fixed his neighbor’s fence, whether or not he was asked.
“So I guess what he’s really doing is protecting himself,” Eric says. “From looking too closely at how horribly—how inexcusably—he handled what happened to you.”
Ted had a two-faced father, but he’s nothing like Saul in that regard. What you see with Ted is what you get—his arrogance, his manic energy, his intolerance of distractions. Even during his Experiments, he always comes clean. He prides himself on that. So I can’t see him holding anything back from us to try to make himself look better. He already thinks he looks great as he is.
I rub a hand over my knee. Try to wipe the sweat from my palm. Then I hand the notebook back to Eric. “Even if you think I’m wrong, can you still have Jim’s wife look into Brennan?” I ask.
As I lay with my eyes open last night, I tried to remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen Brennan in person. It’s been decades, I think. Those weeks he stayed with us when I was twelve might have been the last time. And there has to be a reason he stopped stopping by.
Eric looks me in the eyes. His gaze is soft. Almost sad. “Sure, Bird,” he says. Then he tears my sketch out of the notebook. “I should head out now. I’ve got a shift later today.”
I drop my head onto his shoulder. Find the slope of bone where my forehead fits exactly right. “No,” I moan.
He puts his arms around me. Envelops me almost completely. “You really won’t come back with me?” he asks.
My heart thumps. “I can’t.”
“But—what are you gonna do here, all alone?”
“I’m not alone. Ted’s here.”
In the beat of silence that follows, Eric’s breath rustles my hair. “You’re not really gonna pack for him, are you?” he asks.
I try to shrug, but my shoulders can barely move in the tightness of his embrace. “I don’t know.”
“But, Bird…” Frustration simmers in his voice. “Think of everything he’s done. Besides doing essentially nothing to find out what happened to you, he also kept it a secret for twenty years. And what if you hadn’t started to remember? He might have never told you. How can you stay here and help him after all that?”
I pull away. Feel his arms slip off of me. “It’s not about helping him anymore,” I say. “It’s about helping Astrid. I explained this last night.”
Eric shakes his head. “I don’t like this. Ted won’t keep you safe.”
“I’ll keep myself safe.”
Eric’s eyes rove over my face, the way they do when he’s trying to be careful with me. But there’s no need to be careful. I’m not spiraling.
“Say what you want to say,” I tell him.
He lets out his breath. I find myself holding mine. “He doesn’t care about you.”
Something jerks in my stomach. No—it kicks. I know the baby’s too small for that. Doesn’t even have legs yet. But I feel it all the same.
“Not the way a parent should,” he adds.
I think of the witch from Forest Near. How Ted became her, initially, in the hopes that I would fear her. How fear was the language his father had taught him. But when I giggled that first time, when the way he shook me only made my laughter come harder, it was like he’d learned a new language. One both foreign and alluring. One his adult tongue has always found difficult to speak. I’ve only been back a few days, and he’s Forest Neared me twice. That has to count for something.
“You’re wrong,” I say.
Eric puts his hand on my back, and for the first time ever, his touch causes discomfort.
“I know it’s hard for you to see it,” he says. “But it isn’t good for you, being here with him. You went through a lot as a kid, and now you’re going through this enormous revelation, and…”
He pauses. Stares at me. Still so careful.
“You’re remembering something traumatic,” he continues. “Which is difficult enough. You don’t need to be reminded of all the additional trauma you endured by being Ted’s daughter.”
“Trauma?” I snap. “Who do you think you are—some second-rate Dr. Lockwood? Why don’t you stick to pediatrics, okay?”
I gasp after I say it. Try to suck in the voice that sounds too much like Ted’s. But it’s too late. The hurt in Eric’s eyes is palpable and instantaneous. Like a sheen of tears.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I touch his cheek. Kiss the corners of his lips. “Eric, I’m