20. All The Poor Bastards （Ethan）
ALL THE POOR BASTARDS (ETHAN)
W ith Hattie gone, there’s nothing left to do but drag my sorry ass home.
Even so, I take my sweet time, seeing her off into the Uber, making sure the jet’s ready for her at the airport, then walking back to my car with that fatal sense of having fucked everything to bits.
Isn’t that what I do best?
The minute life starts handing out bananas, I become the anxious monkey boy. This giddy, reckless little ape who can’t just take what’s being offered without ripping it to pieces and lighting everything on fire.
Hattie left in fucking tears because of me.
Because I let my emotions burst like a defective pipe.
Because I was so pissed at her for picking at the past, even if she never touched anything related to Taylor.
Yet , the nasty little chatter in the back of my head whispers. She didn’t blab about it yet.
I squash that prick like a bug.
Pages deserves better. I should’ve tried harder to stop my bad mood from escaping and pelting her in the face.
After days of walking around like lovesick kids, I made her feel like a burden, like she’d just get in the way. Like she’s already broken my trust when she hasn’t done a thing.
Fucking. Idiot.
I drive home slowly and get stuck at every stoplight for what feels like hours.
When I finally get back to my parents’ place, the house gleams in the moonlight, this suburban castle hidden in its soaring green hedges that still can’t contain the worst Blackthorn instincts.
All the memories of living here come charging back—how stifling this house could be while looking like a luxury architect’s wet dream—and I have to crush them one by one.
The past is the past.
Over and out.
It won’t control me unless I let it.
The front door opens soundlessly when I shuffle in. No Ares here to greet me with a disinterested sniff or dismissive yawn.
It’s insane how much that disappoints me.
Just silence and bitter memories and—
Noise?
I frown when I hear it for the first time.
Distant sobbing, I think, muffled but unmistakable.
Welcome home. Here’s a nice cuppa piping hot shit to settle in.
I sigh so hard my shoulders drop as I scan the foyer.
Large, imposing oil paintings with abstract faces stare back at me as I lock the door and will myself to breathe. The air feels like syrup.
The house is silent except for the faint crying, which frays the hair on the back of my neck.
This takes me back to showing up at Taylor’s house, even if that was another time and place and tragedy.
Her mother on the floor.
The guarded cops.
The hideous realization that they were looking at the man who basically drove Tay off the cliff.
Fuck, but I can’t afford to go there right now.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I lurch forward, trying to pinpoint the source of the sobbing, following it to the library.
There’s only one small lamp on by the desk below the cavernous shelves, casting the large room in shadows.
At least I use my library for work. This one’s always been pretentious as hell, ornamental more than anything else. No one in this family actually enjoys reading.
Hattie practically jumped into my arms when she first saw it, the first person in a generation to appreciate what it’s meant to be.
My chest squeezes. No, don’t think of her.
I focus on the sight before me.
Margot and Dad, standing by the window, illuminated by the lamp’s glow. My sister’s cheeks are streaked with tears, mascara smeared under her eyes.
Christ, she looks as bad as she did after Gramps died and we reconnected for the first time.
My blood goes cold.
“What the hell is going on?” I bite off, announcing my presence.
Margot looks up, her face pinched with fear.
Dad puts his hand on her arm.
“Calm down, dear,” he says soothingly, but she wrenches it away with a look of pure venom.
He flinches away, uncertainty adding lines to his face.
Probably wise.
I know from experience Margot can be as vicious as Mom when she’s angry.
“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down,” she snaps.
I shut the door behind me with a thunk .
“Is someone going to tell me what happened?” I demand.
First Mom, then Hattie, now this.
“Margot, no.” There’s a panic in Dad’s tone I’ve never heard before.
But Margot marches toward me, shaking him off.
She stops right in front of me, staring, her blue eyes blazing like storming seas as she grabs my hand.
“Ethan has a right to know,” she snarls.
“Right to know what ?” Damn, I need a drink—and ten more hours of sleep. “What the fuck happened?” For a moment, neither of them say anything, and I’m on the verge of losing my calm. “Margot?”
Dad steps into the light, and it’s like some sort of weird vampire movie where the monster makes his grand entrance. Only, it’s just Dad, his greying hair slicked back and his face tired and worn instead of his usual mask of calm.
“Tell him,” Margot demands, her voice practically a shriek. “Tell him, or I will.”
“That’s not your place,” Dad flares. “It’s your mother’s alone. Not yours, and not mine.”
But Margot heaves another broken sob, fresh tears streaming down her face as she rips herself away from me before throwing the door open, exiting before anyone can stop her.
The heavy French doors swing shut behind her.
“Dad?” I hear the warning note in my voice.
He sighs and walks to the desk. “I’m going to have a scotch. Join me?”
Like I have a choice—it’s hereditary.
This is how Scott Brightly learned to deal with his problems. Have a drink, a nap, and hope they go away in the morning. Too often, they do, all cleaned up by someone else willing to get their hands dirty.
It’s a habit of privilege I hate to admit he’s passed down, because I just nod and watch as he pours. He hands me a glass and we stand together in silence.
He sighs, looking as old as some of the books in this room.
“There was no delaying it forever. I suppose it was always inevitable.”
“What, Dad?”
“Your mom said you found the letter. Why in God’s name that old man ever stuffed it away instead of burning it like an intelligent person…”
“The letter, I—shit. Will you just tell me? Or do I have to ask her what the big goddamn deal is? It didn’t go well when we brought it up.”
“It’s hard for her,” he says raggedly, drawing a hand down his face. “There’s a reason she didn’t get along with the old man. All that friction, the distance, they had their reasons, Ethan. We all did.”
Friction, yeah.
Like I could forget.
The way Mom turned into a short-fused grouch before we’d leave for our summers with Gramps in Portland. She resented our trips away like a root canal.
But she wanted his money, so she let it happen.
That’s what I assumed.
I figured they must have had an understanding. Perhaps they argued over money at some point, or me and my sister, or some combination of the two.
And fuck, I hated the fact that she put money over family, again and again.
Why couldn’t she just talk to her father?
Why couldn’t they make peace and sort out their crap before it was too late?
Dad takes a long drink, and I sort through my thoughts, turning them over until I know I’m in control. Enough to speak and ask the right questions.
“Why did she hate him?” I ask. “I know Gramps thinks he screwed up. He said it in the letter we found.”
Dad stares blankly at the windows, our washed-out reflections staring back at us, his eyes heavy.
“Before I say anything else, Ethan, I want you to know,” he whispers. “I want you to know I love you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I shake my head.
“It means you’ll always be my son.” He finally looks at me, sadness in his eyes. “But biologically… you’re not.”
Boom. Headshot.
“What the fuck?” I rock back like I’ve been punched, almost spilling my drink on the carpet. “What do you mean?”
Dad sets his empty glass on the desk, the lamp’s orange light spearing through the glass. “Your mother should be the one explaining this, if it weren’t so hard on her.”
My brain short-circuits.
I don’t understand.
He’s my father.
He’s always been there, ever since I was a kid.
They were married at least a year, maybe a couple, before I came along.
Sure, neither of my parents were particularly doting or deeply invested in me or Margot, but—
Shit, Margot.
Does that mean she’s not my full sister?
Only half.
I can feel my ego shutting down, refusing to accept it, stunned into silence.
“So Gramps’ letter to Mom is—what?” I demand. “Some fucking fight over an affair she had? Why? He helped her hide it? Dad, what happened ?”
The library door swings open then.
Mom stalks into the room, just as teary as Margot, but her eyes are redder, her face thin and papery like it’s about to tear.
For the first time in years, she looks her age through endless spa treatments.
She holds both hands out, but I back away.
“Honey,” she says pleadingly.
“Don’t.” My voice is harsh, but fuck this. “Thirty damn years and this is the first time you tell me the truth? All because of some musty old letter I found?”
“It’s not what you think,” she hisses.
“You have no clue what I’m thinking.” I look between them, my gaze harder than steel. Then my eyes flick to Dad. “You always knew?”
He nods soberly, his expression pained.
Then he reaches for the scotch bottle, sighing as he pours another glass.
All these cracks in their perfect, gilded exterior.
All these terrible lies they weaved into my life.
Mom reaches for me, but I knock her hands aside.
“Explain it. Right the fuck now,” I bite off. “Did you cheat on Dad? Do I even call him that now?”
“Son,” Dad says, a different kind of pain entering his voice that makes me feel like an asshole. But fucking hell, what do they expect after blowing my head off? “You’ll always be mine, no matter what your DNA says.”
“So why didn’t you tell me ?”
I’m vibrating. Shock and anger running through my bones like a current, the fury of not knowing who or what the fuck I am.
Mom shakes her head, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.