“I still have rights,” Braden says. “Lil and I filed a parenting plan, but my rights were never terminated. So, legally, I’d think—”
“Oh, that’s just ridiculous, Braden. You haven’t been around since Allie was six.”
“Paid my child support.”
“There hasn’t even been visitation—”
“Lil asked that I not visit anymore. I gave her what she wanted.”
“Mom did what?” Allie stares as if he’s just said something incomprehensible.
The memory jolts him as if the wound is fresh. The empty, gaping hole in the fabric of his life when the Sunday-afternoon visits stopped. His own pain, and worse, the thought of Allie and Trey crying over his absence.
“Your mother thought—”
Allie cuts him off and turns away. “Whatever. We tell social services that Dad’s been estranged, but he’s here now. Going to stay with me. Case closed. When I turn eighteen, you’re done. I go to college. Everything is fucking awesome.”
“Do you even have a job? How are you going to support her?” Alexandra fumes.
“Insurance money.”
Alexandra snorts. “Should have known you’d be in it for the money. I don’t even know if Lilian had insurance. And if she did, I’ll see to it that you don’t get your hands on a solitary penny.”
“My insurance money,” Braden says, keeping his voice as level as he can. He will not get into a shouting match with Alexandra. Not here in public, not anywhere. “From the policy we had on my hands.”
“Mom did have life insurance,” Allie chimes in. “I’m the beneficiary. So there’s also that.”
Alexandra softens her tone, puts a gentling hand on Allie’s arm. “Honey, you’re not thinking clearly. How about we give it some time? I’ll take you home, and we’ll drop your dad off—”
Allie shakes her off. “We stop by Dad’s place on the way home so he can pack a bag, and he comes with us. Now. Today.”
Her gaze sweeps over her aunt, over Braden. “Are we clear? Good. Let’s get out of here.”
She turns her back and stalks away from them toward the waiting limo. Braden and Alexandra follow in silence, although it’s clear from her tight lips and defiant chin that she’s not done yet. He could make a run for it. Call a cab. Go home and drown this whole impossible situation in a sea of alcohol.
One thought holds him steady, keeps him moving toward the car.
Allie needs me.
And that’s the only thing that matters.
Chapter Six
PHEE
Phee slips into the back row one moment before the funeral begins. She feels like a ghoul, a death raven, turning up here, but if Braden is alive and going to surface, she needs to get a lock on him.
Not that Phee isn’t sad; the two coffins up on the platform stab her through the heart.
She’s never met Trey or Allie and has spoken about a dozen words with Lilian on the occasions when she brought the cello into the shop for maintenance. Dark eyes, a face that might have been beautiful had it been warmed by a smile. She’d carried the cello like an odious duty, unconsciously wiping her palms on her slacks after turning it over to Phee.
When musicians bring their instruments in for repairs they hover, make worried noises, spout all sorts of self-reproachful guilt over an accidental scratch or ding. Phee is used to soothing them, and they know they can trust her.
Lilian, bringing in the cello, would share only the briefest of facts.
“Allie says it’s not holding a tuning properly,” or “It needs to be restrung.” This followed by: “How much?” And: “How long?”
When Allie was young, Phee felt guilty sending the cello back into that environment, as if it were a child in an unloving home. But Allie, she knows, has always loved the cello and is growing into a brilliant cellist.
Phee has cyberstalked her for so long the girl feels like family. They are friends on Instagram and Facebook, where Phee’s handle is “Lucia Luthier.” She posts music pics and memes and never anything personal. She knows that the girl with the harshly dyed black hair sitting on Allie’s left is her best friend since grade school, Steph, who plays the flute in the orchestra and isn’t as tough as she looks.
The woman on the right, as proprietary and possessive of Allie as Phee is of the violins and cellos entrusted to her care, is an unknown. She must be a relative and is therefore a problem. Because Allie is Phee’s only remaining link to the cello—she thinks of it as “THE CELLO,” all caps, sometimes