by Kim Law
When he set her on her feet, she was fairly certain she glowed. Her family was home. Most of them.
“I wish Nate were here,” she exclaimed.
“I’m here, sis.”
The words came from Gabe’s cell lying in the middle of the coffee table.
“Nate!” She moved to the table, and stood looking down, her hands clasped in front of her. “Come home, you idiot. Would you do that for me, please? I’m desperate to see you.”
Nate hadn’t been home in more than two years.
A rumble of laughter came from the speaker. “I booked a flight today. I’ll be home this time next week. Sorry I’m not there right now . . .”
“I know. You’re busy. But next week will be great. I’ll cook your favorite meal.”
“Or maybe I’ll cook yours.”
“Right,” she teased. As far as she knew, none of her brothers even knew where the stove was. They could only find the kitchen because it had a fridge in it.
She caught a gentle smile from Ben, who remained at the edge of the kitchen, then he winked and headed down the hall. She was left in the family room, standing in the middle of her brothers, and for the first time in a long while, she felt like everything was okay with her world. She had her family. She’d done her mother proud.
“So let’s get to it,” Gabe spoke up, reminding everyone of why they were there.
Dani nodded impatiently, and took a seat on the coffee table beside the phone. Everyone else settled on the furniture and turned to Gabe.
“So it looks like I’ll be moving,” he started.
The air went out of Dani’s lungs, because even though she’d known it was coming, she hadn’t been able to keep from hoping he’d change his mind.
She also noted that no one in the room seemed surprised by the announcement.
Seriously? They’d all known about this? Irritation tickled in her throat. She should have known he’d tell the boys before he told her. Or more accurately, he’d had no intention of telling her at all.
“Before I start looking for a foreman to be here when I’m not,” Gabe continued, “I need to ask if any of you want to run things.”
Dani looked, one by one, at her brothers, certain someone would speak up. Not Cord, of course; he was a doctor. But Nick couldn’t be a bull rider forever, and he’d never left Montana on a permanent basis. Clearly he loved the area.
Yet he remained silent.
Then she turned to Jay and smiled. Did he really have a baby on the way?
“Jaden?” she asked when the youngest didn’t look at her. “I thought you might want to take over. It would be a great opportunity for you, and we could bring you in more help since you’ll be doing the books, too. And if you and Megan . . .”
She trailed off as she realized that no one at all was looking at her. In fact, they were making it a point not to look at her. Nerves tingled on the back of her neck. She was missing something.
“What is it?” she asked abruptly. She knew their nonlooks well enough to understand they didn’t want to tell her something. “Is it the pregnancy? Ben told me.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“Pregnancy?” Cord asked. “Who’s pregnant?” His eyes dropped to her stomach and his jaw hardened.
“Not me,” she squeaked. She pointed at her youngest brother. “Jaden.”
“Well, hell. I’m not pregnant.”
“You know what I mean. Megan.”
The room once again went silent, except for Nate clearing his throat through the phone.
“You knocked her up?” Nate’s voice sounded in the room.
Jaden shook his head. “I did not knock her up.”
“But—”
“And Ben told you this?” Gabe interrupted Dani.
She replayed her conversation with Ben, remembering that he hadn’t actually told her anything. “Not in so many words, I guess. He said there was something about Jaden that you should tell me.” She glanced toward the hallway. She could hear Ben and the girls playing upstairs, and assumed Megan might even be in there with them since she wasn’t down here. “She’s not pregnant?”
“No,” Jaden answered. He rose from his seat and paced the length of the room.
“Then what do you need to tell me?”
This time, Nate didn’t even clear his throat. There was only the silence.
“Come on, guys.” Nerves had her bouncing the heel of her foot. “What is it?”
“Quit shaking your leg,” Nate said from beside her. “You’re rattling the phone in my ear.”
“Sorry,” she muttered. She forced herself to be still and turned to Jay.
“She’s not pregnant,” he finally replied. He took a deep breath. “But I am moving in with her.”
“Dani,” Gabe started before Jaden could say more. He ignored their younger brother’s glare. “What he’s saying is, he doesn’t want to run the place either. He has other plans.”
“What I’m saying is . . .” Jaden stressed his words, and Dani swiveled back to him. The glasses perched on his nose gave him a slightly different look than the rest of her brothers, yet he still had plenty of the Wilde characteristics in him. Meaning, he was full of stubborn. “That I’m not coming home at all,” he finished.
It took a moment for his words to register. When they did, Dani rose from her seat. “You have to come home. You’re taking over my job.”
“I’m not. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that before. I didn’t even get an accounting degree.”
She didn’t understand. Jaden always ran a little more rebellious than the rest of them, yeah. Nothing illegal or out of control, as Nate had been known to do, but as the youngest child, Jaden often walked right along the edge of the line. He pushed the limit. He said things others wouldn’t.
But to not come home? To not get the degree?
“He did get an accounting degree,” Gabe added, his tone sounding exhausted.
“I minored in accounting,” Jay corrected. “But my major is psychology. My interest is psychology. Which is why I’ll be going to school in Seattle next fall, working on my master’s.”
“You’re going back to school?” Dani asked, and for the first time since she’d come home to take care of her brothers all those years ago, she lit up with anger over what she’d done without. “I had a full ride to Columbia, and I killed it to come home,” she said, her voice rising with her words. “Gabe got to go to school the very next year. All of you have gone on to do what you want. And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for each of you. But now, when I have the chance to go back to New York, to finally start the life I’ve always wanted, you’re going to be so selfish as to continue on in school?”
“You could have gone back to school years ago,” Jaden shot back. “No one asked you to stay all this time.”
“And you could come home now and put in your time here.”
Jaden ignored her response and faced Gabe. “And personally,” he said to his brother, “I don’t think you should have to go back and forth either. Unless you want to. You’re moving to LA. Go live your life. We can find someone to run the whole thing. Living in the house could even be a perk, help with the cost of hiring out.”
“No!” Dani shouted. She stood in the middle of the floor shaking her head. “No,” she said again. “We can’t just give everything to somebody else.”
“We wouldn’t be giving it to someone else,” Gabe said, trying to soothe her. “It would still be our farm. Just not managed by us. And we would all still come home for harvest.”
“But our house.”
“Then fine,” Jaden added, his frustration evident. “We don’t have to include the house if that’s a big deal. We can see how this works out first. Add it in later if we want to.”
Dani looked wildly from one brother to the other. Th
ey all cut glances at her, but no one made direct eye contact. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Why won’t one of you run it? It’s Dad’s legacy. It would break Mom’s heart if she were here to see how things are falling apart.”
They all remained silent.
“What?” she shouted frantically. She was still missing something.
“Maybe none of us want to do it because of Mom,” Jaden suggested. His words stopped Dani in her tracks.
“Jaden—” Gabe butted in.
“What do you mean?” Dani asked.
No one answered.
“Gabe?” She turned to her oldest brother. “What does he mean?”
“Your memories are different from ours,” Gabe said gently. “That’s all.”
“What memories?”
“Mom wasn’t a saint, Dani.” Jaden’s voice rose with his words. “Not even close.”
Nate cleared his throat.
“I never said she was a saint,” she shot back.
“You haven’t said anything about her for years except how proud we’ve got to make her,” Nick pointed out. She faced him, and he went on, his gaze no longer breaking from hers. “You haven’t let us change a thing in this house since she died, Dani. It’s a shrine to her. Why do you think Dad moved out?”
Dani gaped. “That makes no sense. Why wouldn’t he want to be in the home he’d made with the woman he loved?”
Cord snorted. So far that was his only contribution to the argument.
“What?” She whirled on him. “You don’t think Dad loved Mom? Hell, maybe he didn’t. Maybe that’s why he’s marrying Gloria now.”
“Mom’s been gone fourteen years,” Cord interjected. “You think he’s supposed to stop living because she died? Gloria makes him happy. They should have gotten married years ago.”
“I know,” Dani said, “it’s just . . .” She hadn’t meant to get on the topic of their dad, but now that they were, she couldn’t help but continue. She pulled in a shaky breath. “Did he not love Mom?” It felt like that sometimes, though she’d been reluctant to admit it. The way he never talked about her. Dani couldn’t remember the last time her dad had actually uttered her mother’s name. It was as though she hadn’t existed.
“Of course he loved Mom,” Gabe answered. Cord snorted again.
Dani’s temper flared. “Seriously, am I the only one who misses her? Who feels bad that her life ended the way it did? She didn’t mean to die! We should have done something to keep the accident from happening. We should honor her better than we are.”
A muscle ticked in Cord’s jaw.
“Let’s get back on topic,” Gabe spoke up. “The farm. The house.” He stood from his spot on the couch and looked at Dani. Her breathing was ragged.
“What am I not remembering correctly?” she asked the room. She would not let this go.
“It’s not just that she wasn’t a saint,” Jay added callously. “She was a cold-hearted bitch.”
Dani gasped. “She was not!”
“I may not remember it as clearly as everyone else, but I remember enough,” he said. “She was heartless, Dani. She didn’t care about us. That very fact has shaped my entire life. It’s shaped all of us.”
“Ask me how many times she ever came into our room,” Nate spoke from the phone.
Dani stared down at the object. “What do you mean?”
“Never,” Nick added. “No good-nights, no waking us up. She certainly didn’t deign to come in and play with us.”
“She didn’t love us, Dani,” Nate said. “She manipulated us. You most of all.”
“No, she did not.” Dani stared wide-eyed at her brothers, but no one backed her up. “Guys,” she pleaded. “Come on. Tell him he’s wrong. She would have done anything for us. That’s why I’m here. Because I couldn’t let her down. We can’t let her down now. She—”
“She killed herself,” Cord suddenly roared.
The room went deathly silent, and Dani saw Ben standing in the kitchen, his expression as shocked as hers.
“The kids,” Ben started. He lifted a hand and pointed vaguely toward the ceiling. “They’re in bed, but . . .” His gaze locked on Dani’s, and she could see his worry for her before he shifted to Cord and then to Gabe. “Your voices are carrying upstairs,” he finished.
Gabe nodded, muttered, “We’ll keep it down,” and Dani dropped back to the coffee table.
Cord rose from his seat and came over to sit beside Dani, and Ben quietly left the room.
“I don’t understand.” Dani’s voice shook. “Why would you say that? You don’t mean suicide?”
“I do.” Cord didn’t sound confused, but Dani knew he had to be.
“No.” She shook her head. “It was an accident. She was running errands. She had a migraine.”
“She wanted it to look that way,” Cord told her. “But I was there. It wasn’t an accident.”
She stared at him. “You saw it happen?”
“No. I—”
“Then how can you even say that?” She was equal parts mortified and scared.
“We’ve talked about it before,” Gabe spoke up, his voice grim. “When you look at the facts, she did it to herself, though we doubt she intended to go so far as to kill herself.”
So many thoughts spun through her head all at once. She landed on the one she could best deal with. “You’ve talked about it before,” she repeated. “Meaning, all of you. Without me?”
They’d all known Gabe was leaving, they’d clearly known Jaden wasn’t coming home, and they’d also talked about their mother’s death. Without her. Had they ever included her in anything?
She’d thought they were a team.
Yet clearly they weren’t. Not with them keeping everything from her.
She shook her head again, her hands shaking in her lap, and Cord pulled her to his side.
“It came up a few years ago,” he explained gently. “Most of us had reason to wonder, but we’d kept it to ourselves, because it sounded so crazy. Until Jaden told us what he’d learned.”
Her eyes were so dry she couldn’t blink. “What was that?”
“Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” Jaden said from where he now stood by the fireplace. “Our mother was a classic example.”
Gabe crossed his arms over his chest, but he didn’t say anything.
“You’ve forgotten what she was like, Dani.” This came from Nick. “After you came home, you went into a kind of frenzy to keep everything going, wanting the house to be perfect, us to be perfect. You wouldn’t let anyone say a negative thing about her, so none of us ever questioned how things had been.”
“Not that we would have questioned anything out loud,” Nate added sarcastically. “We were masters at never admitting the obvious. She taught us well.”
“I don’t understand,” Dani whimpered.
“Narcissistic Personality Disorder is more than simply being self-absorbed,” Jaden explained. “Almost everyone has moments of narcissistic traits—being conceited, selfish—but our mother went beyond that. Hers was a mental disorder in which she had a deep-seated need to be the center of attention. All the time. At the cost of anyone and everyone around her. And she accomplished this by employing a lifetime of manipulating those closest to her.”
“After the funeral,” Nick jumped back in, “you went nuts if we didn’t put her on some sort of pedestal. It was as if you couldn’t remember what she’d really been like.” He gave a little shrug and glanced momentarily at his feet. “Or maybe we were the ones remembering incorrectly—or so we thought. There were a lot of unvoiced questions for a long time. So instead of pushing back against you and all that you were doing for us, instead of bringing up memories of things we weren’t even sure had happened, it seemed easiest to go along. We took our anger, and shoved it out of the way. And we let y
ou do your thing.”
“But it ate at us,” Cord finished.
Dani remained close to Cord’s side, but she looked over at Gabe. He had yet to contribute to this absurdity. He didn’t agree with this, did he?
“So, you all knew from the beginning,” she began, quickly sorting through everything that had been said, “or believed from the beginning . . . that Mom killed herself, yet you didn’t think it was important to share that with me?”
“It was that whole don’t-talk-about-how-messed-up-we-are thing,” Nate explained.
“I don’t know what you mean by that.” She shrugged off Cord’s arm and stood.
“I mean, we were the perfect family in public, Dani. Always. Mom looked the part. Hell, she played the part. The town believed in her sainthood. But at home? When the doors were closed? She fucked us all up.”
Dani couldn’t do more than stare at the phone.
“Even Dad,” Jaden added. “For narcissists, it’s all about them. She didn’t have the capability to be empathetic toward any of us. Her world revolved around her, and her actions were based purely on getting what she wanted. We had to earn her love, yet that was impossible. It was worse with you because you’re a girl—in direct competition with her as a woman.”
Dani narrowed her eyes at Jay’s words. She hadn’t been in competition with their mom.
“I think even as small kids,” he continued, “us younger brothers picked up on the fact that you got the worst end of things. You were her direct target. But it’s not like she left the rest of us alone. Narcissists need everyone in their lives to revolve around them. They’re known to pit siblings against each other to keep the focus on themselves. If you don’t know if you can trust your brother . . .”—Jaden glanced at Cord and Gabe—“then you’ll turn to your mother. Even a mother who twisted the facts whenever it suited her, simply to keep a cohesive family unit from forming, to make sure she was always the center of attention.”
Had their mother done that to them?
