“I’m not so … she threatened it, killing herself. She has before, but this time—” He bit it back and cupped her face in his hands. “I’m sorry that I brought you into this sad family. Got you tangled up in our tragedies.”
“I’m not.” She searched his gaze and said it again, for emphasis. “I’m not. We’re going to bring joy back. You and me.” She brought his right hand to her belly. “Our baby.”
Tears flooded his eyes. “We used to be happy. Even Raine. She was fun. Funny.” He paused. “After Mom died … then Roane … she changed.”
Bailey caught his hand, laced their fingers, led him to the keeping room sofa. He sat heavily, dropping his head into his hands.
She curled up next to him, rhythmically rubbing his back. Giving him time. Loving him as best she could.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” he said after a couple of minutes. “I didn’t before now because it’s—”
He was going to tell her about his father. Now, so soon after she and Stephanie talked. She wouldn’t have called him, would she?
“It’s about my dad. And Mom. It’s really bad.”
Bailey curled her hand around his. “Nothing you could say will make me stop loving you.”
He didn’t believe her. She saw it in his eyes. But he went on anyway. “Mom’s love was horses, Dad’s was sailing. We had a sailboat, a thirty-eight-foot Hunter, docked at South Shore Harbor in New Orleans.” He stopped, stood. “I need a drink.”
She watched him pour himself a glass of red. He didn’t rejoin her on the sofa, but simply stood, gaze fixed on somewhere in the past.
“We’d go for the weekend, sometimes longer. Since I was older, I was allowed to sometimes bring a friend.”
“Paul.”
“Always. If it was Raine’s turn, she’d bring Stephanie. They were wonderful magical times, until—”
He stopped. Seconds ticked past.
Finally, as if having to force the words out of himself, he said, “—that trip. That night.”
The night his mother drowned.
“Mom and Dad had been drinking. Something was wrong, we didn’t know what, but we felt the tension the whole weekend. We heard them arguing that night. Late. It scared Raine so much she crawled into the fore bunk with us boys. Usually she slept out in the cabin area.
“They took it up to the deck. Shouting. He accused her of having an affair. Of being in love with someone else.”
“Who?”
He shook his head and Bailey was uncertain whether because he didn’t know or didn’t want to say.
“That’s the last time we heard our mother’s voice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We awoke the next morning, and she was gone.” He cradled the glass between his palms, gingerly, as if afraid he could crush it without a thought. “Dad said he left her alone up on the deck. That he went to bed.”
Logan fell silent for a long moment, so long Bailey wondered if he would say more. Finally, he did.
“He radioed the coast guard, they searched.”
“Did they find her?” The words came out dry.
“A week later. Along the shore at Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville.”
Bailey laid a hand on her stomach. She felt sick.
“He was questioned by the police. He claimed he was so drunk, he passed out. That he never noticed she didn’t come to bed.” Logan took a swallow of the wine. “It took six years for charges to be brought against him. Paul and I testified against him at his trial.”
“Oh, my God, Logan. I’m so sorry.”
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “The jury deliberated less than an hour. And found him guilty.”
“Was he?” she asked. “Did he claim it was an accident or—”
“His story never changed. He insisted he left her there on the deck. The water was calm. We were anchored. He begged us to believe him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. All four of us knew he’d done it. Raine blames me. Roane did, as well.”
“No.” She got to her feet. “How can you—”
“I was the oldest. I should have checked on her. Or broken up their fight. It was my responsibility to step in.”
“You were a boy. Parents fight sometimes.”
“I was fifteen. Hell, almost sixteen. And no they don’t, not like that. At least not our parents.”
She suddenly realized what that meant. “Your father’s still alive?”
“No. He hung himself in prison. And then a year later, Roane hung himself in the old barn.”
Bailey didn’t know how to respond, what to say. Just imagining it for him, the man she knew and loved, hurt almost more than she could bear. She could only guess what it must be like for him. And for Raine.
“Now, tonight … I never believed what Dad accused her of. Never. Tonight I learned otherwise.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mom was having an affair. She was in love with Henry.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Raine found their love letters to each other. But there’s more. Raine and Roane, according to the letters—”
“Were Henry’s, not your dad’s.”
“Yes.”
She went to him, cupped his face in her palms. “This doesn’t change anything. She’s still your sister. Your mother still loved you … she was just human. Like the rest of us. Our new life starts now. Me and you and the baby.”
He covered her hands with his own, kissed her, then kissed her again. “Thank you.”
They gazed stupidly into each other’s eyes, their love fest broken by a deep, unmistakable gurgle of her stomach.
“I take it you haven’t eaten,” he said.
“I was waiting for you.”
“How about we grab something at Faye’s?”
“Sounds good.”
“Mind if I shower first?”
“Not at all.”
Bailey followed him upstairs, Tony at her heels. While Logan showered, she went back to the photos of Tony on her phone. It was a strange feeling, scrolling through pictures she intellectually knew she had taken, but had no memory of.
Bizarre. She cocked her head. Tony, just being Tony. The azaleas. Wildflowers. More azaleas.
And then … A red shoe. Nestled in mud. Incongruous among the sticks, soggy earth and shoots of spring growth.
Bailey stared at it, goose bumps roaring up her arms, her spine.
She remembered.
CHAPTER FORTY
Monday, April 21