Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WYATT
I texted my sister on the way home. And in true Morgan fashion, she said not to worry about it. At my sister’s, I hauled the groceries in and started putting them away. The two youngest boys were yelling at the TV, game controllers in their hands. Remington walked into the kitchen.
“Did you get Gatorade?” he asked, looking in the bags.
“Yeah.” I pointed to a bag on the floor.
“Where’s Grandpa?” I didn’t know how to start with him or my sister.
I Googled St. Margaret’s. It was more like a prison for the elderly.
There was an entire Reddit thread on how horribly the patients were treated.
Some people complained staff strapped their parents down.
Others said their mother was drugged to the point she did nothing all day but drool.
My mother may have lost her mind, but that was not how I wanted her to live out the rest of her days.
“Did you see your boyfriend took a puck to the face today?” Remington smirked.
“My boyfriend?” I took the Cool Whip out of the bag. He couldn’t mean Julian. No one knew about us.
“Yeah, Silver. You only like him because he’s pretty. You and all the other women that watch,” Remington said, rolling his eyes.
“Right, because women couldn’t possibly understand something as complicated as hockey.” What a little shit.
“If you did, you’d know he’s an asshole who can barely play. He thinks that because his dad was Quick Silver, he doesn’t have to try. His season has been shit. If he was anyone other than Silver’s kid, he would’ve been cut or sent back down to the minors. It’s nepotism at its best.”
“Nepotism. Is that your word or your father’s?” There was no doubt he was Hunter’s son. He wore his shaggy blond hair the same way Hunter had in high school. Hunter had been popular in school because he was cute and played sports. I had no doubt Remington was following in his father’s footsteps.
“No, and it’s true. You ever watch one of his interviews?” Remington pulled out his phone. “Here.”
I took the phone. Julian stood there still in his jersey, leaning on a stick with his nose taped and a dark circle starting to form under his right eye. “What happened to him?”
“I told you he took a puck to the face today,” Remington said. “Blaisy shot a puck, and it deflected off the crossbar. See?”
I watched the replay. Anders took a shot at the goal, and the puck bounced off the pipe and hit Julian. He went down quickly with his glove covering his face, blood dripping onto the ice. The hit was on a loop. The shot. The hit. Julian falling to his knees. The blood. “Oh god.”
“It’s not a big deal. It happens all the time. That’s why they wear visors,” Remington said, unscrewing the lid from his drink. “If you ask me, he deserved it.”
“Why would you say that?” I handed his phone back to him.
“Because he’s an ass.” Remington was full of himself, like his father had been at that age. I remembered Hunter strutting into this kitchen, high off a state win. He had big dreams of being “called up.” He got something up, and Morgan ended up pregnant at eighteen.
“Really, and you know him? Had a personal conversation with Julian Silver?” I had seen Julian after the game. Witnessed his body bruised and battered. The self-doubt little shits like my nephew filled him with. The assholes on the podcast judging him. Everyone thinking they could do it better.
“I don’t need to know him. I watch him. There’s an entire Discord about how he snubs his fans.”
“Oh,” I said, leaning against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest. “A Discord. Thank god a bunch of pimply teens who don’t know what to do with their dicks have decided what a good player looks like.”
“Who’s a pimply teen?” my sister said, walking into the kitchen with a bag of groceries.
“I know what to do with my dick, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have taken a puck to the face.”
“Remington,” Morgan snapped.
“I doubt you do,” I threw back, knowing how stupid it was I was arguing with a child about the merits of an adult man. “And when should I watch your NHL game? Never?”
“Wyatt.” My sister shoved me.
“He started it.” I shifted my glare to Remington.
“Whatever. What time is dinner? Carly and me are gonna go to the rink and put some pucks in the back of the net. Unlike Silver.”
“It’s I. Carly and I. And with grammar like that, you better hope your hockey career takes off,” I threw back at the teen, who rolled his eyes and took a bag of chips before he left the kitchen. What the hell did he or Hunter know about hockey?
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” my sister asked. “He’s seventeen.”
“If that little shit can’t take it, he shouldn’t run his mouth. And your husband shouldn’t either. I don’t see him playing for the national league. Did you stop at the store?” I watched her unload the same things I had bought.
“I didn’t realize you were so passionate about hockey. And yes, I know how you are with lists.” My sister put the Cool Whip in the fridge.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Forget it. And please don’t pick any more fights with Remington. He’s moody enough.”
I watched my sister flutter around the kitchen, putting away the groceries.
This was a repeat of our childhood. It was like watching déjà vu.
I’d do something and she would redo it or check to make sure I did it to her liking.
Back then, I knew Morgan was trying to pick up the slack of our parents, but we were adults now.
“Why did you go and see Mom today?” She opened and closed a couple cupboards, pulling out pasta and a jarred sauce.
“Because our father said I should. What the fuck is going on?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Don’t start. This doesn’t concern you,” she said, her head inside the fridge.
“It doesn’t? Okay, I didn’t know she wasn’t my mother.”
“Wyatt,” my sister warned, shutting the fridge.
“Don’t Wyatt me. This facility that you want to put Mom in is like a prison. They drug people.”
Morgan blinked at the ceiling with an irritated sigh before facing me. “This is not your concern.”
“Yes, it is. She’s my mother too.”
Morgan turned to face me. “No, she’s your mother for twenty minutes during a holiday.
She’s mine every day at all hours. At three in the morning when they can’t calm her down.
When they needed to sedate her to do a pap smear and pull teeth.
During Remington’s game and Ferris’s band concert.
During the lunch rush and all the times in between those times.
So before you get on your high horse and start judging me, take a long look in the mirror. ”
“I ask you every time I call how she is,” I shouted at her. “Every time. How’s Dad? How are the boys? How’s Hunter? How’s the bar? Every. Fucking. Time I call. And what do you say? Fine. Everyone is fucking fine,” I mocked her.
“You’re in Vegas. What the fuck are you going to do? Huh? Fly back here and save us? Your sugar daddy gonna bail out your family’s failing bar? Maybe pay for Cassidy’s braces or for Remington’s college? Huh?”
“Fuck you.” At least I knew where my mother got her favorite word from.
“No. Fuck you. You left. You left me with this mess. You left me with a bar that is failing and a father who won’t admit it. You left me with a mother who has lost her mind. You. Left. Me. So fuck you!”
“You stayed!” I shouted back at her. “The road goes both ways here. This is the life you wanted. You! Not me. I got the fuck out of here.”
“There you go again. I had responsibilities. A child,” Morgan shouted at me, slamming a pan onto the stove. “But responsibilities are a foreign concept to you, aren’t they?”
“You made the choice,” I yelled back at her. “Mom gave you the same option as me. But I think you were glad you got knocked up. In fact I think you did it on purpose. Because you were too afraid to leave.” I stepped closer. “Because if you failed, who the hell would you blame then? Huh?”
“You think so?” Her voice was low.
“Yes, I do.” Morgan had married Hunter, moved into our parents’ house, and short of the three boys, she was living my parents’ life.
“Really? And you turned out so well?” she shouted at me.
“Yes!” I yelled back. “At least I’m not sitting here blaming everyone for the shitty life I’m living.”
“Shitty.” She laughed. “It’s better than being a whore.”
“Girls!” my father yelled, climbing up the basement stairs. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing new, just Wyatt telling everyone how to live their life.”
“Piss off, Morgan. You started this. Dad, you can’t really believe that St. Margaret’s is the best place for Mom.”
“Wyatt, shut the fuck up!” Morgan yelled.
“St. Margaret’s? That’s the state-run place. Your mom isn’t going there. She’s staying right here.” The brochure Leah gave me was sitting next to the groceries I hadn’t put away. My dad picked it up. “Morgan, you promised. You said that if I signed those papers, it would be for the best.”
“Dad.” Morgan pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You didn’t tell him?” I yelled. “What papers, Dad? Christ, Morgan, what the fuck has gotten into you?”
“God damn it, Wyatt, shut the fuck up before I shut you up,” she yelled.
“Morgan, what is she talking about?” My dad picked up the brochure and flipped it over.
“Dad, nothing. Mom’s not going anywhere. Wyatt is confused.”
“No—”
“Wyatt, if you say another word, I will tell Dad everything that is going on in Vegas. Do you understand?”
No one moved. We stood there, staring at each other.
“He has a right to know. Like I had a right to know.”
“Okay, fine.” Morgan turned to our father. “Wyatt doesn’t work at the casino. She’s a prostitute. She gets paid to have sex with men. There, is that what you were talking about?”
My dad turned his faded eyes to me. I could see the disbelief and disappointment. I hadn’t told him to protect him. It was easier. That and he had been so proud that I was working for Maverick Sands.
“Fuck you, Morgan,” I said, brushing by her.
“What, you didn’t want that truth out?” Morgan yelled after me.
I should’ve stayed in Vegas.