Cal’s story would add to their side.His memories of Mom being a victimbeforethe murder.That all hinged on the jury believing Cal’s memories, and the way trauma had kept them at bay for all these years.
But Nate had to be optimistic.They also had physical evidence in their favor.Much as he didn’t like Hayes, the detective had taken every step of the investigation seriously.Carefully.He was, as Sam had once said, a good detective.
Even if Nate still wanted to believe he was an asshole.
Testimony would matter.Evidence would matter.It all had to matter.
As Vanderbilt had predicted, they didn’t get to Cal today.They all got to go home withthathanging over their heads.Still, Nate thought Cal looked… not sturdy exactly, but whatever skid backward he’d been on, he was taking steps forward again.
Nate knew better than anyone that healing wasn’t linear, wasn’t a straight line.It was just hell watching someone he cared about suffer the same things he knew were just part of it.
They said muted goodbyes to Cal, Landon, and Aly.Sam checked her phone as they walked back to his truck.
“Nothing from Bo?”
She shook her head.“No.I don’t want to be pushy, but I also don’t want him to feel like he’s alone in this.I know what it’s like looking for answers you think are going to be simple, only to have the whole thing blow up on you.”
Nate drove, chewing over the problem that was this brother he just didn’t know.He felt torn in a million directions by the guy, by Glenda’s story, by the heavy feelings he didn’t know what to do with when it came to his mother saving one of them.
Yeah, he just couldn’t wrap his mind around it enough to deal with it.So he was a little relieved that Bo wasn’t reaching out, pushing things, trying to make sense of what… would never really make sense.
Because Mom was dead.If she’d imparted any of her motivations on Glenda, Glenda had not and might never share.It was just this mystery he had to accept.
He glanced at Sam as he pulled into his parking spot behind Honor’s Edge.Would she ever understand that?In her constant, determined pilgrimages for truth, would she ever be able to fully accept sometimes there was no truth?
Only answers lost to time.
He didn’t know.Wasn’t sure he even needed her to.There was something comforting about her belief that all problems had answers—even if they were shitty ones.
They got out of the car and walked into the building and up to her apartment without saying anything.Once inside, he was already pulling off his tie while she was already kicking off her heels.
No, neither of them were made to dress up for court every day.
“I’m going to shower this shitty day off of me,” he told her, hanging his tie over the back of the kitchen stool.
“I’ll throw together that survival dinner.”She’d pulled the clip out of her hair and was scratching her fingers through the free strands.
She didn’t like dressing up for court, but she did it.She didn’thaveto go with him every day, but she did.Maybe she’d had to go today to testify, but she would have even if it hadn’t been her turn.
She certainly didn’t have to let him suddenly invade her space, but she hadn’t lodged one complaint.
She’d opened her life, her bed, herself to him and he was under no illusion it would have gone that smoothly if theyweren’tdealing in trauma and just the general fuck-up-ness that was his life and family.
But maybe that was what made it all the more poignant, in this boring, quiet moment.He’d shower off the day.She’d make dinner.They’d go to bed, wake up, head to court together.In these worst moments, they could just… be there for each other.
Sam had always seen him at his worst, since that day Dad had beaten the piss out of him and she’d helped him get the hell out of here fifteen years ago.That mountain in Tennessee when he’d been shutting out the world and a future andeverythingbut survival.Here, this spring, when Cal had remembered.Today, reliving it all on the stand in court.
Did it matter if she saw the aftereffects of the one worst she hadn’t been there for?
“How about we save some water, and you join me instead?”
She didn’t say anything, but she studied him with those expressive brown eyes.
Because it wasn’t a casual invitation, and they both knew it.It held weight.A weight she had to be willing to carry.
It didn’tsurprisehim that she crossed to him.But it humbled him some.This past spring she’d brought him home, changed his life, a little bit more every month he was here.Putting down roots, buying houses andseeing where things went.
And she’d been dealing with her own shit.Nothing had been easy for either of them.
