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No hesitation. She looks straight at me, not embarrassed, not defensive.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with anyone,” she says. “Not the way people mean.”

My whole childhood shifts a little. The bedroom door that was never locked because nobody was ever in there with her. The men who tried and got sent away politely.

I used to think she was private. Maybe that was just the easiest word for what I didn’t understand.

My father was gay. The sentence keeps circling back, sneaking up on me sideways.

My father was gay, and my mother never loved anyone but me.

It shouldn’t matter. People aren’t their parents. Biology isn’t destiny. All that shit.

Still, the thought gets in.

I look toward the envelope in the other room.

“What if I don’t want any of it?”

“Then don’t.”

“That easy?”

“No. But it’s still your choice.”

I look at my cold coffee.

“Money’s not exactly offensive.”

Chapter five

Something Breaks

Paul

The Pearl has a back patio it only opens when the weather behaves. Today, the weather is doing its best. Seventy-two degrees and enough sun to make the day look promising. The planters along the wall are full of lavender and something yellow I should be able to name but can’t.

June in Riverside. The first week of the first June.

I sit beneath the blue umbrella with my sunglasses on, even though we’re in shade.

“You look terrible,” Jessica says, sitting across from me.

“Thank you.”

She studies me with the calm brutality of a sibling who has seen every version of my face.

“Are you sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

I pick up my water glass. “In the house.”

“Still in the basement?”

Her expression changes. I hate that—both the pity and the little flash before she contains it.