shit that dogged you everywhere you went, to you not bein’ able to hold down a job or take a minute and get to know yourself is…”
He leaned toward me and thumped his own chest, he did it with his fist, and he did it way better than me.
“On me.”
“Preacher,” I whispered, about to tell him it was not.
But I didn’t get the words out.
“You’re absolutely correct. I promised your grandfather. I promised Audie. I promised him I would take care of you and you’re snortin’ coke and poppin’ pills and you don’t got a job and you haven’t found your passion and you’re not gonna find it walkin’ in the huge shadow I cast over everything. And that journalist was gonna publish and the lid was gonna be blown off and I was terrified that was gonna happen before the cops got their shit together, found Baptiste, got what they needed to nail it down. And what?”
He leaned back and kept going.
“I drag you along with that too? I know you know because you faced it when you went into that courthouse, and maybe you saw on TV how much worse it was for me, but you were inside, Lyla. You were in the courthouse. So you didn’t see. They were so up in my shit, I could barely wade through the motherfuckers shovin’ their mics in my face, wanting to know how I felt about the fact my parents murdered my baby brother. And I’d already dragged you through cycle after cycle of shit. I’m also supposed to drag you through that?”
I opened my mouth.
He wasn’t done.
He also crossed his arms on his chest and declared, “So, yeah. Fuck yeah. I can imagine your pain because I felt it. I was right there with you, baby. But I’ll take that, cher, again and again, rather than havin’ to watch you go through that with me. And to drag you along with what came after.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I said quietly.
“Well, obviously, you’re wrong about that because it was.”
“I needed you, Preacher.”
“That isn’t true, and I know that shit because you told me that shit. You said it straight up and I’ll never forget it. You said you didn’t need me to live your life and you were right.” He threw his arms out again to indicate our surroundings. “You didn’t need me. And that’s good. That’s healthy. But more, you didn’t need to drown in my shit.”
“Yes, I said that, but I also said I needed you. And I thought you got me but it’s clear you didn’t get me.”
“Lyla,” he said slowly, obviously losing patience, “you are not seein’ this from my perspective.”
“And you aren’t seeing it from mine.”
“That’s the only thing I can see,” he retorted.
“They were all gone,” I said. “All of them. Except you.”
His body gave a jerk.
“You don’t know, and I hate it that you don’t know because I’ll take what I’ve got and what I lost rather than what you had but let me explain it to you. You do not just,” I lifted my hand and snapped my fingers, “get over losing the foundation that lay under you your whole life and move on. They were all gone. Mom. Gram. Gramps. Everyone who kept me safe in an unsafe world. You’re right. Gramps died locked in the prison of his mind, but somewhere in there, I know he felt all right. He felt good. At least about me. He did because he left me to you.”
His throat convulsed with his swallow.
“Of course I was lost,” I continued. “Of course I was floundering. I’d sustained blow after blow after blow. But you were my foundation, Preacher. You were the only thing solid in my life. They were all gone, but before that, Gramps sat at our kitchen table with a euchre hand in his fingers and watched you form a shield between me and my dad, and it became you. He left me to you. That’s what I meant about needing you. I don’t need you to exist. I don’t need you to breathe. I don’t need you to survive. I just needed you to be there. Because I loved you and my grandfather trusted you and I knew down to my bones I’d be okay after they were gone because the one solid thing I had in my life I’d have the whole of my life. And that was you. And then you left me standing on a fucking