CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lee sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the floor. He didn’t want to get up and face the day. Because it was Saturday, he didn’t have to get up for work. He wasn’t even on call, since Carl had told him to take it easy.
He was certainly aware that he wasn’t handling the news of his parentage very well.
It had been hard enough hearing the basic information from the detective, but then he’d made the mistake of watching the documentary Peter had mentioned. He should have listened to the man.
There had been several points along the way where he could have changed his mind about watching it.
When he went to the streaming website to get a membership.
When he got up to find his wallet for his credit card info.
When he filled out the information from it.
When he’d hovered his mouse cursor over the subscribe button.
And finally, as he’d clicked to start the first of the three-episode docu-series.
Unfortunately, he’d stupidly moved past all of those points, assuming it couldn’t be that bad. Only, it had been worse than bad. It had been absolutely horrific. But once he’d started it, he’d needed to push through to the end. To know exactly what had happened.
It was his life, after all.
The first episode had sent him running for the bathroom, his stomach heaving. Episode two, it was more of the same.
By the third episode, he had steeled himself against what was to come. Still, watching it had left him nauseous and feeling like he was on the edge of throwing up.
When he’d told Charli that he had an upset stomach, he hadn’t been lying. Even though days had passed, he still hadn’t been able to shake the nausea, and he had no appetite at all.
Thankfully, the nausea and vomiting had given him a valid excuse to keep his distance from everyone. Including Rori…
The pain in his heart deepened as Lee thought about her. If he’d known back when he’d first met her what he knew now, he never would have gotten involved with her.
This situation wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t fair to him, either. And it most definitely wasn’t fair to his brother, who’d died by the hands of his parents.
Lee knew that there were murderers who had children, and he was sure those children struggled to accept that they’d inherited their killer parent’s DNA. Was it different to know that his murderous parents hadn’t killed a stranger? That they’d had it in them to abuse and kill their own flesh and blood?
The documentary had revealed that there had been some people who’d felt that his father had coerced his mother into going along with his mistreatment of Lee and his brother. And the jury had apparently agreed to some extent because she’d gotten a lighter sentence and was up for parole for the first time later that year.
Ian. The brother he couldn’t remember.
However, having watched the documentary, Lee now had images of his brother—both good and bad—that he couldn’t get out of his mind. There had been some visuals in the envelope from the detective. But they hadn’t been graphic.
The docu-series, however, had contained pictures he didn’t want to believe could be real. Truly horrific images of crime scenes and injuries. It was more explicit than should have been shown on television.
However, the thing that had broken Lee’s heart completely was seeing home videos and pictures of an adorable little boy who had had his light snuffed out far too early in his life.
Lee could see how much he and his brother looked alike. He thought of the pictures on his parents’ wall—he refused to call the people who’d birthed him his parents—and he knew what he looked like at the age of five. He and Ian could have been twins for how alike they looked.
But he would never know his brother as a man. He would never know if they’d continued to look alike. If Ian would have carried into adulthood the laughter and happiness that Lee had seen in the videos.
Would he, like Lee, have grown to closely resemble their biological father?
Lee let out a long exhale as he flopped back on the bed. After laying there for a moment, he crawled up to his pillows and dragged the duvet back over him. He didn’t need to get up just yet.
He had to pull himself together. There was no way that he could continue to blame a stomach bug for the way he was acting without the medical professionals in the family stepping in. And he really didn’t want that.
But how was he supposed to get to the point where he didn’t feel shattered and unmoored? His new reality dominated his thoughts, and he didn’t know how to escape it.
He probably could use the services of a mental health professional, but he had no idea how to broach why he was seeking help. He didn’t want to compromise anything by revealing that he was alive when the world thought he was dead.
Lee still didn’t know if his parents were aware of his history. His hand went to the scar across his side. He’d asked his parents about it as a kid, and they’d told him he’d been injured in an accident. Was that what they’d been told as a way to explain any injuries he had when he’d been turned over to their care?
If they didn’t know the truth, what would they say if they learned about it now? How about his siblings? Would they worry about him being around their children?
Lee’s heart pulsed with pain at the thought.
And what did he do about his relationship with Rori?
He wanted to just keep things as they’d been. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. The information he’d received had fundamentally changed him. He wasn’t the same person he’d been before the private detective had handed over all the info on his life.
The worst part of what he’d learned about his biological father was that he hadn’t always been an abusive, murdering man. His three adult daughters from his first marriage said he’d never lifted a finger against them or their mom.
Lee almost would rather have learned that his dad had been evil from birth. It was frightening for Lee to think that something lurked deep inside him, just waiting for the right time to burst forth, revealing itself to the world in a horrible way.
He hated that. He hated that his genetic makeup came from two such awful people. It didn’t seem like he had any chance of escaping his horrific past.
A knock on his door had him groaning as he shifted onto his back.
“Come in,” he said, expecting it to be Charli or Janessa.
They’d checked in on him a lot over the past week. So it was no surprise that since it was nearly noon and he had yet to make an appearance that they had come to see how he was doing.
“What’s going on, Lee?”
Lee lifted his head to see his oldest brother—and the doctor—approaching the bed. Dropping his head back, he stared at the ceiling.
“My stomach hasn’t been feeling great, and I’m not sleeping well. I always feel tired.”
Gareth went to the small table underneath the window and picked up one of the chairs there and carried it over to the bed. He swung the chair around backwards and straddled it, resting his arms along its back.
“When exactly did it start?” Gareth asked.
Lee wondered if there was any way that he could get this past Gareth without the man realizing that it wasn’t truly a physical malady. Still, he answered all his questions as honestly as possible.
“Have you had any pain anywhere?” When Lee shook his head, Gareth said, “Would you mind if I palpated your abdomen?”
“No. That’s fine.” Lee flipped back the comforter, then lifted his T-shirt.
Gareth got to his feet and leaned over Lee, pressing against a few spots, but nothing generated any pain.
Another knock at the door brought Janessa into the room. “Want me to take his blood pressure?”
“Might as well.” Gareth said, moving back so that Janessa could take his spot beside Lee.
Gareth crossed his arms, a frown on his face as he watched Janessa wrap the cuff around Lee’s upper arm, then press a button on the machine.
Once the cuff released, she gave Gareth the numbers of both Lee’s blood pressure and his pulse.
“Both are a tad high, but nothing to be too concerned about,” Gareth said. “Are you feeling any better? I mean, you’ve been going to work, right?”
“Yeah. But not for the full day.” Lee pushed himself up to sit against the pillows, tugging his shirt back down over his stomach. “I usually have to dip out early in the afternoon. I start off feeling okay in the morning, but soon I’m just worn out because I’m not sleeping or eating well.”
“I think we should run some tests,” Gareth said, glancing at Janessa as he rattled off a bunch of stuff that Lee didn’t understand.
He might be in the medical field, in as much as he treated animals’ health, but that didn’t mean he understood everything about the tests that were required to diagnose illness in humans.
It felt dishonest to undergo tests when he knew very well what was wrong. He might be able to put them off for a bit. However, if he did that, he would need to pull himself together, so he would appear to be improving. Otherwise, his siblings would insist he get the tests done.
“Let’s just let it ride for a bit longer,” Lee said, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I really don’t think it’s anything serious.”
“It’s been a week, and you’re not doing significantly better.” Gareth frowned at him. “I am concerned.”
“I appreciate that, so if I’m not feeling back to my normal self by Wednesday, I’ll go for your tests.”
Gareth didn’t look convinced. “I’d prefer you go sooner rather than later. There’s no need for you to wait.”
For Lee, there was all the need in the world to wait, actually. But maybe he should just agree to get the tests done, then try to get “better” while they waited for results. “I’ll go sooner.”
“Perfect.” Glancing over at Janessa, Gareth said, “I’ll get the requisition done up on Monday.”
“Okay.” Janessa gathered up the blood pressure machine and got to her feet. “I’ll be back later to check on you.”
Lee thought Gareth would follow Janessa out the door, but instead, he appeared to settle in for the long haul.
His dark gaze settled and stayed on Lee. “What’s really going on?”
“You’re the doctor,” Lee said, trying to keep his voice light. “You tell me.”
“This is something more than just physical,” Gareth told him.
“Why would you say that?”
Gareth gave a shake of his head. “I can tell there’s something more going on. I’ve known you since you were three years old.”
“But you didn’t know me before I was three.” Lee knew he shouldn’t go down that road, but he needed to talk to someone about it. He wasn’t sure Gareth was the best person, but he was desperate.
Gareth frowned. “What?”
“Do you remember what I was like when I first came to live with you?”
“They said you’d been in an accident.” Gareth’s frown deepened, but sadness was also present. “You were so, so skinny, and you had bruises on your body. All your hair had been shaved off. You were still in diapers, and you didn’t talk for ages after you arrived.”
Lee’s stomach heaved as his memory served up images from the documentary to match Gareth’s recollections of how he’d been when he arrived at the Halverson home. He flung back the comforter and scrambled for the bathroom.
Gareth was there with Lee, as he was sick once again. He rubbed Lee’s back, then handed him a glass of water.
Lee knew that Gareth was going to have questions. And in that moment, Lee found he wanted to give them. He didn’t want to carry that burden of knowledge alone any longer.
“It wasn’t a car accident,” he said when he’d returned to his bed.
“It wasn’t?” Gareth asked. “I just assumed that your parents had died in the car accident that you’d been in.”
Lee wished it had been a car accident. “I was taken from my parents because of abuse… and murder.”
“Murder?”
Lee took a deep breath, then told him what he’d learned about his birth parents from Peter’s research and the docu-series.
Gareth dragged a hand through his hair. “I watched that show.”
Lee’s stomach clenched again as it sank in that people had watched the show for entertainment. His and Ian’s pain had been paraded out in public for entertainment purposes.
“But both of the boys in that documentary died,” Gareth said. “I don’t understand.”
“The authorities faked my death so that I would have a chance to grow up without the stigma attached to having had abusers and murderers as parents.”
“They’re not your parents,” Gareth said forcefully. “Mom and Dad are your parents.”
Lee nodded, because he knew his brother was right.
“Why did you go looking for answers?”
“My last relationship ended because I wasn’t able to give her information about myself. Information that she deemed super important.”
“Did you ask Mom and Dad?”
“Yes. They said they didn’t know the details about my past.”
Gareth hummed. “I guess they might have thought it was a car accident.”
“I knew the circumstances leading to me ending up with your family weren’t good,” Lee said. “But there are bad circumstances, and then there’s… this.”
“Yeah, I would never have imagined it.”
“Me, either.”
“So where’s your mind at? Are you really sick? Or is this tied to what you’ve learned about yourself?”
“It’s tied to that,” Lee confessed. “A very physical reaction to finding out such horrifying details of my early life. When I’m not being sick, I have no appetite, and I can’t sleep. The nightmares stress me out so much.”
“Have you talked to Rori about it?”
Lee shook his head. “I’ve only told you, and I don’t plan to tell anyone else.”
“You can’t keep a secret of this magnitude from Rori, especially since you’re in a relationship with her.”
Gareth wasn’t wrong, which is why it had taken Lee until that moment to acknowledge what he had to do. “I need to end our relationship.”
“No. You don’t,” Gareth responded sharply. “I understand this information has changed how you view your past, but nothing about you has fundamentally changed.”
That was so easy for Gareth to say. He was secure in the knowledge that his parents were who they said they were and that they’d never hurt him. He hadn’t inherited a genetic makeup that was filled with all kinds of wretchedness.
Had he been in Lee’s shoes, Lee had a feeling that Gareth wouldn’t have risked marrying Aria. He would have loved her enough to protect her from himself.
“You owe Rori an explanation,” Gareth said. “And you need to let her have a say in the decision you’re making.”
“I feel it’s much more common for one person to end a relationship without needing the other person’s permission.”
“But you’re basing your decision on the assumption that Rori wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with you if she knew about everything.”
“I don’t want my history out there,” Lee said. “Especially if she decides to walk away.”
“I really don’t think she’ll break up with you, and even if I’m wrong and she does, I doubt she’d tell anyone, especially if you asked her to keep it a secret.”
Lee wasn’t sure what to do.
His mind told him that he and Rori would both be better off if they broke up. If they waited until something snapped inside of him, it might be too late.
His heart didn’t want Rori to get hurt, but it also didn’t want to lose her.
“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“I don’t know. Part of me thinks they know what happened.”
Gareth hesitated. “You think they lied to you?”
“Yes.” The more he considered it, the more convinced he was.
“I don’t think they’d do that. They wouldn’t lie.”
“They would if they thought it was a better choice than revealing the awful truth. And it was probably the right thing to do when we were kids,” Lee said. “However, I would have appreciated the truth when I asked them as an adult.”
“Talk to them about it again,” Gareth urged. “If they don’t actually know, I think they should now that you do. They would be a great support.”
“I just don’t want the whole family knowing. They’ll look at me differently.”
“I doubt that,” Gareth said. “But I’ll respect what you decide. It’s not my story to tell.”
“Not even to Aria?”
“Not even to Aria. She wouldn’t watch the documentary with me. Said just hearing what it was about hurt her heart.”
“I wish I hadn’t watched it,” Lee said. What had been in the envelope from the detective should have been enough.
“Well, if you need to talk to someone about what you’re feeling or thinking, please come to me.”
The weight of what he’d been carrying had lightened a bit now that he’d shared the burden with Gareth. Would Lee talk to him more about it? He wasn’t sure yet, but it was good to know the option was there.
Gareth got to his feet. “We’ll still do the tests on Monday. Just to make sure.” As he neared the door, he turned back to face Lee. “And please consider having a conversation with Rori. Don’t just break up with her.”
After Gareth had left him alone, Lee slid back down on the bed, pulling the comforter up to his chin. As he lay there, his thoughts tumbling around, he tried to figure out how to protect Rori without hurting her.