“Maybe he meant he didn’t know how he would protect him if it came down to it. Right now all we have are a few letters from a messed-up kid, who may or may not have accidentally killed himself.”
My stomach tightens into a ball. How could they think it might not have been an accident?
“Are you saying I shouldn’t go to the police with this?” Mom asks.
“And put yourself and Liam through hell? I promise you this letter isn’t enough evidence to put Don away. All it will do is prolong your suffering.”
Mom cries some more.
“Let me pour you another drink,” he says.
I hear glasses clinking.
“Donny has to pay for what he did,” she says, sobbing.
“I think he’ll be doing that the rest of his life. Think about it, Colleen. He’ll get nothing from me. Not a penny. We both know the only reason he was able to provide for you was because of me. For all we know, he’ll be living on the streets. Lord knows, if what Luke claims is true, he deserves that. But you know what I’m willing to do? I’ll take care of his family. You won’t be able to give Liam a good life, not now. You lost another job because they wouldn’t give you time off. What if you can’t get another one? Do you want to go back to living in squalor? Stay here, live in the east wing. You and Liam can have the run of the place. You won’t have to worry about where your next paycheck is coming from. Hell, you don’t even need to work if you don’t want to. Liam’s college—paid for. Whatever you need, ask and it’ll be done.”
Her voice is thick. “As long as I never say anything.”
“It’s your choice, Colleen, but before you decide, you should ask yourself what’s better for Liam. Being put on the stand and through the wringer by prosecutors who will say horrible things about what might have been done to his brother? Or growing up here and not wanting for a single thing. He’s already lost Luke. He’s lost Don. If you drink yourself to death, he might lose you, too. Who will take care of him then?”
I’ve heard enough. Nothing they are saying makes sense. Why would Dad need to “pay for what he’s done?” Why would Mom go to the police? What was that word she used? Molested?
I return to the kitchen and tell Helen I couldn’t find them. She ladles soup into a bowl for me. “Looks like it’s just the two of us, mijo.”
She eats with me. She’s done that a lot lately, when the others don’t show up for dinner.
Halfway through the meal, she asks, “Don’t you have anything to say? You’re usually a chatterbox.”
I put down my spoon. “Helen, what does molested mean?”
Her face loses all color. She closes her eyes and mumbles something in Spanish, then she gets up from the table.
“Is molested a bad word?”
“Maybe you should ask your mother.”
“I don’t want to make her more sad.”
Helen sits back down. “Molested means that someone has been touched on their private parts by a person who shouldn’t be touching them.”
“So it’s bad.”
She nods. “It’s very bad.”
“Can people go to jail for it?”
“Oh, yes.”
My hands shake. I try not to cry in front of her.
She pulls her chair next to mine. “You’re safe here.”
“But what if they take me to jail?”
Tears come to her eyes. “I promise you won’t go to jail. Only the one who does the bad touching goes. None of this is your fault, mijo.”
Bad touching. My stomach turns. Is that what Dad did to me?
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I crawled into bed with Luke and touched him. That makes me bad. Is that why he’s gone?
I run to my room.
I want to go where Luke has gone.
I want to die.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Ella
“I’m happy to see you can still keep up with me,” I joke as we finish our run.
“I ran three times this week.”
“Without me?” I pout.
“Yes, but it wasn’t the same.”
“Running alone sucks. Are you doing anything later?”
“Why?”
“I was thinking we could grab something to eat.”
He slows. “That sounds a lot like a date.”
“Liam, we’ve gone out to eat together a hundred times.”
“With other people.”
I stop at my usual place and stretch. “Okay. We won’t go out to eat.”
“We can go. No white tablecloths or fancy shit like that, though.”