“What did you do, Bast?”
He knows me better than I do most times.
I tell him all about Hattie and how she was raised, me hiring her and wanting to corrupt her. I tell him everything.
He blows out a breath. “And now you care about this girl.”
“I don’t know.”
He stares blankly at me again.
“I need to get my shit together where she’s concerned so that I can finish this. I can’t wait to see the look on Carla’s face when she realizes what her perfect little daughter has been up to in Seattle and exactly who’s been doing it to her.”
My dad goes quiet again, his color still not returning.
“Are you feeling okay? Do you want me to get Eleanor or something?”
He’s staring at his lap, but he holds up his hand, then doesn’t say anything for at least another minute before he slowly raises his gaze to mine. “I agree. I figured your mother would be dead by now too.”
“Not sure what her reason was for getting clean, but I obviously wasn’t a good enough one for her.” That familiar ache in my chest, the one I always carry to some degree, intensifies.
“Bast, I have to tell you something. And I need you to hear me out.”
I stiffen, knowing from the tone of his voice that I won’t like whatever he’s about to tell me. “What?”
“Your mother showed up at our door about a year after I took you in.”
I’m not sure I understand what he’s saying as hard as I’m trying to register his words. It feels as though someone punched me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me.
“My mother came looking for me?” My voice is hoarse. He nods solemnly. “Was she fucked up or was she clean?”
A pained look crosses his face. “She was clean. At least she said she was, looked like maybe she was, although she was frail and thin. But after everything you’d told me about her, I didn’t believe her, didn’t trust that she’d stay that way.”
“What did she want?” Though I think I already know.
His gaze doesn’t veer from mine. “She wanted to take you with her. And I refused.”
“She what?” I roar, stepping toward him. If he wasn’t sick, I’d rip him up out of that chair and toss him off the porch.
My mother came for me?
My mother came for me.
“What did you tell her? Why didn’t I go with her?”
He shifts in his seat, guilt lining all his wrinkles. “I told her that you wanted nothing to do with her, that you ran away for a reason and that you hated her. Said that you told me you’d run away from her again if you ever had to go back there. Threatened her if she ever tried to come back again.”
Tears prick the backs of my eyes, but I do what I always do and swallow them back down. “But I didn’t say any of that.”
He frowns. “Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but I wasn’t about to send you back there to be neglected and abused on her word alone.”
“You sure it’s not just because I was bringing in money for you and helping you with your grifts?” Venom coats my words. My anger’s too big to hide.
He glares at me. “I did what I thought was right at the time.”
I push my hand through my hair and turn away from him, then pace the length of the porch.
My mother came for me.
