Jesus Christ, Alexandra. You should have called me!”
“Do me a favor and keep your profanity to yourself. I didn’t have your number, and Allie wouldn’t give it to me or to the social worker. She was very clear. She doesn’t want you.”
Of course she doesn’t want him. He left her, and then he stood her up, and then her mother and her brother died. The only surprise in all of this is the amount of pain carried by those precise words, “she doesn’t want you.”
Braden is familiar with pain. He welcomes it in, cherishes it as penance.
“As soon as the funeral is over, I’ll be taking Allie with me to Toronto,” Alexandra says. “She has a passport. We can get her visa taken care of later. I just need you to sign to let me take her across the border for now.”
“Is that what Allie wants? To go to Canada?”
“She can’t possibly know what she wants, she’s just lost her entire family. I will do what is best for her, even if it is difficult.”
“Not her entire family,” Braden whispers.
“I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
“She’s not orphaned quite yet,” Braden says more loudly. “Where is she, Alexandra? At the house? I want to see her.”
“I’ve just told you, she doesn’t want—”
“You also just said she doesn’t know what she wants. I need to see my daughter.”
“Oh please. What use could you be to her? You’ll just muddy the waters. It’s best she doesn’t see you. I’m only contacting you to sign the consent—”
“No.” The word feels round and solid and right. Perfectly tuned.
“Braden. I know it’s too much to expect you to be fully rational, but—”
“I’m coming home. Tell Allie that.”
Braden hangs up before Alexandra can argue. Three incompatible thoughts keep playing on an endless loop in his head.
Lilian and Trey are dead.
Allie doesn’t want to talk to him.
Allie needs him.
It’s the last one that gets him up off the floor, that empowers him to pour the brand-new bottle of Jack down the drain, the contents of the glass behind it, without taking a single taste.
Allie needs me.
He repeats this like an incantation while he uses his phone to search for the time and place of the funeral. Three days away—just enough time to get sober.
One visit to the doctor. One trip to the pharmacy. Three days of Librium. Half a bottle of vitamin B. Another mathematical equation that should add up to Braden sober in time for a Sunday-afternoon funeral.
He tells himself he won’t make a scene. He’ll show up, find an opportunity to talk to Allie. Explain why he didn’t meet her and how it has everything to do with how much he loves her, rather than how little. And then . . .
It depends. If she needs him, then nothing will ever drag him away again. If she doesn’t? He doesn’t dare focus on that. Get sober. Go to the funeral. One day, one breath at a time.
Chapter Four
ALLIE
Allie stares, unblinking, at the two coffins on the platform, stares until her vision blurs and doubles, until her eyes burn and water. And when her eyelids close against her will, she focuses in again, over and over.
I did this. I will not look away.
On her right, Aunt Alexandra sits upright and stiff, as if rigor mortis has reached out tendrils from the coffins to their front-row viewing seat and frozen her still-living muscles. Her brand-new black dress is as stiff as she is and gives off a queasy chemical smell that makes Allie breathe through her mouth and hope to God she doesn’t puke. On the other side, blessedly warm and human and normal, sits Steph, her best friend since forever.
“Death sucks so hard,” Steph murmurs.
Allie doesn’t look away from the coffins. The words make a lump in her throat. Her eyes blur with tears, but she manages to blink them back. She hasn’t cried yet. Not when she first heard the news, not when she watched her brother die, not even when they wouldn’t let her go home. When she starts, which she knows she will eventually, she thinks it might kill her. She’s got no huge objection to dying, she just doesn’t want to explode right here, in front of all of these people.
If she could die quietly, just close her story as if it’s a book she started reading and decided she didn’t like, she would welcome that. But she has to keep turning the pages; she’s not allowed to quit, because this is her