Grown me just wanted to hang up. Instead, I put the phone on speaker and dropped it on the counter. “I’m twenty-eight. Older than both you and Mel when you started Free Money. I’m not a kid.”
“But you’re his kid. Doesn’t matter how old you are.”
I guess because Free spoke to my family more than I did he felt he could explain it all away. “Oh, right,” I said. “Mel needs a Father of the Year plaque next to the platinum records. You’re acting like he’s some sitcom dad when he wasn’t even speaking to the one child he actually cared about.”
“It’s hard to be a father when you didn’t have one yourself. It doesn’t come with a manual. And as much as Mel wants to act otherwise, he’s just human.”
I rolled my eyes before I remembered he couldn’t see my disgust.
“He was there when he needed to be,” Free said. “How he needed to be.”
I flashed on what Zarah had told me. Thought about Kevin House, who’d also had a daughter. “Like the night of Desiree’s accident?”
“Desiree and I never spoke about that.”
He wasn’t getting off the hook. “And you and Mel?”
He paused just long enough to make me think maybe Zarah was right. I waited him out, staring at the clock on my microwave. It’d just flicked to forty after when he spoke again. “When’s the last time you saw Mel cry?”
My wrist throbbed. “It wasn’t the night of Desiree’s accident. I can tell you that.”
He kept on like he was defending a thesis. “At Ma Pierce’s funeral?”
Free said it like he already knew the answer. Mel hadn’t cried. Not at Gram’s or my mom’s, for that matter. The closest I’d seen were the red-rimmed eyes in his office.
“Just tell me what he said about the night of her accident,” I said.
But he was still acting like he didn’t hear me, used to talking over people without anyone pointing out just how damn rude it was. “‘Tear It Up’ was the hardest song I ever wrote.” Free’s subject change was abrupt. “I must’ve wrote twenty-five verses at least. None were good enough. I’d write. Crumple it up. Throw it on the ground. By, like, four a.m. you couldn’t even walk in the studio without stepping on something. I’m in there alone; my boys had gone to sleep. The engineer is on break. Your dad is nowhere to be found. It’s dead quiet. And I hear this noise.”
I leaned against the counter. I wasn’t one of the millions of people who would kill to hear this story.
“A wail, like a cat in heat,” Free said. “I get up. Follow it down the hall. Closer I get to the bathroom, the louder it gets. I’m about to open the door when I realize it’s your dad. Crying. Your mom’d found out about Veronika. She hadn’t let him see you since.”
I flashed on a memory of my own. Me young enough to sit on Mel’s lap, too busy enjoying the cadence of Biggie’s voice to even try to pay attention to the grown-up talk between my parents. Comfortable. Happy. Secure. Until my mom yanked me out of Mel’s arms. She must’ve just found out her boyfriend was screwing her best friend. I remember I cried, reached back to where I had just been. Because I wanted my daddy.
There weren’t any more memories of Mel at our house after that.
“My mother wasn’t a bad person,” I finally said.
“Your dad isn’t either, Melina. He loves you. He may have loved you from a distance, but you were his first love. Not your mother. Not Veronika. Not even Desiree. You.”
Twenty-Six
The alarm beeped downstairs. We had a visitor, but I didn’t care. It was probably Erin, and I was too busy trying to prove a point. Ignore a feeling. I focused on the anger, confusion, and guilt that had been driving me the past eight days. It helped me avoid the anger, confusion, and guilt that had been driving me my entire life. “He lied about being in Manhattan the night of Desiree’s DUI.”
“And?” Free spoke so quickly it made me think my theory was correct.
“He may even have been driving the car,” I said, not ready to mention Kevin House.
“That’s bullshit. Desiree would’ve told me.”
“Maybe she didn’t know. What if he let her take the blame for it? What if he had to cover his tracks?”
“What are you trying to say Mel did?”
I couldn’t say it aloud so I said nothing at all.
“Mel isn’t my favorite person in the world,” Free said at last. “He’s an asshole, but he loves his kids. He’d never do anything to hurt them.” He paused as the voices came back, having found his hiding spot. “You know that too, Melina.”
“Are you saying he wasn’t in town?”
“I’m saying you need to finally talk to your father. I gotta go.”
For a family that had made its money off music, we weren’t good communicators. I’d never heard Gram or Aunt E refer to each other as their girlfriend. Just like I’d never heard them say a peep about what had happened between Mel and my mom. It was Grown Folks Business even when I’d become grown folks. And it wasn’t all their fault. I’d never asked—about either relationship. I’d been happy to accept Aunt E and Gram for what they were and anxious to accept Mel and my mom for what they weren’t.
And even though I probably should’ve finally had a heart-to-heart with Aunt E, I still just wanted to sit in my assigned seat at her kitchen table eating lasagna.
Luckily, Aunt E’s door was open. I barged in, expecting to see her and Erin in the kitchen. But Stuart sat in my chair, charm on full display. Aunt E was even giggling. Stuart had his notebook out but not open. Not yet. Too busy twirling his pen and smiling. Just like he’d done when he interviewed me.
I stood waiting for them to notice me. Aunt E was first. “There she is. Stuart here came by to talk to you.”
I glanced at the notebook. “Talk to me or about Desiree.” Stuart didn’t turn around, but the twirling stopped. I kept on. “Did you mention that you suckered some publisher into paying you to write about her?”
Aunt E kept the smile as she watched me. “He did. It’s a great idea.”
When I didn’t say anything, Stuart finally turned around. “Lena—”
“Leave,” I said.
“I’m not going to—”
“Leave.”
“You have to trust me.”
“No, you have to get out of my house. I will call the cops. Maybe they’ll come quicker than normal since they’re all your friends.”
“Lena—” Aunt E was pissed, but then so was I.
“No, it’s okay.” Stuart stood up. “I’ll go. There’s this adage in journalism. Show, don’t tell. I’ll show you I’m not the bad guy here. I’m not going to cash some paycheck and spend eighty thousand words talking about how horrible a person your sister was. Then maybe you’ll talk to me.” He smiled. “Over dinner. Silence of the Lambs.”
“Leave.”
And he did, walking to the door with me behind him for every step. I stood in the hall and watched until he got into his MINI Cooper. Then I slammed the front door, went up to my apartment, and sat on my couch to call Tam.