And that’s all there is to say. I bend over and let myself grieve him, grieve the time I lost not speaking to him. I let go of all the things he should have been, and allow myself to love the things he was. As he loved me, as they’ve all loved me, my beautiful, beloved family, loved me when I was drunk or sober.
They still love me. And the knowledge blooms, full and whole: we are still a family.
My father couldn’t wreck what was built to last. Whatever form our family takes, it’s still a bulwark against the winds of the world. It’s still mine.
I pull my phone from my pocket and dial a number. When Rory picks up, I say, “I’ve had a little relapse, and I need to go to a meeting right now. Can you come get me?”
“Yes. Yes. I’ll be right there.”
Standing there, waiting for her, I think of my young self, waiting for someone to get me out of that apartment. Waiting to be rescued.
But what I see now is that I didn’t just wait. I tried to open a window and stood by the door and screamed whenever I heard someone in the hallway. I yelled until someone finally heard me and broke down the door and let me out. I couldn’t manage the door, but I could use my voice.
I can do this.
I press my hand over my belly. “I’m so sorry, baby. That won’t happen again, I promise.”
And I know it won’t.
I just know.
Chapter Forty
Norah
I wait for Meadow on a bench in the shade of a monster-size tree, my knee wiggling with my nervousness. I’m not exactly sure what I want to say.
When she comes out the back door, she’s wearing a plain skirt that doesn’t seem like her style and a pair of flip-flops, her hair pulled out of her face in a ponytail. She looks like she’s getting down to work and I feel bad. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything too important,” I say, standing.
She waves me back down. “Sit. I’m too tired to stand.” She flops on the bench and leans forward, her face in her hands for a long minute. “They released his body, did you hear?”
“No!” My heart squeezes, hard. “What did the autopsy say?”
“Inconclusive.” She sighs and sits up. “What can I do for you, Norah?”
And I realize I have no idea where to start. “Um. This is kind of hard. But . . .” I take a breath. “I’ve wanted to write a feminist piece about you for at least two years, and I came here to interview you, give the world a story that would show that you, not Augustus, were the impetus behind the Peaches and Pork empire.”
She just looks at me. Her face is bare of makeup so I can see her freckles, and her lashes are as light as her hair. Her lips are pale. Her expression is weary. “And? I don’t really have time for this right now.”
“I did some research. On you, on your life. I, um, talked to your first boss, Trudy, and she knew your . . . original . . . name.”
Her attention is more taut now, her back straighter as her eyes narrow. “That’s none of your business. My story belongs to me. Only to me.”
“Except that now I know it. Maybe not all of it, but most.”
She waits.
“I know that you grew up in Thunder Bluff, that your mom died when you were fourteen, that you got pregnant there, and Rory was a year old when you disappeared.”
“So what?”
“I think you poisoned him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They just did an autopsy and found nothing.”
“I actually meant your stepfather. They found him dead in your house and you had disappeared.”
A hush falls between us. She looks down, then back at me. “And what if I did? Are you going to write that into an article and get famous while I go to prison?”
“No,” I say. I’m not even surprised. “I’m not going to write the story at all. I don’t think you deserve that.”
She closes her eyes, and her fingers are tightly woven together. “You grew up in foster homes. I don’t know what it was like for you.”
I frown, wondering what she’s getting at. “It wasn’t great, but it was mostly okay.”
She nods, looking at her hands, then back at me. “You’re not broken. He usually chose broken women, so that’s what I kept seeing when I looked at you. But you’re strong. Whole. Maybe that’s what he needed, in the end.”
I blink. It would be disastrous to weep right this second. I say nothing.
Meadow sighs and looks toward the sea. I see that she’s struggling to contain her emotions. “My stepfather raped me repeatedly for two years, even when I was pregnant.”