“But now, here you are. No one would ever know how much you struggled that first year of life.”

I listened intently, even though her story was one I’d heard numerous times. Usually, it accompanied a milestone event, like graduating to the next grade in school.

“That was when everything changed with your father.”

My ears perked up. That was not her typical statement made after the flashback. Normally, it was the level of pride she felt for me that followed it.

Mom had my complete attention.

“He wasn’t a bad man before. Never raised a hand. Now, I don’t want you to believe you were the cause of his anger. It was never you. He was angry at me, because he thought I couldn’t give him a healthy son.”

Her sniffles echoed around the room.

“I let it go on for so long. Too long. The day he left was the happiest in my life… until I learned how devilish he truly was.

“Your father had a whole other family on the side. A wife, stepchildren, two dogs. The sad part was she knew about us the entire time. She relished the weeks he didn’t return to her.”

“He… he hit her too? And the kids?”

“She and I never went into the details, but I assume so.”

“Do I have siblings?” I choked out the words.

“No. They were hers from a previous relationship.”

“Wow,” I whispered, leaning my elbows on my knees as I ran my hands through my hair. Talk about an overload of information.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. That’s not even the worst of it.”

“What?”

How was the man causing all this devastation from the grave? Did he make a deal with the devil?

Unable to process what she told me so far, I stood, chugged my glass of water, and walked back to the kitchen. I needed something stronger. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I cracked it open and gulped it down, then followed it with another. I didn’t care it was early in the morning.

“Owen?” Mom questioned as she stood in the opening between the living area and the kitchen. I rested back against the closed fridge, craving the distance.

“Just… get it out, Mom.”

“When your father died, I thought it was the best thing that could have ever happened. By the time you left for college, he was never around, so I lived in peace for those few years. Then the first letters and calls started up right before you were drafted by the Coyotes.”

The letter and calls she told me about when I first got to Ashfield, the conversation that sent me storming off to the bar that night. Collections, banks, pretty much anyone my father owed money to. All those years he tried to do something with the farm, he’d taken out loans in my mother’s name.

She continued, “Now, Jim never gave me access to any of the bank statements. Anytime I asked or questioned where the money was coming and going, he would blow up. It was easier to stay quiet.

“I told you he had two mortgages against the house and some personal loans. But what I didn’t get the chance to tell you, because your reaction to only those was bad enough, was he also had two more on the land alone, and he put the farm as collateral on a business loan.”

The bottle of beer nearly slipped from my fingers as I stared at my mother in shock.

“He…? That bastard! How much money? Why didn’t you use the money I sent you? How much do I need, in order to get us out of this hole?”

“None.” My mother smiled sweetly, as if she were in on some secret. Then my entire world exploded as it all hit me like an asteroid.

“It was the Easterlys. They bailed us out, didn’t they? I should have fucking known.”

“They did, and it was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, Owen. They paid far more than that land was worth, and the house isn’t even inhabitable.”

Pushing past my mother, I brushed her shoulder harder than I intended in my anger, but she stood there stoically, like the rock she was. The sliding glass door banged against its frame as I made my way outside.

I didn’t care that the worn wood of the deck might leave splinters in my bare feet or that the morning sun was blazing down on me. I’d sat through worse.

Lifting the bottle to my lips, I stewed over the knowledge that Aspen knew about my family farm all along and said nothing. She’d had so much time to tell me. I’d been home for less than two weeks, but we’d spent a lot of that time together.

Less than two weeks, and everything had changed.

A friend would have told me. A true friend wouldn’t have kept the secret this long.

“I told Aspen not to tell you. She’d been begging me since the sale went through to say something,” my mom said, as if reading my thoughts as she sat beside me with her own beer in hand. Neither of us seemed to care that it was barely nine in the morning. “That’s on me, not her. I also can’t say I expected y’all to form a friendship, much less so quickly after your return. So don’t hold it against her or the Easterlys. This was a decision I made when your father died.”

I wondered what would’ve happened if my father hadn’t died. Would my mother have continued working odd jobs to try to pay back all the loans? My father put them all in her name. Did he do this to his other family too? I was riddled with questions that would never be answered. The bastard died and took it all to hell with him.

I’d bring him back to life one more time just to send him to the grave myself.

“I hate him.” My words faltered, and a took a breath, looking up to the sky through a glassy view. “I hate him so much.”

“I do too. The only good thing that man did in my life was give me you.”

Finishing my beer, I spun the bottle back and forth between my palms, watching as my forearm flexed with each turn. The veins made the mountains and trees of my tattoo look like they were moving.

“Why didn’t you use any of the money I sent you every month?”

Instead of answering, she repeated what she told me the day I got home. “I put it in a trust in your name at the bank. You’re the only one who can access it.”

Nodding, I wished she kept the money for herself. My mother had been through too much to be living in a bed-and-breakfast where she worked. A job she didn’t even need to have.

“You should renew your nursing license. Maybe you can take over this rental when I leave.”

“I’m happy, Owen. I enjoy working at the B&B. And I’m the only one living there full-time. It’s like living in my dream home. Entertaining the guests is one of my favorite things. I always wanted to host Tupperware parties like those moms on television. When we moved out here, I thought that would’ve been be my chance. Never occurred to me we moved here because your father was out-schemed and needed to hide.

“Anyway… I’m perfectly happy with how my life is right now.”

Turning my head to stare at my mother, I could see she was telling the truth. Even after everything she told me, this was the happiest I’d ever seen her. The healthiest too. I was no longer afraid I’d find her ankles covered in rope burns or a boot mark along her stomach. Her brown hair was soft and shiny, not the dull, lifeless strands I remembered growing up.

“I… I don’t know what to do with all this information,” I confessed. “I don’t know how to process it all.”

“I understand,” Beverly replied. “I need to run a few errands, but if it’s all right with you, maybe you could join me for lunch tomorrow.”

“Sure. That sounds nice.”