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“Tea?” she asks. She must want to talk. I’m not in the mood to hear her bullshit excuses as to why she abandoned me and walked away from her own flesh and blood. I’m not interested in hearing how sorry she is.

“I’m kind of tired. Been a long day.” I point toward the stairs and paint a regretful half-smile on my lips.

“Please.” She’s not asking. Her eyes snap toward the kitchen table. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this conversation. There are things you need to know, Jensen. About the past. About the present, too.”

The tea kettle whistles. She grabs two mugs and two bags of tea and I take a seat at the table amongst one of the twelve chairs.

“I’m sure you have questions,” she says, setting a white coffee mug in front of me.

Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. None of which matter at all anymore. Maybe at eight or twelve or even fifteen, I’d have wanted a chance to ask them. I lost my ability to give two shits years ago.

“Your father,” she says, blowing on the steamy liquid in her mug, “is a very powerful man.”

You’re tellin’ me, lady.

There’s a reason he beat the living shit out of me and walked away with a slap on the wrist. He’s got the whole town of Charter Springs, Arizona wrapped around his pinky finger. He drives around in the church’s Lincoln Town Car like he owns the city, and he sort of does. The man’s never met a traffic ticket he couldn’t get out of, and he’s never met a local he couldn’t convince to come to one of his sermons. The man could sell ice to an Eskimo, just like the way he sells his version of God to a congregation of over two-thousand people. Back in Charter Springs, Josiah Mackey is a hand-picked-by-God, modern-day saint.

“I ran off with him at eighteen,” she says, averting her gaze. “We never married. You came along quickly, and then something in your father changed. He became controlling, physically abusive—manipulative. I couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t please him.”

Her hands tremble as she wraps them around her mug. Josiah Mackey put the fear of God into his congregation each Sunday, but he put the fear of himself into his women twenty-four-seven.

“I tried to leave him several times. I took you with me each time, and each time he’d find me. And so I stopped fighting. I made him think I was happy. I had to get him off my case for a while. But right after your seventh birthday, I announced I was leaving him for good. He told me if I took you, he’d kill us both.”

“I don’t doubt that.” I stare at my tea. I haven’t touched it yet. Not much of a tea-drinker, and it stinks like mulch and barley.

Kath blinks away tears and wipes the ones that fall anyway. “I wanted to come back for you, Jensen. I did. He made it impossible.”

If she wants me to feel sorry for her, it’s almost working.

Almost.

“I tried to go to the police in Charter Springs. No one would listen. No one believed me. And by then, he’d trashed my name all over town. Told everyone I ran off and had an affair. Said I had mental illnesses and I was a danger to you.” She sniffs and turns away. “The threats didn’t stop until he knew I was good and scared. I was afraid if I tried anything else, he’d hurt you.”

“I was a weapon,” I mused. “The only weapon he had to hurt you with.”

She wipes her nose on the side of her wrist and nods, her blue eyes softening as if we’re sharing a special moment. I’m sure it’s a special moment, in her book.

“I wish things would’ve been different,” she says. “There’s nothing you or I can do about any of it but move forward. I’m just glad to have you in my life again.”

Her hand slides across the table, covering mine. She’s not shaking anymore. I drag my eyes toward hers, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t completely hate her.

“Mind if I get to bed?” Heart-to-hearts wear me the fuck out. I’m not cut out for those kinds of talks.

“Do you forgive me, Jensen?” Her eyes are round, her brows raised. “I need to know. And if you can’t forgive me, is there any hope you might someday?”

I might be an asshole most of the time, and I’m definitely a Mackey, but I’m not heartless. Plus, she’s taking me in, which beats the hell out of some random foster home or halfway house. Mercy told me I was old enough to be a ward of the state, but I wanted to finish my last few weeks high school without worrying about how I was going to provide for myself or where I’d be staying until my apprenticeship. This, believe it or not, was the lesser of all evils.

I take a deep breath, consider it, and release. “Sure… Mom.”

She smiles when I call her that, and maybe it’s sort of worth it. I don’t tend to make a ton of people smile these days. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling like I used to get when I’d break into the communion wine cabinet.

“One more thing.” Her smile fades fast. “You’re going to meet the rest of your family tomorrow. Be ready by seven. We’ll head over to the main house together.”

I rise from my chair, immediately plunking back down from the force of the bomb she’s just dropped. That explains the twelve chairs at the table.

“Wait… what?” I scratch just above my brow. I could’ve sworn Mercy said Kath was a single mom. No one mentioned a husband.

“Your stepfather’s name is Mark,” she says slowly, her chin dipped low. “I’m his third wife. I have two sister wives, and you have five other brothers and sisters.”

I lean back in my seat. There were some polygamous communities in Arizona, but they mostly lived on self-governed compounds. We rarely noticed them. They didn’t live on a street with white-picket fences and manicured lawns. They didn’t wear jeans or look like Kath.

“Mark’s first wife is—”

“Does Dad know?”

Kath pauses before nodding. “He found out a few years ago. I’m not sure how, but I’d sent you a card on your thirteenth birthday, and he sent a letter back threatening to out us all if I tried contacting you again.”

I lean forward. “So you’re, what, FLDS now? How’d that happen? We’re not—Dad’s not—Mormon.”

“Technically we’re not FLDS. We’re AUB. Apostolic United Brethren.” She offers a dreamy smile, as if she’s recalling the best thing that’s ever happened to her. “It’s nothing I went searching for. It found me. I don’t know, Jensen. It just sort of happened. I met Mark, and we hit it off. When he explained his situation, his beliefs, it all sounded… perfect.”

“So you have no problem sharing your husband with other women?” It’s none of my business, but this is crazier than the damn snake charmers Dad brought to the church one summer. Plus, it’s getting late. My brain isn’t firing on all cylinders and my filter has washed up and gone to bed for the night. “So you left Dad and found someone even more dysfunctional. Good for you.”

Her lips form a straight line and she squints. “There are things I don’t expect you to understand, Jensen.” She says my name a lot. Makes me wonder if she’s missed saying it over the years. “There are certain burdens that come with being a woman. Being a sister-wife, you share those burdens. And the love we share—”

“Okay, cool.” I slap my hand on the table. Not a single ounce of me wants to carry on this conversation with her, because I’ve already got a general idea of where it’s heading. I stand up and stretch. “I need to get to bed, so…”

“Right.” She rises, and her stare is heavy like it doesn’t want to let me go quite yet. She doesn’t have a choice. I’m exhausted. Plus, I don’t give a shit about the dirty details of her weird-ass plural-marriage. “See you at seven. Everyone’s looking forward to meeting you.”

I hear her faintly call “goodnight” as I trudge up the stairs. Rounding the corner to my new dinosaur room, the one I share with the half-brother I never knew existed, I tumble into bed, not bothering to crawl under the covers. Too many nights I’ve woken up tangled and constricted by fucking sheets and blankets. I’d rather be cold than overpowered by anyone or anything ever again.

Gideon— I think that’s his name—is talking in his sleep. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but he’s clearly not having a nightmare. Must be nice.