Doubts on a Dirt Road

ZACH

I’m on my way to my mom’s house, a six mile walk, my mind a whirlwind of thoughts. The dirt road is eerily quiet, with only a handful of houses scattered along the thirty-mile stretch.

Could Tilly be Tyler’s child?

The thought is hard to swallow. She doesn’t bear any resemblance to him or Ella.

Ella, however, is the spitting image of Tyler.

Damn it. I made a promise to trust him, but it’s proving to be a struggle.

Why is she bringing this up now? The baby is already a few months old.

Is she after money? Trying to trap him?

Or both?

She’s got some nerve, making accusations without any solid proof.

But what if it’s true?

It takes me a good hour and a half to reach my parents’ house. I walk down the dirt driveway and the horses come galloping to greet me. I hop over the fence and into the paddock.

I’m surrounded by seven horses.

“Hey, Chase, Black,” I greet the two that approach me. The others hang back, still wary of me.

I slowly make my way toward the house, chatting with Chase like old times.

“Chase, do you think he’s lying? Is that his kid?” I pause as he stops to graze.

“Of course, you don’t understand a word I’m saying. It’s about Sophie. She’s accusing Tyler of being the father of her child. He wouldn’t do that, would he?”

Even as I voice my thoughts, I feel torn. Part of me remembers how difficult it was to sleep with her when she was our little bird. The other part recalls the night I walked in on them. He was hard as a rock, and she was lost in ecstasy.

Damn it.

We continue our walk in silence.

The horses flank me, offering silent support.

“Zach?” My dad’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. He’s standing on the other side of the fence. Why is he home? “What are you doing in the paddocks?”

I shrug, kicking at a piece of dried mud imprinted with a hoof mark.

“Just thinking, pa.”

“What’s wrong?” He looks surprised. I shrug again.

He hops over the fence with surprising agility for a man in his sixties and walks over to Black, scratching behind his ear.

“Need someone to talk to?” he offers.

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. He’s never offered before.

But I don’t need him to listen to our problems.

“It’s nothing, pa.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing. I’m here now,” he insists. I close my eyes, reaching out to Chase, who’s hovering behind me.

“Want to go for a ride?” I change the subject, gesturing at the horses.

My dad looks at me, his face unreadable. Then he smiles and nods.

“Sure, let’s saddle them up.”

I head to the stables and start getting the reins and saddles.

I throw my saddle onto Chase’s back, watching as my dad does the same with Violet’s horse. He has to climb the fence to mount the large stallion, while I simply step into the stirrup and swing myself onto Chase.

We trot away from the house, my dad riding beside me in silence.

The wind whips my hair back as we gallop through the paddocks. Before I know it, we reach the gate at the far end of the paddock.

“I’ll get it, pa,” I say, dismounting to open the gate. My dad guides Black through, followed by Chase. I close the gate and mount Chase again.

We race through the wildflower fields, the wind in our faces, the flowers whipping against our legs. For a moment, I forget everything else. It’s just me, Chase, and the freedom of the open field.

When Chase starts to tire, we slow to a trot. I glance over to see my dad right beside me, a grin on his face.

“Come on, spit it out,” he says, guiding Black to walk alongside us.

I don’t know where to start. They don’t even know about Tyler’s infidelity. I never told them. I just threw myself into work and shut everyone out. I was too angry to even think about sleeping with anyone else.

“It’s a long story...”

“We have all afternoon,” he replies. I snort. My dad never has time for small talk. He’s always busy.

But he’s here now, isn’t he?

“Tyler cheated,” I blurt out, not looking at him. He makes a sound halfway between a moan and a groan, as if he suspected it. But he doesn’t say anything.

He’s waiting for me to continue. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I spill everything, as if my dad is someone I confide in regularly.

“When Rose died…Tyler lost it. He was always drunk, and I caught him with an ex. Friends had warned me…We didn’t speak for seven months. I forgave him in the end, or at least I said I did. But I didn’t trust him again. I still don’t. And then he went to the same girl when Violet was in the hospital. He swears he didn’t sleep with her that time, but now she’s at Liz’s house claiming her baby is his. The dates don’t add up, but she insists he slept with her last March when he was opening the club here. He swears he didn’t see her then. I don’t know what to believe, pa. He lied before, so how do I know he’s telling the truth now? He hurt me, pa, and I don’t know how to trust him anymore. Relationships don’t last without trust...” I risk a glance at my dad. He’s staring out into the field, not at me.

I wait for his response. It comes…eventually.

“He didn’t see her last March,” he says simply.

“How do you know that?”

“I have my ways, son. But he didn’t. What he did after Rosemary died was wrong. He wasn’t thinking straight, and he wasn’t sober. Not that that’s an excuse. But I don’t believe he would do it again. He’s too in love with you to risk losing you.”

“But he did, pa. When Violet was in the hospital…he went to her,” I admit.

“Is that cheating?”

“Yes…no. I don’t know.”

“Did he sleep with her?”

“They both said he didn’t.”

“So it’s not cheating. Your lifestyle…it’s a fine line. Can you really call it cheating if he played with someone else when that’s what you’ve always done? How many women have you played with at your club? Did Tyler agree to all of them? Or did you just tell him what you were doing?”

“We always asked each other first. It was always a mutual agreement. She’s a hard limit for me, pa. He knew that…and he still went to her. Besides, since Violet came into our lives, we haven’t played with anyone else.”

“Hard limit?”

“A no-go. Something I don’t agree with.”

“I see. I suppose you need limits in your lifestyle,” he says, making me snort.

His words remind me that he knows nothing about our lifestyle because he’s never shown any interest.

“Who knew I’d be talking about our BDSM lifestyle with the one man who never approved of it?” He smiles at me, his eyes crinkling with age.

“I’m trying, Zachary. I’m not the best at being an open-minded father. We both know that.”

“Yes, we do,” I agree, and he nods, looking forward again.

The horses carry us slowly through the fields, grazing as we ride.

“Do you think her child is his?” I ask quietly.

“Tyler isn’t one to lie. If he says he didn’t sleep with her, I’m inclined to believe him,” he says. “I’ve known Tyler since he was a toddler, Zach, and I’ve seen him grow and surpass all expectations. He’s not a liar. He can’t be. If he says he didn’t sleep with her, then he didn’t.”

“I understand that.”

“Then why are you doubting him?”

“Because he hurt me.”

“Pain is a part of life, Zach. Without it, we’d all be miserably alone,” he says, reminding me of something Violet once said. It was after she got out of the hospital, on the day of Matthew’s ceremony. She said something similar, accusing me of being closed-minded. She said I was hurting her by ignoring him.

“Violet said something like that after he hurt her,” I say, my gaze dropping to the leather saddle.

“She’s a wise girl, that one.”

“She is… wise beyond her years,” I agree.

We ride in silence, letting the horses lead the way.

“Let me ask you this. Violet kissed Henry during her visit to the prison. Do you still trust her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she had no choice. He conditioned her to feel that way.”

“Am I right in saying you toyed with Sophie because you knew Tyler didn’t like her?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Maybe Tyler went to her because that’s what he was used to.”

“I don’t understand, pa.”

“A punishment, isn’t that what you call it? That’s how your mother describes it.” I laugh, but it isn’t because he’s funny. It’s because he talks about our lifestyle with my mother.

“Yes, pa, she was his punishment because I knew he would never fall in love with her.”

“Uh-ah. So maybe when Tyler thought he deserved punishing, he went to her.”

“Pa, you’re making no sense,” I tell him, but he is. In the past, yeah, I would use Sophie to punish his wrongdoings.

When he used too much of his salary to give to others, I made him sleep with her. Or tried.

He watched a man too closely during a scene, I would make him sleep with her.

Something went wrong at work because of him, I made him sleep with her. If he didn’t submit… I made him sleep with her. So is this my fault?

Did I do this by pushing her on him for all those years, especially when initially he didn’t even want to have her as our little bird?

“Why did you come here, son?” I look away guiltily.

My parents know exactly what I did to Tyler in December. They saw the footage. Both of them lectured me about it, actually.

Told me I needed help, and I denied everything. Until I did it again, leaving an eleven-inch scar across his backside as a reminder of who I was becoming.

“I wanted to hurt him, to make him feel the pain I feel in my head.” My words are barely a whisper as I confess why I had to run.

“That’s good. Abigail must be helping you.”

“Or ruining me.” I smirk to cover up being uncomfortable.

“You did good, kiddo. What happened in the barn, it wasn’t safe. But you coming here, stepping away from the situation, that’s being responsible,” he said, oblivious to the fact that I’d given him a blowjob on her car just to make sure he knew who he belonged to.

“Don’t start with the condescending tone, Dad. It doesn’t fit you,” I retorted, not anymore.

“Let’s head home. Your mom probably has some cookies ready. She was planning to drop by tonight with them. She can’t stop talking about little Ella.”

“Ella is pretty special, isn’t she, Pa?” I asked, tugging on Chase’s reins, signaling him to head back toward the gates that led to the paddocks next to the house.

“She certainly is,” he agreed.