“I’d give anything to make you feel better, and I’m kicking myself for not realizing you were carrying this load of guilt. But I assure you, on your mother’s grave, that this is true. It wasn’t your fault.” Then he adds in a gentle tone, “Say it.”
“It wasn’t…” The words feel too foreign.
“That’s right,” he urges. “Go on.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” I’m not sure I totally believe it, but I can feel the burden I’ve carried lightening.
A smile spreads across his face. “I’m sure you don’t believe that quite yet, so we’ll work on a challenge for you to help it sink in.”
“A challenge?” I ask in surprise.
He turns solemn. “You should have been doing them all along, Cal. We both should have. Somehow, in the midst of all this, we missed the point of what we were doing. Your challenge is simple, and something you should have done all along. Tell the truth about what happened with Alice and with Augusta. Come clean.”
I start to protest, but he’s probably right. I suspect this conversation will feel profound when I’m sober enough to think it through.
“What did Augusta tell you?” Dad asks, his gentleness gone. “What is her secret?”
“If I reveal it, she’ll tell the world about Alice.”
“Didn’t she already break the rules?” Dad asks. “She told Molly.”
“She didn’t tell Molly the truth,” I say, my voice catching. “She told her the opposite, and Molly believed her.”
“I’m sure Molly had her—”
I hold up my hand. “Stop. No. She was willing to think the absolute worst of me. How do you build a relationship from that?”
My dad sinks into silence for several seconds. “I don’t know, but I know that you two were magic together. I’ve never seen you like that with anyone.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I wash it down with another drink. “She has major trust issues. She’ll never trust me. And, who knows, maybe I could never really trust her either. Not after Alice.”
“Poppycock,” Dad snorts. “What a load of garbage.”
I flinch in surprise.
“You think you didn’t see the signs with Alice, but you did. I sure did. You just chose to ignore them.”
My mouth drops open.
“Your marriage had been off for at least a year. Everyone could see it. Even before that, I could see the shine had faded and you were unhappy. Alice hated your woodworking and wanted you to quit. She resented you for not having a traditional job.”
“How do you know all that?” I ask in shock.
He scoffs, “She told me.”
“What?”
“She thought I could convince you to change jobs, but I told her it was between the two of you. I figured it would be best if I didn’t get in the middle of it, so I never said anything. I’ve long wondered if I should have.” He picks up the bottle and takes a drink. “Now I know.” The tone in his voice is all too familiar. I’ve lived with guilt for too long.
“You did what you thought was best.”
“I have a history of that,” he says softly. “But I tend not to quite follow through.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I wanted to start the club for you, Caleb. I thought it would help push you out of your grief and finally move on, but it only seemed to stall you. Now, what secret did Augusta tell you?”
Augusta told Molly that I was the cheater, so maybe that’s the version she’ll tell the world. It will hurt my psyche, but at least Alice’s parents will be spared the truth. “You know how Augusta is estranged from her kids? It’s because she used their social security numbers to open credit cards in their names. She ruined their credit before they could even vote. It took them a few years to figure out the issue, and she gaslighted them the entire time, never owning up to it until they finally confronted her with evidence of what she’d done.”
I lift my hand to run it through my hair and nearly poke my eye out.
Dad pushes my hand down to my lap.
“In the beginning, she said she was sorry and that she wanted to get her kids back. And I think she meant it at first, but I let her keep the fraud part to herself instead of sharing it with everyone else in the club, and I think she began to believe her altered version. That they just cut her out of their lives for no reason.”
“You should have told me, Cal.”
“I don’t know about that.” I reach for the bottle, being extra careful to grab the neck and not knock it on the floor. “The interviews are secret.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t be,” my dad says with a frown. “What if the burden is too big for the sponsor to carry?” But then he draws in a big breath and says, “Neither one of us is in any shape to discuss the details of the club.”
“Why not?” I challenge. “We were drunk when we came up with the idea and the rules. Why not be drunk when we change them?”
My father looks at me with pity in his eyes.
“You’re right. We need to tell the world the truth about Augusta,” I say, coming to the conclusion just as it pops into my head, “and us starting the club.”
“What if she tells the truth about Alice as retaliation?”
“Then I’ll warn her mother. I’m so tired of the secrets.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Do you want to give Molly an interview?”
My heart lurches. “No. You talk to her. She should be the one to break the news, but I can’t talk to her.”
“You might change your mind tomorrow.”
“Doubtful.” I take another drink. “I don’t ever want to see her again.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Molly
Augusta Glower weaponized the truth. She knew Cal Reynolds would do anything to protect his wife’s memory, so she manipulated him into keeping quiet, even as she stole his and his father’s work and stamped it into her own image. Now people all over the country are involved in Bad Luck Clubs that follow Augusta’s warped rules. The rules governing these clubs are nothing like the warm, welcoming, and decidedly quirky list that Cal and Bear wrote the night they envisioned the club, drunk on grief and whiskey. One wonders if these clubs will continue on in this way, or if they’ll revert to the rules the founders originally envisioned.
—Molly O’Shea, “The Long Con,” Rogue Word
“The other article you wrote was decent. Hell, it might have landed you the job. But this…this is a goddamn scoop. I can’t believe you got her kids to talk about their stolen identities. Augusta’s lucky if she doesn’t get arrested for that and about half a dozen other things. She’s done. No, she’s an overboiled egg. No one in their right mind would publish another word she writes. Hell, she’ll be lucky to get a job in a fast food joint.”
My mouth ticks up a little. I’ll have to send Augusta this new version of the story for comment too. Maybe I’ll include a note suggesting she apply to Wild West Wings. I did see a help wanted sign on their door.