The Last Invitation (44)

Kennedy picked at the comforter, tracing her finger over the subtle pattern on it. “Okay.”

Gabby knew that typical teen “okay” packed a punch. That being reassured of Baines’s love and devotion meant everything. “Liam also loves you, regardless of what he thought his relationship with you was. He didn’t have to be your dad to want to protect you and make you happy.”

Kennedy’s shoulders slumped, and her hand fell limp. “This is so embarrassing. I don’t get how you could do that to the family. They were brothers, which is just gross. Did you two always have sex, even now?”

“No.” Gabby needed Kennedy to understand that truth and how the entire mess started. “We all grew up together. Everyone always thought your dad and I would end up together. We hung out. We talked and had fun. Falling into a romance was inevitable—then one day I realized I was more invested and in love with the idea of marriage than with your dad.”

“That’s weird.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” She’d made sure Kennedy grew up feeling loved and not looking for affection in other places. “Don’t get angry. I’m not saying you’re too young. I’m pointing out that we were raised differently. Dad and Liam didn’t have any stability growing up. Your grandfather gambled away the family car. They got evicted. Lost everything. Your grandfather, who you never knew, was always chasing a new scheme and would take his sons along. Endanger them. Then there was my family. I was with my mom, who was . . .”

“Dad used to call her a bitch.”

Baines wasn’t wrong about that. Her mother had been selfish and viewed motherhood as a burden. At times she tried to hide it, but the sicker she got as the lung cancer took hold, the angrier and more open about life’s disappointments she became.

“She made terrible decisions when it came to men and didn’t really love having a kid. She made sure I knew that.” Gabby took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “My biological father was married and picked his wife and family over us, and my mom banged that betrayal into my head every single day. She threatened to ruin him, to expose him, all while refusing to let him meet me.”

Kennedy followed every word. “That sucks.”

“It did, and it made me more reliant on your dad and Liam. None of us had great role models or a lot of parental affection. As a result, I craved security and this vision I had of a healthy, happy family in a nice house. No yelling. Enough food.”

Kennedy snorted. “Everybody yells. Especially you.”

“You usually deserve it.” Some days Gabby wished she’d been blessed with a fraction of her daughter’s confidence. “But yeah, my vision of family wasn’t very realistic, but in it I had a room instead of the sofa and a corner of the coat closet in the hall for the few things I owned.”

“So you married Dad,” Kennedy said with more than a hint of confusion in her voice.

“I did, and I loved him. Please know that. I still do, despite a divorce where I wanted to strangle him half the time.” When Kennedy started to talk, Gabby rushed to finish her thought. “But I wasn’t in love with him. We wanted certain things. Being together was convenient.”

Kennedy sat there for a few seconds, not saying anything.

The bar had been so low. Gabby saw that now. “I realized early that I’d messed up and wanted out. We separated and—”

“You slept with Uncle Liam.”

“We spent time together, and I saw that life could be different. I could feel something. The rest just sort of happened. Neither of us wanted to hurt your dad, and all three of us loved you.” There was so much more to the explanation, but Gabby tried to pare it down, keep it on a level a teenager who hadn’t experienced life or disappointment or heartache could understand.

“So, why not divorce? Marry Uncle Liam? You didn’t have to lie.”

They’d hit the tricky part. Gabby attempted to maneuver through it with a bit of dignity. “That sounds right now, but back then ripping Liam and your dad apart, upending everything, risking the family I had created and was desperate to have, seemed impossible.”

Kennedy winced. “Mom . . .”

“I wanted better for you than I had. Getting a divorce took every ounce of energy and will I possessed. I cried and doubted. The guilt . . .” Gabby wondered if the guilt would ever subside. Just when she thought she’d conquered it and moved on, it knocked her over again. “You wanted to know about the grown-up decisions and grown-up mess, and I’m telling you.”

Kennedy sighed. “Now what? What about Uncle Liam? Do I tell people? Do I call him ‘uncle’ . . . or ‘dad’?”

So many questions and not a single good answer. Gabby thought that described parenthood well. “I really did screw this up for you, didn’t I?”

“Uh, yeah.” Kennedy folded her arms in front of her and relaxed back into the stack of pillows behind her. “Are you still in love with Uncle Liam?”

Gabby wasn’t touching that. Time to pivot. “I love him. Always have. But the real point is that the two of you need to figure out what you are to each other and what to call your relationship. I won’t get in the way of that.”

“You’re okay if everyone knows you slept with both brothers?”