Everyone keeps telling me to stay small. Stay quiet. Stay put.
My phone is in my hand before I’ve made a conscious decision.
I pull up my dad’s contact and hit the video call button. It rings four times, when his face fills the screen, bleary-eyed and rumpled.
“Mon chou?”He squints at the camera.
“Papa.” My voice cracks, and he goes still. “I need you to tell me the truth.”
He reads my face, that careful lawyer’s gaze cataloguing everything.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I found an email. In Art’s office.” I swallow. “About getting me fired. About getting me out of Boston.”
His brow furrows. “What do you mean? Art’s talking to people about you getting fired?”
“It’s more than that. It’s almost like it wasplannedor something. Like they got me fired so that I’d move here.”
The silence stretches so long I think the call might have frozen.
“Papa, do you know who Brut—”
“Stop.”
My heart stutters. “What do you mean stop? This is serious.”
He glances off-screen, and when he looks back, his face has changed.Work mode.
“You know what,mon chou, this isn’t a good time. I’m swamped, and I want to be able to listen to you fully without my mind running in a thousand directions.”
“Oh.” A knot swells in my throat. “Okay.”
“I love youto the moon, Genevieve.”
Everything stops. My heartbeat falters, the air in my lungs freezes. “What did you just say? I couldn’t hear you.”
He nods slowly. “I said what I always say,mon chou. I love youto the moon.”
I bite back the sob. The code word. The one he said would never come. The one we picked because he’s terrified of heights and would never willingly be so high above the earth.
“I love you, too.”
“Now, you just relax and stay there, be in love and happy with Art. Do youunderstandme? You’ve made a wonderful life together, and it should stay that way. You know we don’t let others see when there are cracks beneath the surface.”
He’s saying it like he’s talking about the weather, but I’m hearing every word differently now.
Don’t say things on the phone. Don’t show them you know something. Act the same as you have been. I’m in danger.
The room narrows to the size of his face on my screen.
He’s telling me everything is wrong. He’s telling me to pretend.
My hands are shaking so hard the phone rattles in my grip.
I nod, because I can’t speak.
“That’s my girl.” His voice breaks, just barely. “We’ll talk soon. Everything is going to be fine,mon chou.”
