My mother froze, then looked up at me with disbelief in her eyes, no longer hiding anything.
She hadn't expected me to already know the secret.
Rage drove my fist into the wall, and blood ran down my knuckles.
It wasn't that I had no temper. It was that I couldn't turn it on her, because she was the woman who bore me, and the only person I hated.
That was what made it unbearable.
"I only want to ask you one thing. When you did all of this, did you ever once think of me?"
"Rhys, your mother had no choice!"
"Tristan lost his parents. If we didn't treat him kindly, how much worse would his life be?"
"I knew this would hurt you, but Tristan was never as brave or as strong as you." "You're both my children. How could a mother not love you?" "You call what you gave me love?" My voice climbed higher, feeding on itself. She flinched at the shout.
"Your love goes to your lover's son. So what if I'm your own flesh and blood?"
"Did you ever stop to think that after being crushed down again and again, maybe I'd break too? Maybe I'd kill myself?"
The words had barely left my mouth when my phone rang.
I laughed, ruined and hollow. "You see that? That's the crisis you handed me when you poisoned my fish. They're chasing me for the money, and I still owe my workers their wages."
"You're the only one who knows I've got nothing left."
My mother's mouth opened, then her lips seemed stuck fast, unable to form a single word.
In the end she choked out, "If your mother hadn't done it, it would have destroyed Tristan. Seeing you thriving, seeing you do so well, it tore him apart!"
Just then a man and a woman's voices came from outside the door.
"Hold him tight, don't drop the baby."
"Hold the baby, yes, but you have to take care of yourself too..."
The rest went unfinished. Wrapped around each other, they walked in, saw me, and stopped talking.
Blood still dripped from my hand. My heart felt like it was being cut open.
Cara quickly pushed Tristan away, straightened up, and came toward me with a smile.
"Rhys, do you know?"
"While you were unconscious, I was so frightened it brought on early labor, and I gave birth a week ahead."
She held the baby against her, her face gentle and harmless as she looked at me.
Tristan clenched his fists and ground his teeth, resentful and displeased.
My mother wiped away her tears and composed her expression.
"As long as they're safe, that's all that matters!"
"Rhys, come hold your son..."
"Enough. That's not my child. He's Tristan's."
"All of you knew. Even Cara's friends knew. I was the only one who didn't."
"If I hadn't passed by your hospital room and heard you say the secret with your own mouth, you'd have made a cuckold of me for the rest of my life."
The room went dead silent. Only Tristan's resentment melted away, replaced by smugness.
Cara looked at me with a pained face, still not knowing how to speak.
"Mom, you reported me for cooking the books, then you poisoned my fish, then you helped my wife roll around in bed with Tristan, and in the end she gave birth to his bastard."
A mouthful of blood came up, but I didn't go down.
Cara and my mother tensed. Tristan hurried over and bowed to me in apology, his face full of guilt.
"Brother, all of this is my fault."
"They only treated you this way because of me."
"I'm the one who deserves to be cut to pieces. So I promise you this."
"That child, I'll make sure he respects you as his father too."
Tristan shoved the baby into my arms and told me to hold him.
Then, the next second, he suddenly let go, and the baby dropped straight to the floor, wailing.
"Ah! My baby!"
Cara and my mother rushed over in a panic. One of them shoved me hard, and I crashed straight back onto the coffee table.
Cara scooped up the baby and checked him frantically. My mother, humiliated into fury, turned and grabbed a heavy object beside her, and without a second thought brought it down on my head.
Pain surged through me, and with it the smell of blood.
"A man who'd raise his hand against an infant doesn't deserve to be called human."
After cursing me, they took the baby and hurried off to the hospital.
I pressed a hand over the wound. I'd lost too much blood, so I had to go to the hospital myself.
When I came out with the wound bandaged, I saw the four of them in the distance, a family, chatting and laughing.
From beginning to end, in their eyes, I was the outsider.
The debt collectors kept calling, and the only thing I could think of was selling the house.
But the moment I got home, I found people carrying my things out.
I walked over and demanded to know what was going on, and learned that my mother had sold my house. When I called her, she actually yelled at me like she was the one wronged.
"My grandson was born, and as his grandmother I have to give him a gift!"
Then Tristan's voice came through. "Brother, thank you. You bought me a house with the money from selling yours."
I clenched my fist, and before I could speak my mother cut in again. "Oh, right, if you don't have money to pay your debts, go borrow from the bank!"
With that, she hung up.
In that moment, I decided I would never again be tripped up by family.
Crying, carrying an endless weight of injustice, I made the call to the police.
"Hello. I want to report someone for poisoning the fish in my fish farm. That person is my mother and my adoptive brother."
