“No. Whatever sins I committed... I just wanted what was best for you boys. I struggled. I was uneducated. I didn’t have any money. I married young, had a family that I couldn’t take care of. I don’t think you remember it much.”

“I remember.”

“I wasn’t proud of that trailer. I wasn’t proud to have you boys there. I wanted better.”

“I remember being happy there.”

“Because you didn’t know how much we struggled just to keep us in that little place that was run-down and molding. Dammit, kid, I was afraid you were going to fall through the floor one day. I’m glad you didn’t know. I guess that’s something I did right. Then I got successful, and I let things get to my head. And sometimes I think I forgot why I was doing what I was doing. It became more about me and less about you. But you have to understand that even when I did the wrong thing, it was because I wanted to do right by my children.”

“Dad...”

It was on the tip of his tongue to talk about the one thing they never talked about. To bring up the one subject that had always been taboo. Now that he knew what he wanted, now that he wasn’t lost in that rodeo haze, he felt like it was time to have all this out.

If he was going to be here, he needed to be here. And that meant no more holding on to the resentment. It meant having it out.

He’d discussed it once, with one person. And never again.

“It’s true,” Hank said. “For all my sins, I love my boys.”

And then he couldn’t hold it back anymore.

“What about the other boys, Dad? What about your other sons? The ones that you refuse to acknowledge? The ones that you chose to ignore? Because apparently, illegitimate children were one sin too many for you to acknowledge. I know you didn’t know about McKenna. But there are others. What about them? How can you look me in the eye and tell me you just wanted what was best for us, when you didn’t want anything for them?”

Hank said nothing. Instead, he went deadly still. And he looked up at Gabe with pale blue eyes, his expression one of confusion. “One of the other boys?”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” Gabe said. “I know that there were at least two others. I know there were. Mom told me about them. She told me about them right before she told me to go into the rodeo and make you miserable for what you did. To not let you win after you took those horses from me. Because you deserved it. Because it wasn’t just me whose life you controlled. You control mine by giving me everything, and then those boys... You did nothing.”

“Gabe,” Hank said, his voice strangely calm and even. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Are you lying to me?”