do it. I went to the Polaroid Kids show instead, drank too much whiskey, and made out with a third-rate drummer in the parking lot with their names echoing in my head. Camilla and Stephan. Classy names, both of them. Her doing, again I’m sure, but why shouldn’t they be? These kids are set for a life of prep schools and privilege, birthday cars and whatever college they damn well choose. And if Daddy screws it up and fails all over again, as I know without a single doubt that he will, then her trust fund will prop them up all the same. They’ll never know the bitterness of my life, and as much as I get that they’re innocent — that they didn’t choose this for me — I can’t help but feel a hot wave of resentment as I stand over their sleeping bodies.
I hate them.
It’s pure, and sharp, and the intensity of it scares me, but my hatred fills the room, spinning out like those little stars until I can barely breathe. I don’t exist to him anymore, not now that there’s this new life for him to enjoy. Up here, with his shiny golden family, he can pretend like he wasn’t a deadbeat failure, like he didn’t let us down and screw around, and then finally just cut loose and bail.
I don’t matter to him, not enough.
Backing out of the room, I close the door behind me and head for the master suite. More family portraits line the room, perfect in their gilded frames, and I have to stop myself from looking — from getting sucked into their glossy little world. I check every room in turn — faster, more frantic — but I still don’t find what I’m looking for. It’s not downstairs either, I know that much, but he couldn’t have sold it, not after the petty, selfish effort he went through to keep it in the divorce.
Even now, I can’t believe he cared so much. Visitation access? He didn’t ask, but when it came to that painting, he spared no effort: hitting us with threatening letters and lawyer fees until Mom just gave in to get him off our backs. It’s not even valuable yet; that’s the crazy part — just a swirled abstract thing he got suckered into buying from some gallery in the city instead of replacing the boiler that year. But he swore that one day, this guy would be the next Rothko, and we’d all be set, like that counted as a solid investment plan.
Now, I’m almost glad he fought so hard for it. See, hurting someone is simple in the end. Find what they love, and take it from them.
If I can find the damn thing.
I stand in the study, my breath coming fast. I need that thing as focus, to keep me from thinking of all the other damage I could do, the ways I could hurt him. But now I’m left shaking in the shadows of this life he’s built — three miles and a world away from the existence my mom and I scraped out of thrift-store clothes and late shifts and coupons. My hands are clenched, pressing fierce half-moon prints into my palm, and it takes every bit of self-restraint I have not to hurl every bookcase from the wall, to smash the picture frames into shrapnel, to burn his fucking house down.
I take a breath.
Think, Jolene. Where would he keep it?
And then my eyes find the keys and folders left on his heavy antique desk and I realize: there is one more place.
Moving quickly, I sweep the heavy key ring into my bag and flip through the thick leather journal. It’s stuffed with dates and meetings, notes about shipping data and new marketing teams. My new, improved father. God, I bet he loves it: the respected, productive life of an entrepreneur. But I know not everything can have changed; he was always bad with numbers, and sure enough, there’s a page at the back with a neat list of scribbled codes. Card PIN, Penny — cell, and then, finally, Alarm — office.
Jackpot.
It feels like I’ve been up here a lifetime, but the same R and B seduction song is still playing from downstairs when I hoist myself out the window and scramble down the tree. Under five minutes, and I’m out clean. I guess hanging around all those bad influences taught me some things, at least.
“Oh, thank God!” Meg is looking severely panicked