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Lincoln stared across the table at Joseph, his thoughts zigzagging and rolling over. Either Joseph or Lucy was lying. Both, maybe. “That first weekend when I spent the whole time in the office and you were showing her the sights?”
Joseph leaned back. “I was showing her the sights. With the girl I was seeing at the time.”
“Sherry?”
“Yeah. Sherry.”
Lincoln shook his head. Sherry. One of the few women Joseph seemed like he might actually be serious about. The four of them had dinner that night. Was it that night? Had they talked about the sights? About spending the day together? Lincoln’s head had been so full of trying to wrap his head around his new role, around the courses he was taking, so much from that time seemed a blur.
“Lucy and I didn’t,” Joseph hesitated, as if he were searching for the words, “get together until a month or so before she got pregnant. At least three years after you moved there.”
“Get together. You mean that was when you established that you were actually in a relationship, that I was the odd man out.”
“No. She was always forward. Touchy.” Joseph paused. “Okay, we kissed once, maybe some time late in the second year. But it was just a kiss. Nothing more. We’d been drinking and were out at a club waiting for you. You were burning the oil at both ends back then. I was impressed, but everyone has to live a little. She was going on and on about how she never saw you, how she missed the touch of a man ... but it was one kiss. In the club. When I say get together I mean, you know,” he made an unmistakable tone and expression, “get together.”
“A month or two before she got pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re saying you were together for what, three months before the ... accident.”
“Probably less than that. And I wouldn’t call it together. It wasn’t a relationship. It was ... sex. A half a dozen times, maybe. Which kills me. It’s worse, you know? It’s not like I was head over heels in love with this girl. She was there and sexy and touching me and—”
A piercing pain shot through Lincoln’s head. “You’re saying this is her fault.”
“No.” Joseph waved his hands in front of him again. “Absolutely not. It takes two, obviously. I didn’t have to ... respond.”
The pain throbbed. “Just sex. Just sex you could have had with any woman.”
“And I should have. Any woman but—”
“Then why are you marrying her? Why are you having another kid?”
“She assured me the first baby was mine. Told me before she told you. Said we needed to tell you, that she was going to break it off with you. I didn’t want her to. I said she couldn’t be sure, that we should end things right then and there, that you’d always wanted kids and I ... I did too, but I couldn’t, not with your girlfriend. I told her it was a mistake, all of it.”
Lincoln put his hands ups. “Just stop. None of this makes sense. Why would she tell me the opposite? That it was years, right from the start. That you loved each other. Why would she—?”
“I don’t know.” Joseph’s face fell. He looked ... unravelled. Like the way he looked the day they learned about Dad.
Lincoln shook his head. “You didn’t answer my question. If it was over, if it was all a mistake, how’d she get pregnant again? Why are you marrying her?”
Joseph shrugged, looking as miserable as Lincoln felt. “She assured me it was my kid, said you two always used protection. Always. A couple of times we didn’t. She was broken over it, the baby being gone. It was hard for me too. I mean ... it wasn’t planned, it never should have happened, but it’s still a loss, you know?”
Lincoln knew. He still felt the loss, and the kid might not have been his. Probably wasn’t his. He nodded.
“So you were gone—”
“Because you fired me.”
“I didn’t—” Joseph brushed another hand through his now unkempt hair. “Listen. You bombed a multi-million dollar meeting. This isn’t some mom and pop company anymore. With each decision I have over two hundred and fifty employees to consider. I couldn’t lose that contract. The company couldn’t lose that contract. And I didn’t fire you. I repositioned you. You’re the one who chose not to take that position.”
Lincoln kept silent. He reached for his drink and took a long swig.
“Anyway, you were gone and she was there and we had this shared loss. The shit had already hit the fan so ...”
“So you figured why not keep fucking her.”
Joseph’s face crumpled. “Essentially, yes. I’d like to think it wasn’t as coarse as that. We built a connection then, the mutual pain—losing the baby. Losing you.”
“She wanted to lose me.”
Joseph shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, kid.”
“Don’t call me—”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Joseph sat straighter. “Again, we didn’t plan to get pregnant. I should be more careful. I know I should ... but it sometimes started up so fast, in places where—” Lincoln raised a hand and Joseph stopped mid-sentence. “That’s my kid in her. She wants to be married. She’ll make a good wife.”
“A good corporate wife.”
“That’s true.” Joseph seemed to search Lincoln. “But it’s not a bad thing. She’s beautiful. She’s smart. She can be caring. She supports me.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure if he wanted an answer, but he spoke the words anyway. “Do you love her?”
Joseph took several breaths to answer. “I think so. I mean ... what’s love, right? I’m not sure I’ve ever been in love before. Maybe this is it.”
Lincoln had loved Lucy, had thought he loved Lucy, but in retrospect, had he? Or had he merely loved the way she’d saved him from his misery after Ginny, loved the fact that she gave him purpose, direction, the ability to stop making his own choices?
Lincoln stared at his plate. “You really never slept with her until a month or two before she got pregnant.”
“I swear it.”
“And before that?”
“We flirted, I guess. That one kiss. I’ll admit, I found her sexy, but she was yours. She was off limits.”
“Until she wasn’t.”
Joseph nodded, looking contrite. “Until she wasn’t. I could blame it on the alcohol. I could blame it on the fact that I’d been working hard and so hadn’t gotten laid in a while. I could blame it on her and that low cut, short-skirted dress she was wearing, or I could simply blame it on me.” Joseph gave a sad shrug. “Once it happened once, it was easier.”
“I still don’t get why she said it’d been all those years.”
“I don’t know. It’s—”
“Did she hate me that much?”
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s said so many times how bad she feels, the way it separated the family, the way it ... changed you. She regrets that it hurt you.”
“But not enough.”
“What?”
“Not enough to have walked away. Not enough to make sure I didn’t have to see her again, be reminded. Not enough to not get pregnant with your child, marry you.”
Joseph exhaled. “It’s rotten. All of it. Especially that you thought ... all those years. That I could lie to you all that time. That she could. It makes more sense now.”
“What?”
“You.” Joseph let out a sigh. “This past year. The way you look at me like you want to kill me. I mean I’d deserve that no matter what, but a few times compared to—” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, man. Every time I swore to myself it’d be the last. Every time. But we kept on seeing each other. And you were working such long hours. She’d call. She’d ... not that I’m blaming it on her. Not that I’m blaming it on you.”
“Do you think she loves you?”
Joseph dropped his head into his hands and leaned forward on the table. “I hope so. It’d be pretty pathetic if both of us were entering into this marriage uncertain of love.”
“Do you think she planned it?”
Joseph sat back. “What?”
“You two. The pregnancy. Everything.”
“Planned?”
“From the beginning. She met you. You were the better brother. The more successful brother. The one destined for success. I was a crap-shoot.”
“Lincoln.”
“It’s possible, though. Don’t you think? Lucy always wants the best. You’re the best.”
“No, I—” Joseph hesitated. “No. That’s ridiculous. It just happened. We were weak and selfish and it happened. These things happen.”
They stared at each other. Lincoln pushed his half-eaten plate away. “I can’t go to the wedding.”
Joseph made a sound of understanding. “I had to ask. If you change your mind, you’re wanted. It’s in two weeks, at Christ Church. Two o’clock. Mom and Rachel would have any other details you need.”
Joseph placed a fifty on the table and stood. “My treat. And thanks, anyway, for meeting me. I’m impressed you gave me even that.”
Lincoln’s jaw twitched. He watched Joseph as he turned away. “Hey.”
“Yeah?” Joseph turned back.
“It’s, uh ... better ... or at least less bad.”
“What?”
“Knowing you only lied to me for months, not years, that our whole life in Montreal wasn’t a lie.”
“No, man. No. It wasn’t.” Joseph’s lips pressed together. “Those were good times. Closest we’ve ever been. Proudest I’ve ever been of you—seeing the way you worked so hard. You deserved it all, you know—the promotions, raises, success. Family or no.” Joseph rubbed a hand across his eyes and banged his fist gently on the table. “You shouldn’t be working construction sites.”
“Don’t.”
“Mom says you built a tree house, though? On a lot toward Musquodoboit?”
Lincoln nodded.
“Just like you always wanted to. I bet it’s no typical tree house.”
Lincoln shook his head. He couldn’t do this. Chat. Share tidbits about their lives.
Joseph thumped the table once more. “Okay. I’m going. You might not want to hear this. You might not believe it, but I love you and I’m sorry. If I could turn back the clock I would. And I hope one day ... I hope one day won’t be like today. I miss you. And I want my kid to know his uncle.”
Lincoln’s throat tightened. He looked away.
A final thump and Joseph was gone. Lincoln sat until the waitress came over to him, asking if there was anything else she could do. He pushed the fifty toward her.
He sat after she brought back the change, not touching it. Eventually he stood, his limbs feeling numb, his mind reeling. It changed everything and nothing, knowing the truth ... if it was the truth. It was. He was sure of it—Joseph’s bafflement. And Lucy, as she told the story, she’d been angry, vindictive. She’d revelled in the details, in the way they’d twisted and torn at him. It was his fault, she’d said, that her child was dead. The lie, obviously, was her payback.