She craned her neck. “Dekker can wash off now,” she said. “Petty’s got fifteen more minutes.” She peeked under my plastic head covering.
Dekker went upstairs and I heard the water turn on.
Roxanne, Curt, and I all continued reading from our stacks of letters. I opened the next letter on my pile, which was a lot like the last one I’d read.
I’ve never felt this way before. I can’t live without you. You’re my everything.
“Uh--oh,” Roxanne said, looking up from the letter she was reading. “They’re in a fight. Apparently your mom hasn’t spoken to your dad in two whole days, and he’s ‘dying’ on the inside.”
Curt laughed.
We were all quiet for a while as we read. Dekker came downstairs rubbing his head with a towel, sat back down at his stack and went on reading. Every letter of mine was signed the same way: M.
When I was a kid, I found a box turtle in the road and I brought it home. I wanted to keep it in the backyard but I didn’t want it to run away, so I drilled a hole in the turtle’s shell and chained it up. I went to school the next day and came back that night to find the thing cooked in its shell.
I shivered, reading this. That was weird. Who would do something like that? And why was Dad telling Mom this in a love letter?
The timer dinged. I stood and stretched. Roxanne stood too and we went upstairs.
“Get in the shower,” she said once we were back in the bathroom. “Be sure not to get any of the dye in your eyes. Rinse and then use this conditioner.” She handed me a tube.
After my shower, I got dressed in jeans, a T--shirt, my holster, Baby Glock, and my hoodie. Roxanne beckoned me back into the bathroom and told me to straddle the closed toilet again. Then she used a blow dryer on my hair and a round brush. I kept my eyes closed to keep the hair out of them. When the dryer went off I opened them. My hair was golden blond, full and fluffy and almost glamorous, and while I didn’t look like me anymore, I could still see my mother’s face in my own.
Roxanne put her hands on my shoulders and set her chin on my head. I couldn’t move. It was like having a butterfly land on me. I didn’t want to scare her away.
“If it’s possible,” she said, “you look even prettier. Let’s go down and show you off.”
When we got downstairs, Dekker, Curt, and the dogs were gone. I felt a stab of dread. I reached for my bra knife and looked in the dining room.
“Oh,” Roxanne said. “They’re out back.”
I glimpsed Curt and Dekker through the kitchen window having an intense conversation out on the back deck. Dekker held his head in his hands. Curt waved his arms in the air. Dekker gestured with his right hand, and I could tell he was talking loud and fast. Curt grabbed Dekker’s shoulders and talked louder.
I looked at Roxanne, who was watching them, motionless, her eyebrows drawn together.
I walked silently to the door, trying to hear what they were saying without being seen.
“You have to tell her, Dekker,” Curt said. “It’s her folks. We have to tell her.”
“No,” Dekker said. “It’s not going to help her. It’s not going to make things better for her. It’s not going to change anything.”
“If you won’t tell her, I’ll have to,” Curt said.
“Fuck that! This is bullshit. This is—-I had no idea that—-I didn’t know that—-”
I drew the sliding glass door open, and they swung around to look at me and Roxanne.
Dekker’s intensity alarmed me in the same way my dogs’ sharp barks used to. I’d seen him angry and scared before, but this was different. This was a full--blown freak--out.
“What do I need to know?” I said, a painful dark chill covering my skin.
Dekker paced, Bob at his heels, back and forth. “Give us a minute, will you, Petty?”
This infuriated me. This was like Randy and Mr. Dooley discussing my life without my presence or consent. “Don’t treat me like a child. What do I need to know? What did you find out?”
“Let’s go in and sit down,” Curt said.
“No. Tell me now,” I said. My hands were numb and I was shaking with rage. “What is it? Tell me.”
Dekker looked at Curt and Roxanne and then at me.
“Petty,” he said. “Your dad . . . was not your dad.”
Chapter 17
ROXANNE GASPED AND put her hands over her mouth, her black--rimmed eyes huge.
I didn’t know what Dekker meant. “My dad . . .”
He nodded. “Charlie Moshen. Michael Rhones. He’s not your father.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m reading along,” Dekker said, “and it’s kind of the same lovey--dovey stuff over and over so I start skimming until a phrase catches my attention. I see this sentence: ‘How could you cheat on me?’ ”
He paused, letting those words sink in.
“Mom cheated on Dad?” I said. Why? Had he turned into the sad, strange person I knew, forcing her into the arms of another man? Had his craziness, his silence, driven her away? I couldn’t blame her for that. I’d dreamed my whole life of getting away from him.
Or was it the other way around?
“Yeah,” Dekker said.