“You were never able to tell him what he did to you,” I said, sitting sideways on his lap now, gazing at him as he gazed forward, shaking his head.
“It’s like everyone suffered but him. He never had to answer for his sins. His mind went away before I could tell him any of the things I had saved up in me,” Iain said. I frowned.
“What do you mean his mind went away?” I asked.
Iain swallowed. “He had Alzheimer’s. That was why my uncle kept calling me to come home. My dad couldn’t do his job anymore. He was slowly losing himself. Crying at work. Confused about being confused.”
Don’t, I warned when I found myself feeling instinctively sorry at the thought of an old man crying.
“When was it that he passed?” I asked softly, prompting Iain drop his eyes from mine to my legs in his lap.
“I should tell you who Camila is,” he said suddenly.
I blinked, just trying my best to keep up. “Tell me,” I said.
Iain brought his eyes back to me. “She’s my dad’s aid. She’s been taking care of my dad for six years.”
I stared. “I… what?”
“Well,” Iain corrected himself with a little frown. “Before everything, she was our housekeeper.”
“The one who took you to the ER?”
“Yes.”
I could only stare, my mouth parted and unable to choose which of my many questions to ask next.
But Iain explained before I had to.
All this time, I’d assumed from hearing the way Adam talked that Iain’s father was gone. But he was only gone in the sense that he was no longer the man who raised Iain. In his sickness, he became an entirely different person. Docile and needy.
Unable to remember who Iain was all the time, but always desperate to see him.
In the big Scarsdale house Iain grew up in, Camila lived with his father. She and her family all lived there now, and they would live there after Iain Senior died.
She was good with him in a way that other nurses and home aids hadn’t been.
But in the past six months, his condition had begun to deteriorate. He asked more desperately for Iain. Still had his fits of rage when he didn’t get what he wanted. Of course, he was fragile and weak, so they didn’t have quite the same impact.
But it still helped to have Iain there.
“I know it’s fucked up,” Iain breathed, closing his eyes as I brushed the wetness from under them. “I know it poisons my soul a little more every time I go see him, because I was already angry that he never faced what he did to all of us. And now I have nowhere to place my rage, because I can’t even hate him anymore. I feel so fucked in the head every time I see him, and I didn’t want you to deal with another twisted, fucked-up soul hurting you, Holland.”
I couldn’t help but kiss him now. His forehead. His cheeks. His lips.
“I understand why you would feel that way, Iain,” I murmured, making sure he knew how valid it was for him to feel the way he did. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling another tear fall down my cheek. But then I wiped it and tipped his chin up so he’d look into my eyes. “But you’re a good person. I know you’re hurting all the time but I swear it doesn’t have to be like this forever. I promise. Please believe me when I say this, but you deserve happiness. More than anyone I know. And there’s a reason I say this, Iain.”
“What is it?” he asked, his eyes wet, shining up at me with curiosity.
And a glimmer of hope.
But just as I opened my mouth, I heard Mia’s footsteps coming up our stairs. Iain did too, so swiftly, he took in a deep breath. And by the time he let it out, he looked okay again.
“If you trust me now, I’ll tell you soon,” I said, making him crack a smile. “So do you trust me?”
His gaze was warm, calm as he nodded. And then he said the three words that were almost as good as the ones I’d been dreaming of last night.
“I trust you.”