Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,191

a concussion, and the thoughts wouldn’t form, but kept skittering away the more you tried to pull them in.

She said, “What if you all did it together?”

He raised his head, and she said, “Just because he asked for you, that doesn’t mean only you can go. I think, if you asked them, everybody might want to go. To be able to ask their questions. To be able to yell if they needed to. To be able to call him names. They might feel constrained, in a courtroom. And you know … there would be two reasons I think they’d all say yes. Because, first, you’re the glue. You’re the leader. You’ve got the strength to hold them together, and you’re also their protection.”

“What’s the second reason?” he asked.

“Annabelle. If you’re the protector, she’s the one you all want to protect. At least for Vanessa and you, because I’m not sure about Alison. It helps to have a protector. It helps more to be a protector.”

“Being loved deeply by someone gives you strength,” he said. “Loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

“Sometimes,” she said, “the Tao is right.”

Now, he pulled up outside the house. Not into the driveway. He didn’t want to put a car there. Irrational, maybe, or maybe not. Maybe completely rational, because sometimes, your body knew more than your brain. He turned the engine off and said, “Everyone still want to do this? No shame in staying in the car, if you can’t face it.”

“Yes,” Vanessa said.

“I think so,” Alison said.

He looked in the rearview mirror. “Bug?”

“Yes.” Her chin was set. For once, she looked older than seventeen, and he got a glimpse of the steel underneath.

He said, “Let’s go.”

When they got out of the car, Vanessa had Annabelle’s hand, and she still had it when they were standing on the porch. Framed by the railing he’d jumped off in the cape his mom had made him, when he’d been sure that if he only flapped his arms hard enough, he could fly. Next to the driveway where he’d learned to ride a bike with her running behind him. As she’d liked to tell him, “Only about five times, because after that, you balanced. Everybody said a three-year-old couldn’t ride a bike, but you learned faster than anybody else’s child. Partly because you were just that coordinated, and partly because you were so determined.” The same driveway where he’d run himself behind Alison’s bike, and then behind Annabelle’s, his hand on the seat, shouting encouragement.

Twenty minutes ago, when Jennifer had kissed him goodbye in the hotel room, her hard belly tight against him, she’d said, “Remember one thing while you’re out there. You’re a decent person because your mom raised decent people. No matter where her body is, she’s still there with you, keeping you good, keeping you decent. You’ll never lose that, because that’s her best gift, her deepest gift, and nothing can take it away. Not even death.”

He’d held her close, kissed her hair, and thought, I want to marry you. Exactly like the day before, on the plane.

His baby boy, and Jennifer.

Loving someone deeply gives you courage.

He felt everybody shrink back when their father opened the door and stood there behind the screen. Everybody except him. His muscles bunched like he was coming off the line, except that he’d never been the tackler. Never the aggressor. He stayed out on the edges, floating free, out of the trenches.

Except now.

His dad said, “Come inside.”

They’d talked about this. Harlan said, “No. We’ll do it on the back patio.” Going inside had been a bridge too far for all of them. Like you’d be sucked into the vortex.

His dad’s chin jutted out like he wanted to order them inside, but he said “Fine. Suit yourself.”

They sat at the old redwood picnic table. It was gray now, but Harlan remembered when it was new. When they’d have lemonade and hamburgers out here on warm summer nights, on those long, late evenings when you’d still be running, playing tag, catching lightning bugs, enjoying the almost-scariness of it, after nine-thirty at night. “Magic nights,” their mom had called them, watching the evening star rise.

Now, the four of them sat on one side of the table, and their father sat on the other, directly across from Harlan. Harlan looked him in the eye until his dad looked down, then said, “You wanted to tell us something. Tell us now.”

His dad had been going to work all this time. Still selling farm equipment. Still