Page 45 of Bram

She didn’t smile. “This one’s different.”

“I know,” I said. She thought she was my mother.

She stepped closer, close enough that I could see the old scar under her left ear, the place where some man a lifetime ago had tried to take her apart.

“You protect my girls,” she said. “You don’t let that bastard get his hands on them.”

I nodded. “I won’t.”

Her hand hovered for a second, then gripped my forearm. It was dry and strong.

“I mean it,” she said.

“I know you do.”

She let go, then turned to Rusty. “Dick, now.”

Rusty laughed and walked Sally past Julie and me. Moments later, we could hear the two fucking down the hall in Rusty’s room. Julie covered her ears, but I think the image of Rusty banging her mother was stuck in her head.

Everyone was happy, albeit temporarily.

eighteen

Julie

The kitchen was already hot when I walked in, and the tension made it worse. Mom sat at the battered table, both hands wrapped around a mug of black coffee. The mug looked like a weapon in her grip, chipped at the lip and stained by a thousand mornings just like this one, but nothing about her posture was morning-casual. She had a manila envelope in front of her, thick and dog-eared, and next to it a stack of photographs rubber-banded so tight the edges curled. She didn’t look up when I entered, just flicked her eyes once over the top of the envelope and then went back to waiting.

“This doesn’t look good,” I said. “Someone piss in your Cheerios?”

“She was like this as a child,” Mom said. “Always something to say.”

Bram sat with his left arm pulled away from his body, the way you do when you’re hiding stitches but don’t want anyone to mention it. He looked tired, which for him was saying something—normally he could outstare an animal, but right now even his glare was dulled by fatigue. His hands were flat on the scarred surface, palms down, knuckles gray-white. He’d poured his own coffee and hadn’t touched it. The mug steamed quietly between his fingers, the heat going nowhere.

“Nice shirt,” he said.

“Not much of a selection in your drawers.”

“I’ve got a selection in my drawers for you,” he said.

Mom shook her head. Emma chuckled.

“Guess I need to read the room,” Bram said. He looked at Mom. “Although this is my fucking club.”

“One big happy family,” Rusty said and grunted. “We should have our own comedy show.”

Rusty hovered near the doorway, arms crossed, feet planted shoulder-width apart. He didn’t sit. He didn’t say anything else. You’d think he was the one being interrogated, not the other way around. I thought maybe Mom had broken his dick off last night during their second or third round, but I think he was still steaming over the Colonel walking away from the club yesterday. He wasn’t going to let Bram kill the man he wanted to kill.

I slid into the chair next to Emma. She sat hunched, both elbows on the table, her bruised forearm mapped with yellow and green. The pattern made my stomach sour, but the girl herself looked steady, sharp. She kept her gaze moving—first to Mom, then Bram, then a quick, unreadable glance at Rusty—before settling on the envelope. She was already trying to game out the next move.

Mom reached for the photographs. She stripped off the rubber band, dropped it on the table, and flipped the top one over without ceremony. It showed the Colonel—my biological father—shaking hands with a state official. Next was the Colonel in front of the Barstow courthouse, surrounded by a press scrum. The third was a grainy shot of me at my law school graduation, the Colonel’s hand perched on my shoulder like a tarantula. I stared at that one a long time, my mouth going dry, waiting for the explanation I hoped was never coming.

Mom let the photos sit a second, then lined them up with her index finger. “He kept these on his desk,” she said. Her voice had the warmth of a cop radio. “Every time you called, he made sure to look at this one.” She tapped the graduation photo. “You were his prize. Not his child. His project.”

I felt my jaw lock. My pulse hammered up through my eardrums. “Why are you showing me this now?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she went back to the envelope, cracked it open, and spilled out a new set. These weren’t photos. They were records: court transcripts, official letters, a stack of financial printouts so thick it nearly toppled itself. Sally spread them in a fan, face up, all the color drained from the page.

She pointed at the first sheet. “This is the wire transfer that paid for your first campaign. It didn’t come from the usual PAC—it came from an offshore account, ran through two dummy corporations. He bought your seat before you ever filed paperwork.”