Nina felt tears sting the back of her eyes and made herself blink them back. “So you never told the boys why you left?” She searched his tortured expression. “So they don’t know that you’re not their biological father?”
“No.” Parker licked his dry lips. “I’ve debated telling them over the years,” he admitted. “Hoping that it would make them understand why I went away for all those years when they were younger. But each time I think of telling them something stops me. I think it’s fear that this time, it’ll be them who leaves me.”
“But you’re telling me?” Nina pointed out softly, and tried–and failed–not to be resentful of the sudden weight this knowledge brought. She now felt as if she had a python around her neck.
Parker sighed. “You wanted to know about Hugh’s drinking problem,” he said with a conflicted expression.
The lawyer in her, she thought wearily. Far too inquisitive. Drained, she swallowed, her heart heavy with sympathy for him. “You better go and rest. You’ve been up watching Ange for the last three hours.”
He nodded. “Yes. Thank you.” There was dampness on his cheek, he realized with some surprise. “Yes...thank you, Nina, for listening.”
She managed a smile. “Don’t mention it. I’ll see you later.”
He turned to leave, then stopped suddenly, a shocked gasp rising and dying on his lips.
“What?” Suddenly anxious, Nina arched her neck to see what he was staring at, and stilled, horror welling up inside her.
Parker stood staring at Justin who stood in the doorway Jake just behind him. From the look on both Justin and Jake’s faces, they had heard every word.
Chapter 4
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The silence dragged painfully on until Justin, his face having paled dramatically, finally broke it. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes from Parker. “I – I...came to see how...” He looked blankly across at Angela as if he’d forgotten her name. “I came to see... to see how she was doing,” he finished.
Having sat up, Nina could see Parker’s shocked expression. He looked ready to throw up. “That’s...that’s good of you, Justin,” he said in a strangled voice, then obviously remembering Jake who stood just behind Justin, Parker jerked his gaze to him. “Jake.”
Justin turned to face Jake.
“I uh...” Jake tore his gaze from Parker to Nina. “It’s my turn to watch Angela.”
“I have to go.” Justin almost barreled into Jake in his haste to get away. Jake moved aside to let him move past.
Oh God, what a mess, Nina stared at Justin’s stunned face. Please, she thought, please let it be by some miracle that Justin had not heard her and Parker’s conversation. This was not the way anyone should learn the deception surrounding the circumstances of their birth. Jake, she saw, looked just as stunned as Justin, though Jake appeared to be doing his best to hide it. She couldn’t see Parker’s face, and could only hope he would be prepared for whatever came next. More guilt fled through her. She should never have pressed him about Hugh’s drinking. What if Parker now blamed her for this? What if he saw her nosiness as a reason to end his professional relationship with their firm? Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. It was crazy for her to be thinking about that when holed up in a snow cave, she knew it, but she couldn’t help it. The law firm was their daily bread. Once they got out of here – and they would get out of here – Parker remained their biggest client. This networking trip was his generous attempt to introduce her, Ange and Neil to more clients. As a business owner who had started young he had shared empathy with getting established and needing clients. It had been why he had been willing to take time out and organize this trip. God, what if she’d wrecked that chance? What if—?
“Justin–” Parker’s anguished cry cut into her inner thoughts, and she watched, heartsick as Parker started after Justin. Realizing he still held the thermometer, he thrust it into Jake’s hands and hobbled after Justin.
Nina stared at the space Parker and Justin had vacated, then raised her eyes to Jake’s shuttered ones. “How much did you hear?”
“Most of it.” Jake turned his gaze to Angela. “Justin got here before me so he likely heard more.”
“Great.” Feeling for Parker, she shook her head. “Justin shouldn’t have learned that this way.”
Jake eyed her curiously. “No, but clearly, no one has ever told Drayton not to conduct confessionals in open spaces.” Before she could respond he nodded at Angela. “My turn to take over, right?”
She nodded and slipped off Angela’s sleeping platform, her thoughts still with Parker. “Yeah. Thanks. I could do with more sleep.”
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“Our whole lives you’ve lied to us,” Justin’s lips barely moved as he forced the words out. He braced on the edge of his sleeping platform like a bird about to take flight, his eyes hard with disbelief. “I heard everything. Our whole identity is a lie.”
“That’s not true, Justin.” Parker’s hands were growing clammy. While the weight of this truth had almost destroyed him over the years, he had never wanted the boys to find out like this.
“Can you two keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.”
Parker and Justin turned to see Hugh eyeing them resentfully. His broken leg still attached firmly to his good one, both legs jutting out in front of him.
“Get up,” Justin snapped. “This involves you.”
Parker’s stomach rolled with nausea. “Justin,” he pleaded. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what?” Justin blazed. “Tell the truth? Doesn’t he have a right to know?” Justin’s eyes were savage. “Or do you want him to die out here not knowing?”
A haunted look came over Hugh’s face. “No one else is dying,” he croaked. “No one. No one else is going. I can’t–”
“Take it easy.” Now Justin sounded apologetic. “No one else is dying.”
Hugh gulped, nodded his head vigorously. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just...I can’t.” He looked up at Parker, looking like a lost little boy. “Everything’s gotten out of hand. Dad–”
“Don’t call him that,” Justin cut in. “He’s not our biological father. He’s had tests done.”
“Good God, Justin,” Parker cried. “At least let me tell him in my own time and way!”
Hugh stared at Justin. “What? What are you talking about?”
Justin raised a brow, and even in the dim room, Parker could see the anger and bitterness in the small gesture. “Ask him,” he ordered Hugh. “Go on. Ask him if he’s our father.”
“I will not. It’s ridiculous.” Struggling into a sitting position, Hugh rested his back against the wall for support.
“Ridiculous?” Justin rounded on him. “Then ask him why he disappeared for those three years when we were kids. Ask him why mother couldn’t bear to have his name mentioned.” His voice rose until it resounded in their small room. “Ask him why we were kicked out of that house in Sawyer Gardens and into that crummy little flat because mother couldn’t afford the mortgage anymore. Go on,” he raged. “Ask him. He–”
“What do you mean you were kicked out of Sawyer Gardens?” Parker interrupted, stunned.
Justin’s whole body vibrated with anger as he turned back to face Parker. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. We were kicked out. You stopped making the payments and we couldn’t afford to live there anymore. I get it all now.” His mouth twisted with bitterness and he turned away. “I get it all now.”
Hugh blinked owlishly. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Answer me,” he whispered through stiff lips when both men remained silent. “I don’t give a crap about Sawyer Gardens. Is what Justin saying true? Are you not our real father?”
Parker hesitated, his eyes miserable on Hugh’s face.
“Answer him,” Justin ordered. “He has a right to know.”
He wasn’t going to lose them, Parker vowed. “I’m your father in all the ways that count” His voice was staunch.
; “Oh, my God, it is true?” Hugh breathed. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. “I feel sick.”
“Hugh–” Parker implored, but Justin cut him off.
“That’s why he left for all that time when we were younger,” Justin repeated to Hugh. “He’s known for years.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Hugh was shouting now, anger slicing through his initial silenced shock. “Why didn’t mother tell us?”
Parker swallowed. “I only found out when your mother and I had an argument one day.” He bit his lip before continuing. “But I still loved you like you were my own flesh and blood.”
“I heard you tell Nina that it got easier to stay away from us, so don’t lie to me now.”
Parker winced at how that must have sounded to Justin. “I didn’t mean it like it must have sounded, Justin.”
“If that was the case why did you leave for three years?” Justin demanded. “Why did you–?” His voice broke, and Parker’s heart, which he’d thought was already broken, shattered even more at the misery and pain on Justin’s face. “Everything...changed when you left. We went from the house on Sawyer Gardens to that–”
“You said that before about leaving Sawyer Gardens,” Parker cut in quickly. That fact baffled him, but also made a distant kind of sense. When they had been reunited three years after his departure, neither the boys nor Julia had been living in Sawyer Gardens, which was the house that they had all lived in when he used to live with them. As the boys had never referred to the house or wanted to talk about it when he had asked, he had assumed they had moved out. The one and only time he had pressed the boys about the house, Hugh’s face had closed up in anger and Justin had grown even more distant. He had therefore tactfully let the subject drop then, but he wasn’t going to now. “What happened with the Sawyer Gardens house, Justin?”
Justin sent him a look of disdain. “We were kicked out.”
Parker stared. “What? That can’t be true.”
Justin’s eyes frosted over. “I was there. You weren’t. Of course it’s true. Unlike you, I don’t lie.”
Parker held out an imploring hand, his palm out. “Please, just let me explain–”
“Why?” Hugh cut in angrily. “So you can tell more lies? God, I need a drink.”
Parker’s stomach chilled. “Hugh–”
“I could do with one too,” Justin said bitterly.
“Sawyer Gardens was bought and paid for,” Parker got in doggedly. He had to get that truth in if nothing else. On that one fact he wouldn’t let go.
“You expect us to believe that?” Justin scorned.
“I’m not a liar, Justin.” As soon as the words left his mouth Parker realized his critical mistake.
Justin shot an amused glance at Hugh. “Apparently he’s not a liar.”
Hugh just looked at Parker.
“I’m not lying about the house,” Parker insisted. “I bought Sawyer Gardens lock, stock, and barrel. Your mother was the owner. I put the house in her name. I still have the sale agreement in my study at home back in London to prove it.” If he ever made it back to London, he thought grimly.
Justin’s eyes narrowed. “Then why were we kicked out a year after you left? She said the Landlord was kicking us out.”
Shock and anger vicious and hot, began to pulse through Parker. “She lied,” he bit out. As he had done himself, he acknowledged. “I have the receipt of the house purchase in my study back in London,” he repeated. “It’s in your mother’s name. I continued making all the payments on the house after I left. I wanted you and Hugh to be secure.”
Justin eyed him, full of distrust, and Parker hated it.
“It’s true,” Parker snapped. “If – when we get back to London, I’ll show you the purchase receipt. The house was for the three of you. She must have sold it.”
“Maybe,” Justin murmured with a confused frown. He glanced over at Hugh who continued to stare at Parker as if seeing him for the first time. “Maybe. Do you remember, Hugh, all those different people who kept coming to see the house? How Mum would always make us start cleaning a couple of hours before they arrived? Saying how pretty and spacious it was? I couldn’t figure out what that was about back then, but it makes sense now.”
“I remember,” Hugh muttered. “I hated cleaning. Still do.”
“So maybe we weren’t kicked out like she said,” Justin continued. “She sold it. I never saw her talk to a landlord,” he admitted pensively, and shook his head in disbelief. “Of course we never saw a landlord. She was the landlord.” He threw up his hands in disgust. “Lies. More lies. Is mother really our mother?”
Hugh’s shocked eyes flew to Parker.
“Of course she is,” Parker answered with exasperation. “You’re letting your imagination run wild, Justin.”
“What the hell do you expect?” Justin fumed. “All these lies. Can no one tell the truth?”
Parker shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to answer that. “So you had to leave Sawyer Gardens?” How dare Julia do that? If she hadn’t cared about herself, she could have at least thought of the boys. “She obviously kept the money for herself.”
“Kept the money? Mother?” Justin gave a humorless laugh. “She can’t keep hold of twenty quid for longer than ten minutes, let alone the hundreds of thousands of pounds she likely got from selling that house. Have you forgotten what she’s like with money?”
Parker didn’t reply, unwilling to remember any of Julia Grosvenor’s unsavory qualities. “Where did you move to after you left Sawyer Gardens?” He looked from Hugh to Justin. “You said something about a flat?”
“Yes,” Justin bit out shortly. “The three of us moved into one, and then she went travelling for three weeks.”
“Travelling for three–?” Parker sank onto his sleeping platform in shock. “She left you alone for three weeks? To go where?”
Justin sent Hugh a disbelieving look. “Are you buying this shocked and innocent act?”
“Just tell me, Justin,” Parker grated.
“She went to Las Vegas, or at least, that’s where she said she was when she bothered to call a week later.”
Parker pressed his fingers to his right temple. Julia had left two young boys and gone to Vegas after all. No doubt she had gone with her loser longtime friend and drinking companion Grant Ellis. And no doubt, she had used some of the money received from the sale of the house in Sawyer Gardens. Words failed to describe the emotions swirling inside him. He couldn’t believe what Justin was telling him, didn’t want to believe it. Was there an adequate word for such a person as Julia? he wondered. He’d loved her once, or at least he’d thought he had. But looking back, he realized he’d never known her. The woman he’d thought he’d known and loved had never existed. “I’m sorry,” he said hollowly. “She was your mother; she should have looked after you.”
“We know that,” Justin derided, “but mother can hardly look after herself.”
“Was she still working?”
Hugh and Justin exchanged a glance and didn’t answer.
“Please tell me,” Parker insisted. “I need to know.”
“She was using,” Hugh admitted with obvious reluctance.
“Using? You mean drugs?” Parker stared at them, wiling them to deny it. Yet it all made sense. The lapses of concentration she often had when they’d lived together, the erratic behavior, the glassy eyed dizziness she blamed on looking after the boys. Not to mention the large sums of money that disappeared without explanation. Why had he never made the connection? He had put it all down to alcohol, but it must have been more. God, how blind had he been? “She never did it in the house while I was living with her–”
“Of course not.” Hugh’s mouth had flattened to a thin, grim line. “She knew you’d go crazy. But when you left there wasn’t anyone to say no to her. That loser Ellis would come over and they’d both do needles. Get stoned.”
Parker flinched. He didn’t even want to hear that man’s name on his son
’s lips. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Yeah. They’d drink for hours. So I guess that’s where I get my love of alcohol from.” Hugh gave a humorless laugh.
A heavy weight pressed down on Parker’s chest. “I’ve always said we can get help for your drinking, Hugh, but you have to want help. There’s no need for you to go the same way as your mother.”
“Get help?” Hugh’s mouth trembled. “What for? To reunite with a drunken mother and a nameless father who–”
“I’m your father.”
“Still want that label, do you?” Justin looked almost bored as he met Parker’s tortured gaze. “If you feel that way, then why did you leave all those years ago?”
“I’m sorry I did.” Parker had to clear his throat as regret clogged it. “You don’t know how sorry. I was in shock when I learned that I wasn’t your biological father. I needed time to think. I could only do that by myself.”
Hugh stared at a point over Parker’s shoulders. “Three years is a long time to think.”
“Too long, I know.” Parker’s words rang with regret.
“Then when you came back three years later you expected everything to be the same,” Justin said with disbelief. “You disappeared without so much as a goodbye, and then expected us to trust you, to rely on you. We couldn’t, still can’t.”
“You put up a wall between us,” Parker said. A wall, he thought with bitter regret, that he still found himself on the other side of.
“It’s called self-preservation,” Justin retorted. “What did you expect? For us to have left our emotions wide open to be bruised all over again if you should ever take it up in your head to walk out on us again. You sent no letters made no phone calls. You just left us to worry, to hurt, to wonder if you were even still–” Justin broke off abruptly and looked away.
Even still alive, Parker concluded achingly. “I’m sorry,” he managed. But it didn’t matter how many times he apologized, he knew the damage was done. And what Justin had just learned about him today only made things worse. “It was difficult when I came back into your lives three years later. I’ll never forget the look on both your faces when we met again. You were...” He swallowed. “Angry. Bitter.” And hateful, he remembered. Not much had changed over the years since. Only now, he knew there was more to their animosity. “I thought your anger towards me was purely because I’d gone away. I know that was bad enough, but it was a lot more than that, wasn’t it?”
Spiral and Torn Books 1 and 2 of The Salzburg Saga Trilogy Page 18
