Page 279 of Property of Whiskey

“Yes.”

“You knew there might be girls taken there.”

“I suspected.”

“And you stopped.”

His jaw works once before he answers. “Yes.”

Anger rushes through me so fast my eyes burn.

“How many?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many girls disappeared because you stopped asking questions?”

“Twila.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know!”

Daddy’s fist hits the table hard enough to make coffee jump in all three cups.

I flinch.

Whiskey doesn’t.

Daddy stares at me, horror replacing his anger almost immediately.

“I have asked myself that every goddamn day for twelve years.”

The room goes quiet.

His voice cracks. That shuts me up. “I went home that night with that picture in my hand, and you were asleep in your room.”

He looks toward the hallway. My old bedroom is still back there. “I stood outside your door and watched you breathe.”

My throat closes.

“I had already watched your mama die.” His voice gets rougher. “Watched cancer take her piece by piece while I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Watched you sit beside her bed pretending you weren’t scared because you thought being strong meant I didn’t need to worry about you.”

I look down at the photograph.

“I wasn’t gambling my daughter too.”

“Daddy.”

“No.”

His eyes shine. I’ve seen Amos Dix bleed. Seen him break up bar fights, pull bodies out of wrecks, tell families their kid wasn’t coming home.

I have almost never seen him cry.

Tonight he comes close. “I was a coward.”

“No.”