Chapter 39
“Hey. Those last two are heavy,” I warned Tim offhandedly as we passed each other in the middle. He was headed back to my truck. I had just walked away from said truck and carried a box in my arms.
“I ain’t as delicate as I look,” Tim threw over his shoulder good-naturedly. “Us old heads could teach you young bucks a few things about hard work.”
My back and forth between Green Valley and Lookout Mountain had now become a triangle. With every bogus trip I made to “store my stuff” in my parents’ garage, I was moving my mother out.
My errand now was to take what I’d just picked up from my mother to Tim in Hinckley, who was storing her things in his brother Eric’s barn. I would have stored them myself if I had a stable place to live. The Jenkinses would be back by Christmas. Finding a new rental was yet another item on the long list of things I was failing at right now.
“You want to stay for lunch?” Tim asked once we’d gotten the last of it out of my truck. “It’s nothing fancy—just sandwiches and potato salad. Adam’s dropping by.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have declined. I desperately needed sleep, a trip to the supermarket, and a long shower and shave. And it felt like weeks since I’d been on a midnight run. My body felt exhausted and restless all at once. I needed to get back to some sort of routine.
But the prospect of seeing Adam superseded all of that. He lived on the other side of the state. Visiting with him wouldn’t be easy. If he was coming from Nashville, he wasn’t “just dropping by.” We’d texted a few times, with clear intention to build a relationship and vague plans to get together. But the opportunity to see him now was un-pass-uppable.
“Yeah. I could eat.”
Twenty minutes later, we were across town at Tim’s place, a well-kept split-level farmhouse with white siding and dark green shutters. I’d never visited, though I’d nursed sustained curiosity about the man. Amid all that had happened these past months, there were things I hadn’t forgotten. Like the way he looked at my mother, and their palpable affection.
The interior of his house reminded me of mine. It was clearly a bachelor pad—well-kept, but devoid of a woman’s touch. I remembered from Loretta’s research that he’d grown up in this house, but the inside was fairly modern, as if it had been updated at some point.
We hadn’t been there two minutes before a knock came at the door. Tim swung it open, and we were greeted by my brother, as I’d started referring to him in my head. Though, I had no idea how he thought of me or what he wanted to be called. Mostly, I was just grateful things weren’t too awkward. Adam had a chill vibe and seemed like good people. Hugs were exchanged all around.
“Thought you might like to see some pictures,” Tim began, waving us further inside. “Buck, I expect you’ll want to see some of them, too. Thirty years ago, digital cameras weren’t a thing.”
I followed him into a dining room where photos and albums were laid out, some recent ones of Tim’s family, and some old ones of him and my mother. My heart stuttered to see her as a teenager—so fresh-faced and young. Her young age and vulnerability hadn’t come through quite so strongly when I’d looked at yearbook pictures with Loretta. Tim had pictures of her in her natural element—playing guitar, looking out at a field at sunset, looking content and in love with him.
“She looks happy.”
I didn’t realize I was even thinking it until I spoke out loud. It was hard to fathom, given everything else.
“She looks like me,” Adam remarked with wonder. “I mean, I look like her. I mean, she and I looked alike at that age.”
I smiled sadly at the tragic sweetness of it all—Adam’s discovery of what Tim and I could plainly see.
Tim brought over one that wasn’t on the table and handed it to Adam. “This one’s for you. Hell, all of them are for you. But I had this one framed.”
The breath left my chest as they set upon the photo of my mother smiling down at a swaddled baby who she cradled in her arms. She sat up in a hospital bed with a wooden cross hung above it and Tim sat next to her, sidesaddle, touching the baby’s forehead as he gazed at him adoringly.
“I know this picture never made it to you,” Tim said as he presented it. “Which is a goddamned travesty given all we went through to make sure you would get it. Back then, you had to take your film to a Fotomat and wait for them to develop it. Three days after you were born, after your momma was already gone to Nashville and you were with your adoptive parents, I went to the convent myself and watched while they put a copy of this photo into your file. If you ever came looking, we wanted you to know how much we loved you.”
Adam shook his head, clearly taken with what he was seeing. There was a waver in his voice. “Most days, I still can’t believe I found you. After all my searching and digging...and all the problems with the documentation...I was starting to think I was the unluckiest guy in the world.”
“Problems with the documentation?” Now, I was confused. “You spent years looking for Momma and Tim?”
He nodded in confirmation. “Since the day I turned eighteen. My parents drove me to the convent themselves. The records had been destroyed in some random fire. Then, I petitioned the State of Tennessee for my original birth certificate and it was straight-up lost. I spent years running it up the chain. I went all the way up to Maryland, to the Social Security Administration’s central office. I figured they ought to have something, right? But they didn’t. Everything was just...gone.”
“A suspicious fire at the convent...” I was stuck on that first part. I swung my gaze to Tim. “And records that got up and disappeared.”
I saw the second he understood what I was insinuating. His jaw clenched and he scowled openly before gritting out an obscenity under his breath. Adam looked between us, picking up on our vibe.
Tim had kept Adam in the loop but spared him some of the drama. He knew my father’s identity by then—knew Rex Rogers was a powerful man who had forbidden him and my mother to meet. He knew their fight on the Fourth of July had been the last straw for her—that she’d reached a breaking point over his controlling ways on top of having been unhappy in their marriage. He knew that she’d been plotting to leave him since then.
“What’s happening right now?” Adam blurted.
I debated over how much to say. My suspicion was a serious accusation and Adam had suffered enough. Plus, I didn’t have proof of anything. I had only the knowledge that my father had motive, means, and opportunity.
“I can’t be sure just yet,” I admitted cryptically, a plan forming in my mind already. “But you can be damn sure I’m gonna find out.”
Two days later,I was on the road again, but not to the house on Lookout Mountain—to a location twelve miles east, where my father kept an office in town. His space had gradually emptied of the staff he’d kept on after ramping down his governorship, but filled back up over the past year as it was converted into Trevor’s campaign headquarters.
I was starting to feel the way I did on my way to a bad fire—the kind where you knew it wasn’t going to end well. The kind where things were too far gone for it to all turn out okay. Not just for my momma and Tim and Adam, but for my own edification, I needed to find out what my father had done.
But the truth was the least of what I needed to walk out that door with. I needed proof he’d committed a crime—a crime that had robbed us all of years with my brother and Adam’s right to know his biological family. By the time I was parked, out of my car, and in the elevator, I had my phone in my hand, set and ready to record. There could be no coming back from this.
“Dad.”
I stalked into his office to find him at his desk, setting down his phone receiver. His assistant had tried to announce me, but I hadn’t waited before storming in. Acting as if I knew nearly nothing about the accusation I was about to make was how I planned to get him to talk.
Rex Rogers stood from his seat, already on alert in reaction to my demeanor and the fact that I’d never been so bold. I’d been taught from a young age that barging in on my father could mean interrupting conversations with important figures in Southern politics.
“Buck. What is it?”
He came from around his heavy wooden desk to meet me in the sitting area—a grove of antique sofas that sat atop a colonial rug. A low table sat in the middle. The walls were all inlaid bookshelves and Civil War oil paintings interspersed with polished, latticed wood.
“I have an honest question,” I said gravely. “I’m gonna need an honest answer.”
He frowned in caution couched as concern. “What’s got you so spun up? Here, son. Sit down.”
“I’ll stand.” I came in close. I was bigger than him. Any time you wanted to squeeze information from someone, it was good to remind them of that.
“How long have you been cheating on Mom?”
He looked genuinely offended. The question was all part of my circuitous route to seeing what he would admit.
“Now, why would you even think that? Did a woman make an accusation, like that #MeToo business? Did one of those press scumbags come to you?”
His reaction was typical—to blame rumors on some enemy’s plan for his ruination.
“Maybe a relationship before Mom, then. A relationship that might have yielded a child? As in, a half-sibling to me and Trev?”
When my father narrowed his eyes, I knew I’d hit my mark. “Who on God’s green earth is giving you these ideas?”
He hadn’t answered a single question yet. I stared him down, a tactic I’d learned from him.
“You tell me,” I challenged.
“We have enemies, son. People who want revenge for things I did when I was governor. People who don’t want to see Trevor succeed. If I’m gonna help, I need to know who’s been telling you these things.”
It corroborated everything my mother and Tim had said about him. He wasn’t focused on the “what” of the accusation—he was focused on the “who.” He didn’t care that I’d just accused him of fathering an illegitimate child. He was too busy digging for a name.
“I took a DNA test.” I’d already thought through this gambit. Making him think I found out on my own was the perfect opening move. It explained what I knew in a way that kept Loretta and Tim out of it. I could even deny Adam’s and my momma’s involvement for the time being.
“Why the hell would you do that?” He blinked in genuine surprise.
I feigned exasperation. “It’s one of those tests that tells you you’re eight percent Scandinavian and thirty-three percent Irish. It’s supposed to be fun.”
“You’re notthirty-three percent Irish.” His attempt at a disarming smile didn’t nearly reach his eyes.
“Imagine my surprise when the system told me another user was a genetic match. Not some third or fourth cousin, Dad. A half-sibling.”
My father’s eyes hardened. “I’m sure there’s been some mistake.”
I leveled my own icy glare and spoke with staccato intonation. “Genetic testing doesn’t lie. So why don’t you just admit you were stepping out on Momma?”
We stared each other down for another long minute, each refusing to relent. There had been dozens of standoffs like this over the years, his stubbornness against mine. The only extraordinary part of this one was the magnitude of the issue at hand and the fact that the claim could be proven right or wrong. Finally, I was in a fight with him that I could win.
“Did you contact this alleged sibling?” my father finally spat.
I shook my head. “I’m coming to you first. And I didn’t come here to judge you. I came here to get the truth. If you didn’t tell me when I was a kid, I guess I understand. But I’m a grown man. I have a right.”
He clenched his jaw. Gnashing his teeth was a sure sign he was about to double down.
“Someone is trying very hard to hurt our family, son. And we can’t afford a scandal. Not now.”
“A lot of words are coming out of your mouth,” I growled. “But I haven’t heard you deny it. Are you gonna tell me what I want to know? You were the one who taught me to keep things about the family in the family. If you won’t keep to that, I’ll find out on my own.”
He swore, then put his hands on his hips and looked away. “You ought to let sleeping dogs lie.”
It hinted at confirmation. But the recording needed more.
“Who is she? Who’s the mother? What was she to you? Please tell me it wasn’t any of the help.”
“I’m telling you to forget about it,” he said in a warning voice. “This isn’t going to punish who you think.”
“Spare me another lecture about Trevor’s campaign,” I bit back. “I don’t do your bidding anymore. I’m an adult.”
And then it happened. My father lost his composure. I angled myself ever so slightly, wanting to be sure my phone was getting all of this.
“I’m not talking about Trevor,” he seethed. “I’m talking about the woman you never once considered could be responsible for our family’s shame. I’m not the reason why you have a half brother. You want the story, ask your mother—Saint Annelise.”
I’d never heard him spit my mother’s name the same way he spat the names of his enemies. I’d never heard him mock how close the two of us were. And I’d never seen such anger in his eyes.
“You didn’t see that one coming, did you? Not with all your smarts? I swear, boy, you think you know every damn thing. All you don’t know could fill one of your books.”
I’d never come so close to hitting my father in my life. I’d wanted to, for lesser things. But this was beyond the pale. It was heartless and full of spite that bore no justification. Adam had been born before my parents had even met.
“Momma?” I repeated, pretending to be shocked. I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked toward the frame next to the wall, picking up one of the family photos. Everything hinged on this—the small microphone I needed to plant in his office. “Momma had another child, and you knew? How?” I sputtered. “When?”
I tore my gaze away from the photo and put the frame down, praying that the adhesive had taken. The microphone was small but it would pick up anything that was said in this room.
“She gave him up for adoption a year before she and I met.”
“Why the hell haven’t we ever met him?” I nearly yelled, and began pacing back to the middle.
My father sneered. “What good would come of that?”
I gave him a look that told him exactly what good. Me knowing my brother. My mother reuniting with her son.
“You wanted to talk, man-to-man?” my father said. “Then quit being na?ve. Families like ours are magnets for extortionists and freeloaders and opportunists who will sell fabricated stories to the press.”
“Does Momma have a relationship with him?” I shook with emotion that wasn’t part of the act. “I mean, have they met? And does he know who she is?”
“No,” he answered quickly. “I made sure of that. She’d have ruined this whole damn family if I’d left things up to her. Lucky for you, I can make things disappear.”
“What kinds of things?” I asked through gritted teeth. “And why the hell would that make me lucky?”
“Birth certificates,” he said like it was obvious. “You can’t have a relationship with someone you can’t find. And as for how that makes you lucky...” He narrowed his eyes. “You grew up in the governor’s mansion, with every opportunity and every privilege; you’ve led a charmed and scandal-free life. Next time you decide to march in here and accuse me of something you know nothing about, remember how many burdens I saved you from having to bear.”
I resisted my every instinct to clap back—to tell him growing up the way I had was nothing I’d ever asked for or wanted, to tell him I would have been far happier with the attention of a loving father and a humble home, and that—regardless of what we had to lose—knowing Adam would have been well worth it. But I couldn’t say any of that. Now that he’d confessed, I had to move on to phase two, and convince him that I didn’t plan to act.
“I’ll keep a lid on this for now...,” I growled, nostrils flaring. “But only for Trevor’s sake. And with the wedding planning and all, I won’t say anything to Momma. But this won’t hold forever. After that damn election, the four of us are gonna sit down and have a talk.”