Total pages in book: 190
Estimated words: 181992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 181992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Ah. While it was intellectually understandable, considering the psyche worked in the strangest ways, it was still somewhat difficult to grasp that someone would wish to marry a person like Bale. “She always seemed happy.”
“In her own way, she was. She’d loved me, my brothers, and Raven. Loved my mom with a fierce devotion. But Bale had come first to her, because of how he’d made Clear feel. Safe. Adored. Needed. Understood. Special. And when he died, she hadn’t been able to bear not having any of that anymore.”
“He was like a crutch, then? She was dependent on him in some ways?”
Dax nodded, his expression turning grimmer. “There was never any changing that. We all tried—me, my siblings, my parents, even Clear’s friends. It made no difference.”
“You can’t help people who don’t want help or can’t see that they need it,” I softly pointed out, detecting that Kensey wasn’t the only person in this picture who felt guilty for not having been able to reach Clear. “You were all good to your grandmother. A lot of people would have kicked her out of their lives, all things considered. Your family did the opposite, despite everything.” Which couldn’t have been anything close to easy. “Any feelings of guilt here are misplaced.”
“Yes. And my mom knows that deep down, but it doesn’t make much difference. What adds to her guilt is that they fought so much. They didn’t used to. Not until after I was born. Clear would try pushing her to take me to see Bale. My mom refused, but Clear never let up over the years. She was the same regarding each of my siblings.”
“I can’t say I blame Kensey for keeping you all away from him.” I doubted I’d have taken my children to a maximum security facility to meet a man who had butchered women.
“It hurt her that Clear would push and push even as she saw how her relationship with Bale affected her grandchildren’s lives. But in Clear’s mind, he was a changed, misunderstood man who loved his family.” Dax shrugged one shoulder. “As I said, she lived in her own personal bubble.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip. “Did you ever want to see him?”
“No. I won’t lie, I was curious about him. Curious about what was in the letters he wrote to me. He used to hand them to Clear and ask her to pass them on—my mom held them back, though. She did the same with the letters he wrote to my brothers and Raven as well.”
Personally, I felt it was best that Kensey had done so. “Did you ever ask to read them?”
“No. The only reason Bale was reaching out to me was to try to infiltrate my mom’s personal life. He saw her as his daughter. His angel. His bright spot. He cared for her in a way that only someone like him could care for another person. He didn’t like that he saw so little of her.”
“And he thought if he could win your affections, so to speak, you might pester her to take you to visit him … and then he’d be able to see her,” I surmised.
Dax dipped his chin. “Yes. It was only ever about her.” He tossed back the last of his whiskey. “It sounds crazy to say it, but he wasn’t evil. Wasn’t one-dimensional that way. The parts of him that weren’t warped and twisted formed a deep attachment to her, and that messed with her head. As did the fact that she’d loved him when she was a kid. A kid who’d had no idea of the things he’d done. A kid who hadn’t even realized he wasn’t her biological father—Clear hadn’t told her that. She’d learned of it through gossip.”
“Shit,” I muttered with an inward wince.
“Yeah.” Dax inhaled deeply. “If what he’d felt for my mom had been a real, selfless love, he would have backed off completely. But the truth is he had no capacity to feel such an emotion. But Clear wouldn’t admit to that, or see any wrong in having married him. So yeah, she and Mom had argued a lot when I was a kid. Especially when my name was printed in articles in connection with him, or when I’d come home covered in bruises after being in yet another fight—sometimes while defending Clear after assholes called her a serial killer’s slut.”
I clenched my teeth as anger whipped to life in my belly. “And then you had to deal with people comparing you to him on top of all that. Why on Earth would anyone think that you brawling with other teenage boys even came close to the actions of a murderous sexual sadist?”
“When Bale was a teenager, he got into a lot of fights. He liked to give pain, and he liked to receive it.” Dax licked over his front teeth. “People insinuated we were similar in that way.”