25. Ellison
Watching Montana stomp down the porch steps has my heart taking up residence in my throat. I’m missing something—I can feel it. The tension in the room is so much heavier than just my father cockblocking us tonight.
And what did Montana say to him on the way out?
My father’s expression had been heated but also resigned.
Time to get some answers.
“What are you doing here?”
Dragging his hands down his face, he blows out a heavy breath before meeting my gaze. He looks exhausted, and I can only imagine what that could possibly mean.
“I filed for divorce.”
“You did?” I ask, genuinely surprised because I honestly didn’t think he had it in him. He’d been miserable as long as I could remember with only pockets of happiness when he and I were together.
It never made sense to me that he would stay. He was wealthy in his own right, but he’d never been obsessed with being one of the social elite like my mother. But still, he stayed—stayed with her after I graduated from high school, moved to Savannah where I attended college, and stayed close after I got a job.
None of it made sense.
Dropping down into the armchair, he tilts his head back and looks at the ceiling. Without speaking, I move around the kitchen, pulling out glasses and a bottle of whiskey. I make us two drinks, mine on the rocks and his neat, before handing it to him and curling up on the couch.
“What happened?”
“What didn’t?” he responds before taking a healthy sip, his focus on something behind me. “I don’t want to speak ill of your mother.”
“We are way past that,” I say pointedly, his lips twitching upward even though he still looks haunted.
“I didn’t realize the lengths she’d go to keep us together.” He laughs but it’s completely devoid of humor. “I’m going to lose almost everything to that woman. But you know what? None of it matters. As soon as the ink dries I’ll be free, and even if I have to rent a studio apartment over Montana’s garage—it’s going to be worth it.”
I can’t help it; I laugh, because the idea that my father would have to rent an apartment from Montana is hilarious. But I don’t truly know how much of that is true and how much is exaggerated for my benefit.
“Did you just ignore it all these years, or were you truly that blind to what a terrible person she is?”
His face contorts into a grimace, and I know that part of me doesn’t want his answer. I need it—but that doesn’t mean I want to know the lengths the woman that birthed me would go to keep up appearances.
“There was a lot of pressure on your mother and me to get married,” he says quietly, staring at his glass. “She knew I wasn’t happy and we agreed to take some time apart.” His smile is sad as he continues. “I met someone. I wasn’t looking, but when I saw her, I couldn’t look away. She was amazing, beautiful, and kind, and I had been mesmerized.”
“What happened?” I ask as dread settles in my stomach.
“I didn’t know if it would work out with this woman but I knew I wanted to find out—I wanted to try. So, I went to talk to your mother—she deserved a conversation at least—but when I got there she told me she was pregnant.”
Even though I knew it was coming, I couldn’t stop the way my eyes welled with tears as I tossed back the rest of my whiskey.
“People coparent all the time,” I manage, desperately trying to reconcile that my father stayed with my mother simply because she was pregnant with me. I didn’t have to ask if he’d gotten a DNA test—our resemblance has always been strong, our eyes especially, with the flecks of gold so stark against the rich brown.
He shakes his head. “Not back then and not in our world. She would have taken you from me, and I wouldn’t have survived that.”
“But then why stay once I turned eighteen? And why placate her all these years? You knew what she put me through—you knew I didn’t belong and you just went along with it. Hell, sometimes I wondered if you cared at all. I mean, I know we’ve gotten better over the years, but it’s not like it was all smooth sailing with us.” My heart races and the words spill from my lips, each question ratcheting up my anger and hurt from years of being forced into a life that wasn’t ever mine.
“Your grandparents established a trust for you that you’ll have access to when you turn thirty-five.” He swallows hard. “I’d been advised that one of the stipulations for you to receive it was that your mother and I had to remain married for that time as well—a punishment for me wanting to leave. As for the rest, I have no excuse. She made it excruciating at times, and it felt like the only way to get through it was to distance myself for a while. It wasn’t fair to you and for that, Ellison, I am truly sorry.”
“You said you’d been advised,” I ask, my head tilting to the side as his expression darkens. “What does that mean?”
“It means it was never actually part of the agreement.”
“You just blindly accepted the terms she put in front of you?”
“Try to understand how difficult it was for me. I’d had to tell the woman I was falling for that we couldn’t be together, wrap my head around becoming a father with a woman I knew would make my life a living hell, and reconcile that I was now responsible for an innocent little girl whom I still am not worthy of.” Tears glisten in his eyes and I have to blink back my own. “I just wanted to protect you, and I didn’t want to be the reason you’d have to forfeit the money.”
“I’ve never cared about the money. I still don’t.”
“I know. But your mother had been manipulative. If I’d been thinking more clearly, I would have known that your grandparents never would have put something like that in the conditions. They weren’t loving, but they were decent people and they were thrilled to have a granddaughter.”
My mother’s parents had passed when I was young, too young to remember them. My father’s parents had been much the same—it was why I’d so eagerly taken up a place at the table with Nan and Grandad.
I craved the affection and they’d given it freely.
“What about all the years you were barely there? All the times you left me with her.”
“It wasn’t by choice,” he says quietly before meeting my gaze. “There were a couple of times I threatened to leave her, the contract be damned, but”—his voice breaks on the last word—“she would’ve taken you and no judge in the state of Tennessee would have changed that. So,” he says tiredly, his shoulders sagging with the admission, “I had to keep my distance to keep you safe. I couldn’t risk her leaving in the middle of the night—you would have been gone forever.”
“What changed?” I ask, my mind reeling, “What changed now?”
“I was contacted by a…reporter,” he says wryly, an odd inflection on reporter.
“Really? Isn’t that confidential?”
“It wasn’t about that specifically, but our conversation raised enough questions that I did some digging of my own.”
“And?”
He sighs and the sound encompasses decades of a miserable life, not just the present. “And your mother is worse than we thought.”
“Unlikely.” He raises an eyebrow at me so I shrug. “I’ve known it for years; I just couldn’t escape her.”
“I’m sorry for that too.”
“Honestly? I can’t dwell on that anymore. I’m here and I’m happy and I want to build a life with the man I’ve loved since the day we met.” My father blanches so I say, “I hope that you can find your happiness too.”
His phone buzzes in quick succession and he pulls it out of his pocket, barely glancing at it before handing it to me.
SHERRI ANN: You better get back to Savannah before people start talking, Evan.
SHERRI ANN: You’ll be nothing without me. I won’t let you and Ellison ruin everything I’ve worked for
SHERRI ANN: I’ve done everything for this family and you had one job and you still messed it up!
SHERRI ANN: I won’t let you get away with this. I will take every dime and you’ll be left with nothing. You disgust me—crawling back to that godforsaken town.
SHERRI ANN: Answer me!
“Wow.”
He snorts. “I have to survive the divorce first.”
I nod, because that’s no exaggeration.