The Family Secret

~ Eight ~

Chase's POV:

The homemade cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting that mom made for breakfast before heading out for a while to clear her head threatened to reappear as I sat down at the kitchen table with Dale, Chad, and Casey. Dale had called his other siblings and I had talked to them as well. Like he'd said, they were all willing to be here for this but I ultimately thought that having the entire Earnhardt clan here would just make Chad and Casey seem like they were being ambushed. I wasn't ready to blow their image of their dad to smithereens but they needed to know what to expect when Dale and I finally made our new-found kinship public knowledge. They deserved to know the microscope that this was going to put our family under.

Taking a deep breath –and really wishing that it wasn't frowned upon to start drinking at nine in the morning because that would make telling this a little bit easier– I sat back in my chair, rocking it back on its legs. "There's no easy way to tell y'all this so I'm just gonna spit it out. Dale and I are–"

"In love with one another and leaving your wives" said Casey, always one to bust my chops when possible. Everyone around the table erupted in laughter, even Dale which was surprising since he was getting roasted on because of me.

"Fuck you." I said, flipping him the bird as a smile tore across my face even though what I was about to tell them really wasn't anything that they would be smiling about later.

"If it's not that then it must be that you two convinced Callie and Amy to become part of the polygamist community and yall are all gonna be brother/sister wives." said Chad, taking a bite of his third cinnamon roll.

"Welllll," I said, sitting the chair back on four legs. I placed my elbows on the table and took yet another deep breath. "In a roundabout way, y'all are kind of right."

My comment earned me curious glances from both Casey and Chad.

"I thought you were just going to spit it out." said Casey when I didn't speak immediately.

"What Chase is trying to tell you is that he did one of those DNA tests and found out that he had more siblings than just you two." Said Dale, cutting into the conversation.

"What the hell do you mean by that? Daddy never cheated on mama and mama never cheated on daddy" said Casey, anger in his tone. Ohhhh this is gonna hurt big brother...

"According to mama, she and daddy hit a rough patch a couple years before I was born. Daddy took off and was gone for more than a year. Since mama was convinced that she and her boys had been abandoned, she took some time to contemplate her life and all she was going to have to do to raise you both. While she was taking time to herself, she ended up running into an old friend. Long story short, they rekindled a relationship that had simmered for years. She was getting ready to file for divorce and start her new life with the old friend when that all got shot down because daddy came back into the picture swearing that he would do anything to have her and the two of you back into his life. They had just started working things out when mama found out that she was pregnant with me." I explained, giving the cliff notes version of what was now my life story.

"I think I remember some of that," said Casey. "I've never mentioned it to mama or even to you, Chad. Hell, I thought I had dreamed it to be honest. But I remember there being a time that daddy wasn't there. I was young, like maybe four or five at the time, but I do remember it."

"So who the hell is the old friend that mom was ready to run off into the sunset with?" asked Chad.

Silence settled around the table. Tension built. Casey and Chad both looked as if they couldn;t wrap their head around what was being left unsaid even though you could see on their faces that their minds were working overtime. Dale looked remorseful in a sense. All in all, no one wanted to speak –or even think about– the next words that needed to be said. But keeping them unsaid defeated the purpose of this whole conversation so I bit the bullet and let the words fall from my mouth. "Dale Earnhardt Sr."