“And who wants to be a light bulb?” Cate asked.
“Just see it from my perspective.” Junior’s voice hardened, an abrupt energy in his posture. He straightened. “You Girls are the reason that my family was so broken. Don’t I deserve a chance to be part of the story? I lost my father as a kid. My mother was never the same after he died. I wanted to at least see that his work was worthwhile. And you, Josie. All of a sudden, you’re all over the news, talking about how you’re going to finish his work. Just hijack his legacy.”
“Hijack?” I said, stung. “I devoted my life to restoring his work and making him proud. That was always my intention. How can you fucking say that?”
“But imagine how it felt for me,” Junior said. “Watching somebody else take over my father’s work like that. I wanted to be part of it too. I wanted to have a say in his story.”
Cate waved one of the pages. “Reading this, I’m just seeing a lot of the same shit that’s already been published a thousand times. So he’s your father—so what?”
Junior watched her, different expressions flickering across his face: defensiveness, shame, anger. For a second, an almost heartbreaking optimism, like he might still fix this.
“You want a new take?” Cate asked. “A fresh take? Then think about this, Junior.” She stepped closer to him. “When your father started out, he was trying and failing to achieve the impossible. He would have tried and failed for decades if Morrow’s mother hadn’t reached out to him. Our mothers were the ones who did your father a favor. We’re our mothers’ creations every bit as much as we’re his. Now that we know about Lily-Anne, I’m not sure what your father had to do with anything.”
The flashing TV screen jangled at my nerves. The truth of what Cate had said seeped in a little deeper. I was my mother’s daughter and only my mother’s daughter. I was her brainchild, not just her flesh-and-blood daughter. She was my brainmother.
“Look, I’m sympathetic to the Girls of the Homestead,” Junior said, struggling to stay calm. “I am. I’ve found out a lot of things about my father that I don’t understand or like. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. It’s hard to accept that your father might’ve been a—a—”
“Villain? Liar? Thief?” Cate supplied helpfully.
“A controversial genius. Plenty of great men have had their flaws,” Junior said, reddening. “It doesn’t mean that my father’s entire legacy has to be stolen.”
“Stolen?” Cate repeated. “Who stole what, exactly?”
“Maybe it’s time for the legacy to decide for itself,” I said.
Junior laughed under his breath. “All right, Josie. All right. Then let’s talk about this: your mother killed my father.” The breath was knocked from my lungs as if he’d hit me. “My life could have been different if he’d lived. It’s not just about me and my mother and my brother, because I know you don’t give a shit about us. But my father could’ve continued his work. He would have been able to handle your powers. You would’ve understood yourselves and what you’re capable of—”
“We don’t need anyone to handle us, we understand ourselves already,” I cut him off. “We don’t need a Bellanger to do that.” As I said it, I experienced a lightness. Not peace, not relief, but a new sense of space inside me. I could sense Cate’s watchfulness from the corner of my eye. I felt too nervous to look at her still, like I was trying to pick up our friendship—our whatever-it-was—from where we’d left it.
Junior made a visible effort to steady himself, shutting his eyes and then opening them. “I know we’re all upset. I get that. Let’s just head to Freshwater. We can keep discussing this, but we shouldn’t let this drama throw us off-track.”
Cate spat out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re not fucking coming with us.”
“I’ve been part of this from the start,” he said.
“Junior.” She was almost maternal. “There’s somebody following us and we don’t know who it is because you’ve misled us. You’ve been recording private conversations and writing about us as if we’re not even real people to you. You’re not coming. No way.”
Isabelle spoke up: “No way,” she echoed, not taking her eyes off the TV screen. “You lost your chance.”
He pressed his hands to his forehead, took several unsteady breaths. “Can I have my book back? I’ve put a lot of work into that.”