“For?” I ask.
“The truth,” he tells me. “My part in it, at least.” He starts talking before I have time to answer him. “I was going to prom with a ring box in my jacket pocket, and I was going to ask Kallie to be my wife,” he says. I’ve never heard this part of the story. I mean, not that my parents told me much, just that they loved me. “I was so nervous, and I thought I would fuck it up so bad.” He shakes his head. “And right before we entered the school, I saw your mother by a tree.” He looks down now. “That’s not my story to tell in how she got there, but she asked me for help, and there was no turning back.”
“She stuck you with someone else’s kid!” I shout at him.
“No.” He shakes his head. “She didn’t make me do anything that I didn’t want to do.”
“You lost Kallie because of that.” I squeeze the water bottle in my hand.
“And I’d do it again and again,” he says, but I never wanted to hear those words. I wanted to paint him as the bad guy who lied to me the whole time. “I was angry that I lost my life. I can’t say I wasn’t, but when the nurse placed you in my arms, something inside me shifted.” Tears well in his eyes.
“I had a purpose, and that was you.” He looks me straight in the eyes. “It didn’t matter that you didn’t have my blood; you were mine. I was the one who slept sitting up for four months because you had colic, and your stomach would hurt if you lay down flat. I was the one who held your hand when you tried to take your first step.” His words hurt, the anger in them, the hurt in them as he retells my life from his eyes.
“I was the one who dusted you off and made you try again. I was the one who held the back of your bike when you wanted to ride without training wheels at four years old. I was also the one who bandaged you up when you fell off and bruised both your knees. I was the one who held your hand when you walked into school on the first day and who was there when you got mad or sad. I held you when you had nightmares. I was the one who helped make you into the man you are today and the one you came to when you wanted to ask Emily to marry you. I was the one.” He points at his chest. “Not some man who shares your DNA. Me.” The hurt roars through him. “I’m your father. I don’t care what any DNA test says. I’m the one who’s fucking loved you unconditionally your whole life.”
“Why not tell me?” I whisper.
“What good would that do?” he asks.
“It’s better to lie to me?” I ask, my voice getting louder. “You think finding out that you’ve been lied to your whole life is better?”
“I think making you the man you are was better than a DNA test. I think you are thriving, and having love around you is better than that.” He looks at me. “I was wrong. But you leaving and shutting us all out? That …” he says, his voice going loud. “That’s not the man I taught you to be. That isn’t the man Beau taught you to be. It sure as fuck wasn’t Billy who taught you that.”
“I guess I’m like my father, after all.” The minute I call the man my father, he takes a step back and puts his hand to his chest as if I shot him. “I didn’t …”
He shakes his head. “Nothing will be good enough for you,” he says, his words broken now. The man in front of me who faced whatever danger came his way with his head held high is now slumped over, and I made him hurt like that. “I love you, Ethan, with every single blood cell in my body even if it doesn’t match yours. I would die for you because that is what a parent does. I would stand by your side and fight, but that’s not good enough for you.” I look down at my feet, and the words are stuck in my throat. “I guess we know where you stand.”
“And where is that?” I ask, trying to pick a fight with him for no reason.
“I gave you my name,” he says, and it’s me who blinks away tears. “My father gave you his name because he knew that no matter what, you would be one of us.” The tears pour down his face. “But you’d rather erase me from your life. Erase my name from yours. Erase all the memories you have of me and the good times we had. You would rather dwell on that one little thing.” He turns around and walks out of the barn with his head down and his shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what more you want from me. I came here and gave you my side of it, and that’s all I can do. All I ask of you is that you don’t treat your mother or Kallie with resentment.” He blinks away the tears that I see swimming in his eyes. “They don’t deserve any of this,” he says. He walks out, leaving me to sit down, and I finally let out the tears I was holding back.