Tattooed Troublemaker - Elise Faber Page 0,47

back in my chair. It was a hot summer day, heat blazing down onto the balcony. “Sam and Lane flew in for the weekend.”

“That’s good.”

Quiet descending, my mom waiting for me to talk.

She’d always been an expert at that, out-waiting me, using quiet to get me to talk.

“I’m okay,” I finally said.

A heartbeat. “Honey, you don’t sound okay.”

I sighed, chin falling to my chest, and decided to just blurt it out. “I heard you and Jake talking. After you told us you were getting remarried,” I added when she remained silent. “About Dad. About you and Dad and me.”

Her rapid inhale said it all, even before her words made it through the airwaves, but when they did, I felt like a boulder had been lifted from my shoulders.

“Your dad leaving was not your fault.”

“I heard you,” I said, shaking my head, though she couldn’t see me. “I heard you say he’d only left because of me.”

She inhaled then released it slowly, the noise rattling through the speaker at my ear. We’d never really talked about my dad when I was growing up. We knew he’d gone, that he’d left us to our own devices, but I could tell it was a painful topic for my mom, so I’d shoved all the insecurities down.

And then I’d heard—

He left because of Garret.

“That’s not—”

“Mom,” I interrupted. “I heard you say the words ‘He left because of Garret.’” A beat as she processed that. “It doesn’t get any clearer than that.”

Another moment of quiet then, “Oh, no, honey. You misunderstood.”

I stood, paced from one end of the balcony to the other. “I don’t see how I can misunderstand ‘He left because of Garret.’” I clenched my cell to my ear. “I heard you say those exact words, Mom. But look, I get it. I’ve heard the stories about your pregnancy. I know it was tough, know I was a difficult baby—”

“You were a perfectly lovely baby,” my mom said. “Beautiful and chubby with the cutest little laugh.”

“Lane—”

“Lane was just as precocious at five as he is at thirty-five, Garret,” Mom said. “And he loves nothing more than to give you a hard time.”

Yeah. That much was true.

“But, honey, your dad . . .” She paused then almost seemed to force the words to leave her body, they were so tense. “Your dad didn’t leave because of you. He left because of me.”

Now, she was just trying to make me feel better. “Mom—”

“I cheated.”

That was pretty much the last thing I’d expected her to say. The. Last. Thing.

“What?”

“Your father left because of me.”

My ass somehow made it back into the chair, but my head was spinning. “What are you saying?” I asked quietly.

“I’m saying that the reason your dad left is because I slept with someone else, because he did the math and realized that neither you nor Lane could be his.”

“How—”

“You know your dad was in the military,” she said. “He wasn’t home when either of you were conceived. I didn’t try to hide it necessarily. I wasn’t a very good person then.” She sighed, voice shaking. “I was young, had been uprooted from home and was living in a place where I didn’t know anyone . . . and then I—” She stopped. “I won’t go into all of the gory details, except to say I regret that I hurt him, and I also hurt you and Lane.”

“Lane knows?”

“That your dad—”

“I don’t think you can reasonably call him that,” I snapped.

Silence.

Then, “You’re right. Of course, you are. He was a good man, put his name on the birth certificate, but he couldn’t hack it, Garret. That’s not his fault or yours. It’s mine.” Another brief silence. “I was the one who messed up. I’m the one who you should be furious with. I’m the one who hurt all three of you.”

“I—” That was as far as I got.

And silence descended again.

But this time, it was less of a tactic for my mom getting me to talk and more a chance to get my thoughts together.

Maybe for both of us to get our thoughts together.

“It was wrong,” she murmured, “and I do regret it, but I don’t regret having you and Lane in my life.”

“Who—?” I shook my head, trying to clear it.

She seemed to understand the question I was trying to formulate anyway. “He lived on base. We . . . well, he was married, too, and when I got pregnant with Lane, we both realized—” A sigh. “We both knew it had