with a straw in front of her, both of them getting skinnier, paler, sharper. In pictures, she was beautiful. Before the cancer, she was this perfect mix of sharp and soft, with a genuinely warm smile.
“You really do look like her. You and Daniel both, spitting images of her,” he said.
“Daniel looks like you.” I tried the bacon, but in rolled the nausea. I broke it into smaller pieces so he wouldn’t notice.
“Now, sure, that’s what people say. But when you guys were kids, it was all Shana.” He looked me over. “Imagine if she hadn’t had kids. All of her would be lost now.”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, like there was something of her still living—a puzzle piece out of context, part of her stuck over my left eye, to my bottom lip, the ridge of my spine. Concentrating on me like Corinne once had, until she pretended she could find the monster in us.
“We almost didn’t, you know. When her parents died in that accident and she found herself all alone in the world, she told me she would never have just one child. It was none at all or more than one. There was no debating.” He chewed his food, rolled his eyes. “So stubborn. For a long time I thought it would be none. I really did. Daniel caught us by surprise, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.” My parents were older when they had us, but I assumed that was deliberate: careers first, then family.
“That’s when we moved back. She was desperate to have you as soon as possible. God, she drove me crazy. I really didn’t get why it was such a big deal, but she was determined that what happened to her would never be her child’s fate. Alone with no family. She was adamant that you’d have each other always. Now that she’s gone, I can see she was right, of course. Daniel needed you.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t agree with that.” I laughed. “I’m a pain in his ass.”
“No, no, Nic. You’re exactly what he needs. He knows it. You know how he is, though.”
There were no safe topics anymore. Doctors sending affidavits to declare my dad incompetent. Missing girls. A house full of secrets. Accidental children. Daniel. And there were eyes everywhere. Not just in the woods. In this place, too. I felt my eyes roaming, my fingers drumming on the table. I could only tap in to subjects with Dad, circling them from far away, grazing off the top. Not getting him worked up. Not pushing things to the surface that needed to remain below. But I needed him to know some things—I needed him to understand.
“Tyler’s been doing some work on the house for us,” I said, picking at the biscuit.
“That’s good. He’s a good man.”
“You never liked him when we were kids,” I teased.
“That’s not true. He worked hard, and he loved you. What’s not to like?”
“I thought fathers of teenagers were supposed to hate their daughter’s boyfriends. It’s a rule.”
“I never read the handbook. Obviously,” he said. Then he pushed himself back in the chair. “I never knew what to do with you, Nic. About you, I mean. You turned out good, though, all on your own.”
“I didn’t turn out good,” I said, half laughing, crumbling the biscuit so it fell into uneaten sections.
“You did, though. Look at you. Look at you now.”
I needed to steer the conversation gently back. Carefully. “Tyler said the house would be worth more if we finished the garage,” I said. “Remember when you and Daniel were going to do it?”
He looked into my eyes, smiling. “He asked me,” he said, thinking about the wrong thing, the very wrong thing. “Or he told me. You know Tyler. Said he wanted to marry you.”
I felt warmth flooding my face, my fingertips tingling, trying to imagine that conversation. I hadn’t known that, and the surprise caught me by the neck. “He did, huh? What did you say?”
“I said you were just kids, of course. I told him to see the world first. I told him about time . . .” His eyes drifted to the side, and I could sense his mind starting to drift as well.
“What about time?” I asked, pulling him back.
He refocused on me. “That it shows you things if you let it.”
I tilted my head to the side. “That’s what Mom used to say.” When she was sick and I was crying, and