriage, that she would give up custody of them in the event of separation, but that she would get money for it. She signed all of that at twenty-three, and the way she has always treated my brothers has shown me she fucking meant it.
“I asked the DA point blank if she’d asked to see the boys, because I was going to bring it up with my sisters, whether we should think about giving the boys that . . . closure or whatever, but she hasn’t. Not once has she asked about her sons, and I just—I fucking hate her for that and that alone.
“I could tell you I hate her for killing Jim, but I really don’t. I think she should get punished for it, sure, just like any other killer, but I hate her for not loving my brothers the way they deserve.”
Sunny stares wide-eyed at me for a long while, and then he too stands, and I see his Adam’s apple bob with a hard swallow.
“Do you also hate your mother for doing the same to you?”
I’m floored.
Not only by how direct the question is, but how he just casually pierced my heart.
“I can’t,” I admit in a whisper,
He nods once, like that makes sense to him, then walks around the coffee table separating us and pats me on the shoulder.
“And that’s why I now know you’re the right person to raise those boys. Thank you, Tucker, for giving me that peace of mind.”
Without another word, he walks out of the living room, and the only thing left is the sound of his footsteps up the staircase.
Shit.
Fuck.
