“It’s not. None of this is your fault.”
Unsure what to do with himself while his parents shared a moment—one that made him think again of Emma—Jason headed toward the back sliding door.
“You stink,” Mom said softly, her voice muffled.
Dad chuckled. “Sorry. It’s warm out.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He laughed again. “I know.”
Jason shut the sliding door on their conversation and let out a deep breath. Grandma Jackson sat in one of the faux wicker cushioned chairs, scowling at nothing. Her view was a fire pit, Dad’s vegetable garden, and the block wall that divided their yard from the neighbors. She stubbed out her cigarette as Jason strolled closer, but didn’t look his way. “Tell me more about this girl.”
“Emma?” he asked, settling into the plush chair next to her. “And she’s in her thirties, hardly a girl.”
Nana waved her hand dismissively. “The baby-child who convinced you to turn against your brother. She didn’t hurt you enough the first time?”
Jesus. If things worked out the way he wanted with Em, they’d have an uphill battle with his family. “She’s not the bad guy here, Nana. And she wasn’t in college either.” He should’ve set the record straight about Emma years ago, but his family had stopped talking about her to spare his feelings, and he’d been too ashamed of his own behavior to bring it up. “Byron is my brother, and family loyalty matters to me, but he broke the law, he knowingly put people in harm’s way, and is an accessory to at least two murders. All for financial gain. No matter how much we love him,he’sthe villain here.”
She harrumphed as she shook another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “Allegedly.” God only knew how she’d lived to eighty-eight. With luck, he’d inherited her genes.
The puff of smoke she exhaled washed over him, unwelcome, but also familiar. His entire life, that scent had permeated her clothes, her hair, her house, and the car she’d driven before giving up her license. He both hated it and loved it.
He sighed. Why was he the one taking all the flak for Byron’s misdeeds? “He did it, Nana. I’ve seen and heard enough evidence to believe that. I wouldn’t have helped Emma if I thought otherwise.”
They sat in silence until she stubbed out another Lucky Strike in the green glass ashtray she’d used for as long as he could remember. “When Geraldine died last year,” she said, talking about her best friend, who’d grown up next door to her in the nearby river-port town of Pittsburg, “I got talking to her youngest daughter, Shay.”
Jason smiled at her abrupt change in topic. So typical. “Oh yeah?” He’d met the fifty-something Shay once or twice over the years. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine.” Nana patted his arm with her dark, arthritic hand. “Butlisten. A few years ago, she and her sisters decided to do one of those DNA tests, just for fun. Figured maybe they’d find some long-lost cousins or whatnot.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Turned out Shay and her sisters didn’t share the same paternal DNA.”
“Oh, sh— Oh, wow.” He tried to imagine old Geraldine having an affair. She and her husband had always seemed happy together. “That’s awkward.”
Nana shrugged. “Sometimes you think you know people…”
Ah, so there was a point to this. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Never had a clue.” Nana pushed to her feet, ignoring his offer of help and shuffled to the house, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
It was going to take time for his family to understand in their hearts that Byron wasn’t the man they’d thought. Or, maybe hewas, but he was also someone else. People were fucking complicated.
Hell, Jason was still reeling from the revelations, and he’d been on the scene. But it would be harder for his parents. They’d spent years—consciously or otherwise—spinning out hopes and dreams for his brother’s future. Almost as if Byron had died, they needed to grieve their visions of what his life could have been before they’d have a chance at accepting the new reality.
Their own egos were probably taking a hit as well. What parent didn’t feel like their child’s successes and failures were at least a partial reflection on them? And, above all, his own parents had always wanted him and Byron to be happy. They’d be grieving for Byron’s pain as well, even if it was largely self-inflicted.
Jason grimaced. He should have more sympathy for his parents, because as much of an ass as he’d thought his brother was, he’d never expected him to hurt others for his own greed. Clearly, Nana was right. Everyone had the capacity to surprise us. Maybe that was supposed to make all of them feel better for not knowing Byron as well as they’d thought.
Or was Nana’s point that he couldn’t really know Emma? Frowning, he reflexively checked his phone, but a text from her hadn’t magically appeared in the last thirty minutes.
Weighing the phone in his palm, he watched a bee buzz around his dad’s borage plants.
He wanted Emma to be part of his family, and neither of them should be dealing with the fallout from Lucerne alone. He dialed her number, belatedly remembering that Natalie’s memorial was today.
“Hey, Em,” he said when he reached her voice mail. “I was just thinking about you and wanted to check in, see how you’re holding up. Wish I could be there with you. Call me back if you’re not too busy. Or text, whatever. I— Miss you.”
Shit. He ended the call. No way was he going to tell her he loved her for the first time in a voice mail.
Eager for anything that would remind him of her, he searched his phone for articles she’d written. She’d largely opted out of reporting on the Warner case because once she became part of the story, she was no longer an independent observer. There was a short piece where someone interviewed her on how it felt to become the news, but nothing under her byline.
