She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Dee never talked about her much, except to say she was your father’s ex-girlfriend. And she didn’t think too highly of her—that’s for sure. Though how could she? She loved your brother like a son. He was her son. Imagining how another woman could ever give him up was beyond her.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to break this to Vince?”
Nita looked cagey, fiddling with the stem of her glass. “Do you think it’s even wise to?”
“You think I can just know this, just sit on this news, and not tell him?”
Nita studied the tabletop a moment, then met his eyes with her brown ones. “You have to understand a couple things, Casey. Firstly, that your mother loved you both—loved Vince as much as she does you, her own biological son, and even with Tom leaving her the way he did. And she still loves you both, in her way. But secondly you need to understand that Vince loves her, too, in spite of everything that’s happened. He’s sacrificed a lot to stay here, to take care of her, to provide for her.”
Casey felt his legs go leaden at that, guilt catching like an anchor.
“Vince might talk big about how loyal he is to this town, especially with that casino coming down the pike,” Nita said, “but he truly committed to Fortuity when he committed to your mom. He accepted that he was stuck here for as long as she lives, and at some point, he must have decided to make the most of it.”
And sadly, “making the most of it” in Fortuity amounted to menial jobs or physical labor for most people.
“But that makes it even more fucking unfair,” Casey said. And it made him feel like more of a world-class shit than ever, for not having been the one who’d stepped up and stuck around. “That Vince could’ve gone someplace else, been something more. But he chose to stay here, to take care of a woman who’s not even his real mother?” And if he hadn’t, it would’ve been down to me. And what scared Casey worst of all was trying to guess if he’d have done as his brother had. Manned up, been the good son. He honestly couldn’t say.
“Think about it this way, Casey.” Nita took a long drink from her now dwindling glass. “What do you think would’ve happened to Vince, if he hadn’t had your mother tethering him to Fortuity?”
“I dunno. And none of us’ll ever know, since he never got the chance to find out.”
She smiled sadly. “Your brother’s no saint, honey. Even with all these responsibilities, he’s been to prison twice, and jail more times than I can count. And that’s with your mom to worry about.”
Casey considered that. “So, what? You think he’d be even worse off if he wasn’t stuck caring for her?”
She made a noncommittal face. “No one can say for certain. But if he’s been as careless as he has, with the fights and the drinking and the questionably come-by cars, all with a major responsibility on his shoulders . . . I’m just saying, it wouldn’t have shocked me if Vince wound up serving a far longer sentence in his life, if it weren’t for your mother’s decline. I think that loyalty could quite easily have saved his life, in fact. Vince, more than most anyone I know, needs something to be loyal to. Take that away, and I don’t care to guess where his life may have gone.”
Casey felt sad at that—sad way deep down, enough to ache. He’d never thought too deeply about his brother’s motivations. Vince was an open book in most ways, so unapologetic there seemed no reason for him to keep secrets. Casey, on the other hand . . . He was used to serving only his own interests, and he’d done things he wasn’t proud of. He kept secrets not only because the truth could get him incarcerated for the rest of his life, but also because he knew in the back of his head, he didn’t want decent people—people like Nita or Duncan and especially not Abilene—to know about them. Though now I’ve got no choice but to do better. All his excuses had been obliterated by that one phone call. And more even than he needed to start doing better; for the first time in his life, he wanted that.
“So you don’t think I should tell Vince?” he asked Nita.
“Only you can decide that, Casey. But before you do, ask yourself what there is to be gained from him knowing the truth.”
What there was to be gained . . .
It was so fucking tricky, trying to be a good man. He’d have thought that being honest was the simple answer. That the truth was always best. But she had a point.
The truth would bring Vince, what? Pain and confusion, maybe a full-on fucking identity crisis. The knowledge that he’d spent the past decade caring for a woman who wasn’t his real mother.
But she cared for him, too. Raised them both the same, the best way she could manage.
And maybe . . . maybe, addled or not, she was entitled to her secrets, too. There was no dignity left to her anymore, no autonomy, no independence. Maybe she deserved to at least hold on to this—the myth that she’d raised a son good enough and loyal enough to stand by her, through every ugly turn her mental health had taken.
Why take that from her? Why taint Vince’s own choices and sacrifices by telling him the truth? The truth would only hurt him. Keeping it buried only hurt Casey.
And don’t I owe my brother just a little suffering, for how he stepped up when I wouldn’t?
“There’s a lot to be said for the family you choose,” Nita said softly. “You and Vince, you’re like my nephews. You’re the closest I’ll ever have to sons, and I know you know that.”
He nodded.
“And the fact that I chose to make you two hooligans a part of my life, and to see your mom as my sister, hard as things have been . . . In a way, that means more than the family you’re born to, obligated through your blood.”
Casey nodded again, lost in thought. Lost in a singular thought—in the knowledge that there was a part of him that very much wanted to be able to point to Mercy, a year or two from now, and tell somebody, That’s my daughter. Not by blood. By choice.
He took a deep breath, feeling too much. And nowhere near drunk enough, frankly. There was only one question nagging at him, before he could commit to his choice.
“Did she ever try to get in touch?” he asked Nita. “Vince’s real mom?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t got a clue what became of her. All I really know from your mother is that she was young. Young and unfit. How, I couldn’t say, or even whether that was just your mother’s opinion. But no, she’s never made contact, far as I know.”
He sighed, feeling a hundred. “Guess Vince and Raina have even more in common than I’d thought. Wait a second—Vince’s real mother wasn’t Mexican, was she?”
Nita smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Just making sure Vince and Raina aren’t, like, brother and sister or something. Though, thank God they never fucked.”
Nita rolled her eyes. “How’s Abilene doing, anyhow?”
Casey decided to spare her the finer details of the drama, saying simply, “Things are quieting down.” No sense mentioning the other mystery now plaguing the ranch; Nita was probably on track to go to bed happy, knowing Casey wasn’t crazy. Let her stay in that space.
“She and the baby are doing good,” he added.
“Lucky girl that she’s got you at her beck and call.”
He blushed, and bright pink to judge by the fever creeping up his neck.
“Oh, Casey—you’ve not taken up with her, have you?”
“Why would you even think that?”
“Because you’re red as a beet.”
“We’re not . . . anything.” Now, there was one heck of a lie—they were about sixty things to each other. “I mean, we’re not dating.”
Nita blinked dryly. “Oh well, that doesn’t leave anything out, now, does it?”
“We’re not. And I wouldn’t wish me on her, anyhow.” If he’d been too selfish to step up for his own mother, what happened if he got serious with Abilene and the going got inevitably hard with insta-fatherhood? Well, then they’d all find out exactly how closely he took after his old man, wouldn’t they? And that question scared him about as bad as those unknown test results had.