His mother’s words didn’t surprise him any particular amount.

“They’re my brothers,” Gabe said. “It doesn’t matter how they got made. The fact of the matter is that he has a responsibility to them.”

“I didn’t see it that way,” she said. “I just wanted things to be fixed.”

“That’s bullshit, Mom. You didn’t. You didn’t just want things to be fixed, because then you used me to get revenge on him. You used me to make sure that he would be punished for what he’d done. And you lied to me. You let me think that he ignored his own children. He didn’t even know about them.”

“And I feel bad about that,” she said. “Why do you think I let McKenna into our house so easily? I almost wish she had been one of those boys. So that it would...erase what I did. But that was when everything fell apart, and I was so angry. And when we got back together your father promised me that things would be different. And they have been. How can I tell him I’d done that? How?”

Her eyes shimmered with tears, and she moved, giving Gabe a strong hit of that heavy floral perfume she always wore that made his heart ache with the familiarity of it. Because his mom didn’t feel familiar right now.

“What about me?” he asked. “You let me... You used me to hurt him.”

“He hurt you,” she insisted. “He hurt me.”

“Yes, but if you’re going to use me to hurt him back, don’t you think I should know the truth?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice trembling. “I don’t know what right is in the situation, Gabriel. I don’t. I wouldn’t do it the same way now. I didn’t. When the opportunity came again, I made another choice.”

“You and Dad make a lot of choices. A lot of choices to control and manipulate the people around you. And Dad doesn’t seem to be able to make the choice to wear a damn condom.”

Tammy closed her eyes again, bringing her hands up to the bridge of her nose and pinching hard. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough. I’m going to find them. My brothers. I’m going to find them, and you’re going to help me. I need the names of their mothers.”

“I don’t know that I still have that.”

“Bullshit. You have them memorized. You might play a dumb blonde when it suits you, Mom, but we both know you’re not. You are a hell of a redneck woman, and you’re ruthless when it comes to making people pay, and you don’t miss a trick. And the problem is, I know you too well to believe now that you don’t have everything planned out in that brain of yours. How did this all get to be such a mess?”

“We are a mess, son,” she said. “And over the past fifteen years I think your father and I have tried our very best to atone for some of that.”