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Scott crossed the room, his body numb.
“Dad.”
“I knew you would come home.” His father’s voice strained with effort, but it was still deep, still authoritative. “I knew someday you would put this business with the Porters behind you and finally come home.”
Scott’s pulse hammered. “I haven’t put this business with the Porters behind me and I never will,” he said evenly.
“Scott!” his mother cried out, but he couldn’t stop now if he wanted to. Even now, after all this time, the man still refused to acknowledge what he had done. The part he had played.
“A man died,” Scott insisted, silently pleading with his father to set things right once and for all. “A man with two daughters and a wife. And I was the one who took him from them,” Scott said quietly, feeling the anger uncoil in his stomach as the words spilled out. “You knew I was responsible for the accident that day and you kept that information from everyone. From the police. From Lucy. Even from me.”
“You were nine years old, Scott. We were just trying to protect you—”
“No.” Scott shook his head forcefully, trying to drive out the words, the excuses. “I should go, Dad.” Before I say anything I’ll regret. “You need your rest.”
Scott paused with his hand on the door, and then slipped into the hall. His mother grabbed him by the elbow.
“Thank you for seeing him, Scott. It means so much to us.”
Scott’s eyes flashed on his mother. “Why can’t he just admit it, Mom? Why can’t you? You denied the Porter family insurance money that was owed them.”
She visibly paled and looked away. “It was an accident, Scott.”
“Maybe so, but it didn’t have to happen. I had no business being on the machinery that day. A nine-year-old kid shouldn’t be on a job site.” He shook his head. “If I had never overhead you talking about it all those years later, would you ever have told me that I was the one responsible for the accident?”
His mother hesitated. “Probably not. You were already upset by the commotion that day. And what were we supposed to tell you? You were nine, Scott. We didn’t want you or your sister to have to live with this. Lucy still doesn’t know,” she added.
“I’m aware of that,” Scott said, “and I don’t intend to burden her with this.
“Then you can understand how we felt. We were trying to protect you.”
“By blaming the victim?” Scott cried.
“We never could have recovered from a lawsuit. Richard Porter was gone. There was nothing we could do to bring him back.”
“Then you admit it. You chose to protect yourself financially.”
“We chose to protect the company financially,” his mother corrected him. “Nearly a third of the men in this town were employed by Collins Construction. They had wives and children—families of their own, depending on that paycheck. Would it have been better to make them all suffer?”
“So it was fair for Emily’s family to suffer? They had nothing. Nothing!”
It was a no-win situation, he knew that now. A man was dead, his family impoverished and the only way they would have been reimbursed was for others to suffer at their expense. The only way everyone could have been spared was if Scott had never been on that machine that day. If his father hadn’t let him tag along to work.
“We covered the funeral expenses,” his mother offered, and Scott clenched a fist, willing himself not to lose his temper.
“It doesn’t change the fact that we are all living this lie! The police took Dad’s statement for the events of that day. Collins Construction had just finished building that addition on the Maple Woods police station—at cost. He knew they wouldn’t pursue a criminal investigation when everyone was pointing the finger at Mr. Porter’s negligence, and so it all just went away. And Emily and her family were not only denied the money they were rightfully owed for their father’s wrongful death, but worse—” his throat locked up when he thought of it “—is that you allowed them to think their father’s carelessness led to his death.”
“It wasn’t easy for us, either. We thought you would never have to know your part in this. And then all those years later you had to go and start dating Emily Porter. Of all people! Believe me when I say we never intended you to know the truth, especially when we saw how much you cared for her.”
Scott lowered his voice. “You knew how much she meant to me, and you never even welcomed her into our home.”
“You didn’t honestly think we were going to be able to invite that girl into our lives, feeling the reminder every day of what we did.”
Scott narrowed his eyes. “And here I thought you walked away with a clear conscience.”
His mother stared at him levelly. “My conscience will never be free.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” Scott retorted. He ran a hand through his hair. “I have to go,” he said, taking a step back, and then another. This was a useless, maddening effort.
“What are you doing?” Lucy cried in alarm, her face pale, her expression stricken as he bolted down the stairs.
“I shouldn’t have come here!” he said, bursting past her toward the front door. “Now do you see?”
“What is wrong with you?” Lucy hissed. “Our father is dying. Do you hear me? Dying. Why can’t you get over yourself for once and be the bigger person?”
Scott whipped around and met his sister’s desperate gaze. “Lucy, when it comes to our parents, I do not want to hear another word about my relationship with them. Not. One. Word.”
“You’re a jerk,” Lucy snapped.
Scott hesitated. “I’m worse than that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Scott shook his head. “You have no idea.”
Lucy’s voice softened. “Try me.”
“Forget it,” he said, striding for the door. He placed his hand on the knob and twisted it, hesitating. Turning to face Lucy again, his gut tightened at the sight of her anguished face. “I’m sorry you got dragged into all of this, Lucy,” he said, closing the door behind him.
The spring air was cool and fresh on his lungs, and crickets chirped in the distance. He ran his hands down his face, staring at his ludicrous rental car, so sleek and bold and out of place. The image of his father lying in that bed was too clear to banish, but the words were what haunted him the most. What had he been expecting? He grimaced to think a part of him had wanted the same thing as Lucy. Closure. Peace. Some glimmer of relief to this endless, lifelong misery that hung over their family like a plague. And now he knew, perhaps he always had though, and that’s why he had stayed away. It just was what it was.
* * *
“I just don’t know what came over me,” Emily repeated, closing her eyes to the memory of her outburst that afternoon.
“Well, I do!” Julia declared. “The man had it coming, Emily.”
“But, Julia, I work there. That’s my boss’s brother!”
Julia waved her hand through the air. “Please. Lucy knows you and Scott have a history. Besides, she was the one who commissioned him for the contest.”
Emily considered her sister’s reasoning. “Maybe you’re right,” she said quietly.
“Maybe? Emily, Scott Collins is a jerk,” Julia said firmly. “I’m so sick of hearing everyone in town go on and on about his return. If it were up to me, he’d never have come back. Seriously, I mean who does he think he is, huh? He might have been Mr. Popularity back in high school, but he’s thirty years old now and he needs to get over himself. But one day he’ll see that he can’t just tromp around on his high horse, zipping through town in his fancy car, flashing that smile and expecting every woman in the street to just swoon. Oh, what I wouldn’t like to do to him...just kick that butt right to the curb, right out of Maple Woods, back to wherever the heck it is he’s been hiding all this time...”
Emily heaved a sigh and glanced at her sister, whose eyes had narrowed to green slits, her pink lips pinched in fury as she detailed the revenge she’d like to take on Scott Collins, and burst out laughing. It was the first good laugh Emily had enjoyed all day, and she needed it more than she’d realized. “Are you finished?” she asked, when she’d settled down.
“It’s not funny!” Julia exclaimed, shaking her head in disgust. She leaned over and took a long sip of wine from her glass and then set it back down on the coffee table with a scowl. She reached for her knitting needles and motioned to Emily to flick on the television. The sisters had just finished eating dinner and were getting ready to catch up on the soap opera that they recorded each afternoon and watched together each night. It was a cozy ritual, and one that Emily cherished, even if she sometimes did worry that she and Julia were destined to become two spinsters, living in a four-room apartment above the town diner for the rest of their lives.
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