Page 165

“What could you possibly want from me?” LaBlanc asks as he turns in his desk chair, running a hand through his shaggy hair. The clear bruising around his eyes, nose still displaced but set with tape from Harris’s fist, makes my chest glow with warmth.

I should just say what I came to say. I shouldn’t needle him, and yet I can’t stop myself from saying: “What? This can’t just be a friendly visit from your son-in-law?”

The disgust on his face is more satisfying than I ever thought I’d be able to achieve.

“Spit it out, Kane,” he snaps. Impatient, eyes flaring and jaw clenched. LaBlanc isn’t quick to anger like me; this entire interaction is a role reversal for us and I’ve never felt calmer in front of him.

Only the comforting warmth of my slow-burning ire to keep me fueled.

“I’m here to talk about Lily.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re always here to talk about Lily.”

I shake my head and give a rough laugh. “Yeah, and you’ve abused that since I was fucking twelve years old. But I’m not twelve anymore. I’m an adult. I’m the man who married your daughter.”

“What do you fucking want?” He almost bellows the words.

“A deal. Your favorite thing apparently,” I say, contempt in my voice. “I know what you did to Lily. I know you basically forced her into an engagement like some 1800s drama. I know you kept her from art, the one thing that makes her happy. And I know you let her drown in her depression for two years without getting her any goddamn help.”

“She had help. She had a doctor in Carson’s father. She had me—”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You didn’t help her. You made her think something was wrong with her for how she feels.”

Now I’m the one yelling, hands gripping the sides of my chair because I can’t get a grip when it comes to this.

He raises his hand, trying to stop me.

“The day that Lily’s mom killed herself was the worst day of my life,” he says, voice frayed and more emotional than I’m sure I’ve ever heard him. “And you only made it worse.”

The words hit the room like a bomb. Or a silencer in the way everything goes quiet. We’ve never spoken about it. About that day that Lily never seemed to remember, but I could never forget. I remember feeling crazy about it, like I’d made her up in my head years before I found her in that garden.

But that wasn’t what had happened.

Little Lillian LaBlanc had been in the house when Dahlia LaBlanc died by suicide. She’d been the one to find her mom, and then for some reason no one knows, Lily left the house. Maybe she was scared or looking for help, but she crawled through the gardens and all the way down the rolling landscape until she left through the broken distant back gate and wandered toward the road.

A kid, about twelve years old, named Henry found her. He was the oldest boy in my foster home, the one I followed around constantly, even that day. My brother.

Nervous, he walked us both home just a few steps away from the overcrowded dangerous place. He put us in our shared room, told me to watch over her.

And then she started crying.

I’m five years old. I see the fading brown carpet and peeling wallpaper of a room. And the girl, crying while standing in the doorway. Her face is hazy and unclear, blurred by the forgetfulness of time and loss. But I can see the girl clearly—my age maybe, but smaller with sloppy pigtails that are slumped, half fallen from their ribbons. Red hair, like warm fire. Like the flannel blanket on my bed.

“It’s okay,” I try to say, but the words are wobbled noises that echo in my ears. “It’s okay.”

The girl only sobs louder, clutching the stuffed animal closer in her grip. It stings, just slightly, because the toy is mine, I fought to keep it—but I gave it to her, trying to help. Trying to make her happy.

Henry brought us here, gave her a grape lollipop out of his stash, and she seemed to like it. So I crouch by his bed where he hides them underneath, pulling out another one for her. It seems to help, at least for a second, but she manages to cry around the candy in her mouth.

I reach for her, hoping to quiet her stabbing cries, holding her close like how my brother sometimes holds me after a nightmare. Maybe that’s what’s happening.

I hear the door slam and a loud yell downstairs, I tuck us both under the blanket to protect us and hum a lullaby like my mom might, holding her like she’s holding the stuffed animal.

I remember what happened next too. The sirens. The accusations. The yelling and fear—and the policemen who wrenched her away from me, even as she screamed and cried.

And LaBlanc, standing and watching over it all.

I don’t speak now, only taking a small sip of a breath through my nostrils, jaw clenched tight.