The Bourbon Thief(92)

“You mean my father?”

“George,” her mother said definitively. “George was supposed to tell you the night of the flood. He was supposed to tell you who he was and who Levi was so you’d know why you two couldn’t be together. I guess he didn’t get around to telling you, did he?” Her mother looked at her finally.

“No,” Tamara said. “He did not.” She sighed and stared back at the ceiling, waiting, her hand resting lightly on her stomach, wanting to be close to what little bit of Levi she had inside her.

“I was in love with Eric,” her mother began speaking again. “So in love. But he treated me like a baby sister. I threw myself at him and he threw me off. I was only seventeen, so I thought I could make him love me. I went after Nash then, hoping to make Eric jealous. Nash and I got along real well, but he treated me like a sister, too, although for different reasons. When I tried to be with him, he pushed me away just like Eric had. Eric liked older women, wild women. Not dumb little girls. I didn’t want to be a dumb girl anymore. I was here at the house one day, nosing around for Eric or Nash. Neither of them were home. But George was. I poured my heart out to him and he poured his heart out to me. He wanted a divorce from his wife. Doctors told her she couldn’t have more kids after Nash, but George wanted more than two sons. Especially once he figured out Nash had no interest in getting married, no interest in women at all. But your grandmother was old-fashioned. She wouldn’t give him a divorce for anything. Not for love or money. I found out later my sweet mother-in-law wasn’t so old-fashioned, after all. What she was was very, very angry with George. That’s why she wouldn’t divorce him. She was punishing him.”

“Because of Levi?”

Her mother nodded. “I didn’t know about that then. I just knew I was lonely. George said if he were a younger man and single, he’d marry me himself. I said if he were single, I would marry him, and I didn’t care he was older. So he took me to bed that day and a hundred times after. When I found out I was pregnant, I hoped he’d get divorced and marry me. He didn’t. He had a different idea. He tried to force Eric to marry me, but Eric wouldn’t do it. Eric would rather join the army and get himself killed than bow to his father and marry some dumb girl like me. And Nash...you know about him now. But George talked him into it. I lied to Nash and said the baby was Daniel Headley’s. I thought if he knew it was his own father’s, he wouldn’t have anything to do with me or the baby. But he knew. He knew all along.”

“Daddy loved me,” Tamara said.

“Of course he did,” her mother said. “You were his half sister.”

Tears leaked out of Tamara’s eyes. She wanted to be sick. She was sick. But she kept it inside, swallowing her bile.

“Go on,” Tamara said, hoarse with anguish.

“Nash and I got married. I don’t know why he finally caved to his father, but he did. Maybe he knew he had to get married anyway, or people would start to wonder about him even more than they already did. Six months later you were born. A girl. George was disappointed, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Eric was still alive in Vietnam. Nash was alive. Then Eric was killed. So George demanded Nash do his duty as a husband and give him a grandson. Nash only laughed at him. So George took it on himself to do the job for him.”

“Daddy caught you two together, didn’t he? That’s what Levi heard. That’s why Daddy killed himself. If you hadn’t slept with Granddaddy, Daddy might still be alive.”

Daddy would be alive and Tamara would have been with him down on Bride Island. She would have slept in that pink room on her strawberry sheets and been happy. She would never have even met Levi. If her mother hadn’t killed Daddy.

“Slept with him?” her mother said, then laughed a sad terrible little laugh. “That sounds almost romantic. I had a child to raise. I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Not after he lied to me, got me pregnant, sold me off to marry one of his sons, sold me off like cattle. But George knew about Levi by then. And you know what he said to me? He said to me all the time, ‘Behave yourself, Virginia, or I will leave everything to Levi and you will have nothing. You will be out on the streets, and Levi will be swimming in gold.’”

“What did you do?”

Her mother paused and Tamara knew then what had happened. The same thing that happened to her the night the river saved her. But the river hadn’t saved her mother.

“I behaved myself.”

Those were the three ugliest words Tamara had ever heard in her life.

“George hired Levi to work right here at this house. Hired him to rub him in my face, to keep me quiet, to keep me behaving. Nash was dead. So was Eric. I didn’t know why he still wanted me around. He had other women on the side. Not just me. I don’t know what he thought I was good for. Your grandmother tried to kill herself after Nash died and all she succeeded in doing was making herself a vegetable.”

“Grandma tried to kill herself? Y’all said it was a stroke.”

“She took every pill in the house, baby. Gave her brain damage. I think she lived as long as she did to spite George. I don’t blame her for that.”

“Why did you never tell me this?”

“When your daddy...” Her mother paused, corrected herself. “Nash wrote me a letter right before he died and told me not to tell you he wasn’t your father. He loved you like his own, and he didn’t want anyone taking that away from you. And truth is, I was ashamed of it all, ashamed to tell you the truth. But when I caught you and Levi kissing in the barn, I knew it was time to tell you. George was going to tell you. If you hadn’t killed him, maybe he would have.”