“A younger sister, Cheyenne Briggs. Our guy is trying to locate her now to let her know.”
The room feels too small. Too tight.
I push back in my chair and stand, pacing to the window and back again.
“She must have been scared,” I mutter. “Twenty-four. No support. She didn’t deserve that.”
Pop doesn’t argue. He doesn’t comfort either. He just lets the truth sit between us.
“What happens now?” I ask finally.
Pop steeples his fingers. “You have to tell Ruby.”
“Tell Ruby?” I snap, panic rising. “How do I tell a four-year-old she’s never gonna see her mother again?”
“Gently,” Pop says. “You be honest. Answer her questions to the best of your ability. Then you reassure her. Tell her she’s safe and loved. That you aren’t going anywhere. And show her every day that those words are true.”
I swallow hard.
“I screwed up,” I say. “I should have never given Candy that money and let her leave.”
“Son, that little bit of money didn’t kill her. Her own poor choices did. That’s not on you.”
“Sure it is. I knew she was in a bad way.”
“What’s done is done. The important thing now is Ruby.”
“I shouldn’t have ever listened to you. We were better off not knowing.”
“Why?”
“Because at least then she’d have hope. Hope that she’d see her mother again someday.”
“False hope is just a different kind of heartbreak. She’d have grown up, wondering why her mother didn’t love her enough to come looking for her. At least now she can have some form of closure.”
I shake my head. “She needs hope.”
“All she needs is her father,” he yells.
Anger boils inside of me.
“What would you know about that? Huh, old man? You weren’t there when I needed you. You cared more about the fucking cows in the field than you did about your own son. Whythe hell should I listen to a word you have to say about what my daughter needs?”
“You’re right, son. I was a damn mess back then. I didn’t know how to help you or your mother through your grief when I was drowning in mine. So, I threw myself into work,” he admits.
“And left me to pick up the pieces.”
He nods. “Yes.”
“I was just a kid.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry? Sorry doesn’t give me my childhood back. It doesn’t reverse the fact that I started drinking to numb the pain. That I wasted the last eight years on the run from you. From your suffocating expectations. You want to know why I left? Because the last thing I ever wanted to fucking do was work with you. I’d rather live off the kindness of strangers on the streets.”
He walks over to me, and instead of arguing, he wraps his arms around me, knocking my hat off my head and cradling me in his arms. Hugging me tight to his chest. And I lose it. I start sobbing like an eight-year-old.
“I didn’t protect her. Just like I didn’t protect Crissy.”
