But I Need You - W. Winters Page 0,24

also means turning away from my car and my mother. Who’s obviously in shock among every other reeling emotion that’s taken her over.

“You confronted her about what?”

My sister begins to answer but I cut her off, not having the time. “Mom’s okay.” Dad isn’t… The words are right there waiting to be spoken aloud but they don’t come.

“And Dad?” she blurts out and I can’t answer. “No, no …” My sister’s tone is wretched. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut,” she says weakly. Even over the phone I can feel her breaking down.

“When you get home … I need you to tell them I was supposed to be there with Mom and that we’re missing. I’m going to try to clean it up.”

“Dad?” my sister cries, and the back of my eyes prick. “They were fighting. I heard them.”

“No!” I’m quick to shut her down and breathe out slowly. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t confront Mom about anything. Dad was supposed to be at a conference and we were having a girls’ weekend. That is all you know,” I say and I’m firm with her.

“You need to act normal but I wanted you to be prepared. I’m going to protect her. I promise,” I tell my sister although the pieces of how exactly I’m going to do just that still haven’t come together in my mind. The sound of traffic moving along allows me to peek over my shoulder, finding the cop car gone and my own sitting there, waiting for me. “I’m going to protect her from this.”

“She killed him, didn’t she?” My sister guesses the truth and all I can tell her is that I love her and to take care of what I asked her to do.

It’s a sickening feeling as I get back to my car. Like the world is crumbling around me and there’s nothing I can do to hold it up.

Delilah

“You’re my baby girl,” my father tells me in that singsong way that lets me know he’s in a good mood. “No one’s ever going to hurt you.”

“I’ll protect you too, Daddy,” I’m happy to tell him back. “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to protect people.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m going to grow up and be just like you.”

“You think so?” he asks me and I nod my head in response to his raised brow.

“That’s what we decided last night.”

“We?” he asks. As we walk down Main Street to the post office, I hold his hand and he swings it to and fro. When we get to the block before the post office, I skip over all the dark lines of the cracked pavement.

“Cady is going to be like Mom and I’m going to be like you.”

Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back. The children’s rhyme plays in my head.

“All right then. That sounds like your mother and I are doing a good job then, huh?” Daddy’s smile is bright and the sky behind him the prettiest shades of blue. There’s not a cloud in sight. “I’d say so,” I answer him. My father. My hero.

I must’ve been around five in my earliest memories of my father. His handsome face barely resembles the man on the floor of my parents’ living room, the man with the face lined with worry and aged from the passage of time.

With sweaty palms, I have to grip the wheel tighter before wiping off the moisture on my pants and getting a grip.

He’s dead. My father’s dead. The prickly harshness in the back of my throat is a precursor to crying but I hold it back. Not yet. I can’t lose both my parents. I can’t lose them both.

“Where are we going?” My mother’s voice wavers as she rises up, her reddened eyes peering into mine in the rearview mirror. The hand over her mouth quivers slightly. Maybe the reality is sinking in.

“Somewhere for us to hide for a moment, get you cleaned up—”

“You need to turn back.” She’s firmer than when she voiced her initial question, but altogether her tone lacks strength. I imagine doing what she did took it all away from her.

“No, Mom.” I swallow thickly and speak to her as if what I’m saying is fact; there’s not an ounce of negotiation in my tone. “We’re twenty minutes from the hotel.”

I’ve got cash in my purse, cash that’s meant for my sister to pay her back for the last salon visit.

“Turn back now.” Her hardened voice used to scare me when