Momma cocked an eyebrow and sat down across from me with a cup of coffee in her hand. “I call BS,” she just said. She sipped her coffee and studied me. “BS, you hear me. I don’t buy it,” making her point now more aggressively.
“Momma, let’s just leave him alone,” Bray said. He was the only one brave enough to say something like that to Momma. Except for me, and I wasn’t speaking.
Momma turned to glare down the table at Bray who was now looking like a little boy with his hand in the cookie jar. I would’ve laughed, if I wasn’t so fucked up. Dallas and Brent both snickered. They knew what was coming next.
“I don’t recall asking you what to do. I carried him for nine months and through ten hours of labor. Then I cleaned his nasty butt, nursed him when he was sick, held his hand while he got stitches, and let him puke all over me whenever he got food poisoning. So do not tell me what I can and can’t do. If and when I want to know about one of my boys, I will ask and get an answer. And you might be next, so shut your mouth and eat your breakfast. You’re in my house.”
Bray dropped his head and replied meekly, “Yes, ma’am.”
Momma swung her attention back to me. “Now, last time I checked, you kicked that sweet Dixie Monroe to the curb, without even a backwards glance. Wouldn’t say a word or look at her. I was worried about you getting too serious. You were young, so I didn’t push it. But three years have passed and when you should be attached to some girl you’ve met at college by now, you’re back here still looking heartbroken. Ain’t right. Don’t make sense to me. When a man looks like you, he has women beating down his door. But you’re alone. Explain that to me! It has to be you pushing them away. Steel loves that girl. He’s bought her a ring God knows he can’t afford, and now he’s broken up with her two days after you get home. I smell shit. S.H.I.T.”
I glanced down the table at Bray, but he was eating and not looking our way. Momma had put him in his place. Brent was watching us with worry in his eyes. He knew I couldn’t tell Momma the truth. They all did, but not one of them was trying to help me out. Suddenly, they were all mute.
“Maybe, he didn’t love her enough. Enough to fight for her and make sure she was protected from everything that could hurt her. Maybe, he wouldn’t sacrifice his happiness for hers. Maybe . . .” I stopped and stood up. “Momma, I love you, but I can’t talk about this. Not right now,” I said, leaving my plate on the table and heading for the door. If Steel could run out, so could I. Facing Momma right now wasn’t the best idea.
“You found them letters . . . now, didn’t you?” Momma’s words stopped me as my hand touched the screen. I froze. The letters. If she knew about the letters, then she knew . . .
What the fuck?
Turning around, I looked at her and saw the sadness in her eyes. “What letters?” I needed her to spell it out. If she was referring to the letters I found, then she shouldn’t have allowed Steel or me anywhere near Dixie Monroe in the first place.
“The letters from that woman to your daddy. I didn’t know where he hid them. But three years ago, you found them, didn’t you?” She nodded as if I’d confirmed this. “I wondered once back then when you looked so miserable, but then I thought, no, surely not. If you found something like that, you’d ask me about it, but you never did, so I figured it was something else. Now I see I made a grave mistake.”
I stared at my mother. She knew. But she . . .”Why would you let us, let me be with Dixie that way if you knew?” I was trying to grasp the fact that my mother knowingly had allowed Steel and myself to commit incest. The fucking world that I knew was warping before me.
Momma stood up and shook her head. “I’d have never let such a thing happen. That girl ain’t your daddy’s child. Luke Monroe has a paternity test that proves Dixie is his. Millie Monroe was the most beautiful woman in the county and probably the state, too. She could seduce a man like nothing I’d ever seen, but that woman, she was insane. Mentally screwed up, I tell you. She set her sight on your daddy and that meant she eventually got him. Your daddy was a man, that’s the only excuse I got for him back then and now. I forgave him a long time ago. Understand this, he never stopped trying to make it up to me. He did love me, he just let temptation get the best of him. Not the first and definitely not the last man to do that.”
If my daddy were still alive, I’d go kill him right now. Listening to my momma talk about him being seduced by another woman pissed the hell out of me.
“When I was gone to the doctor one day, Millie came to the barn and, well . . . she did some things any man would have a hard time refusing. Your daddy made a mistake. Then,” she sighed and added, “Millie came back and did it again a few more times after that. Your daddy was weak, so when Millie got pregnant, we didn’t know if it could be your daddy’s child. He admitted it to me right then. Everything he’d done. I was pregnant with Steel at the time. I had three babies I was taking care of and money was tight, you see. Your daddy used Millie as an escape from the troubles we were going through. I thought I’d leave him for a while, but he was so pitiful, and I loved him very much. It took a couple of years, but I finally forgave him. Anyway, when that little girl was born, I wanted a paternity test. So did your daddy. If that baby was his, we needed to know, but it wasn’t. Dixie was Luke’s. Period.”
“Holy fuck,” Bray swore, reminding me we weren’t alone, my brothers were still sitting there and listening to every word.
“Can’t believe I was even born. You shoulda killed him,” Dallas muttered.
Momma turned around and faced them all. “I loved that man. He loved and adored all of you. He was a good man who had weak moments. He made a mistake and I forgave him. It don’t change the fact you were his whole world. He loved each of you.” Her tone was determined and it showed she meant what she was saying. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive the man, but he was gone and being mad at him was pointless. In the end, he’d left us all anyway.
Momma looked back to me. “Where were those letters?” she asked.
“Loose floorboard in the attic,” I told her.