From there I’l have to get a cab to the house. I left just before eight this morning, and I should be at the house by seven tonight. Right now, I’m real y scared.
I miss my mom. I always felt safe when she was alive. I never realized how much that was worth until it was taken away. I keep thinking about what life was like before she died. I was going through that bratty teenage stage where you realize your perfect parent is actual y a human being with flaws just like everyone else and you decide to punish them for it. We were fighting a lot. I was such a bitch, because there was so much she had to deal with and I didn’t help with any of it. I just watched her try, and criticized her. But even with the stupid fighting, life was so good when I had my mom.
Despite everything, until she died I could stil be a kid. I would give anything to be able to go back, to do it al again but do it right this time. I’d show her every day how much I love her, how much I appreciate her.
My mom died on a Monday morning, at ten-fifteen. She’d been sick for a year by then. I was at school. I found out later that the hospice cal ed my dad at seven and told him that she would likely pass soon, that we should come in. He couldn’t deal with it, apparently, so he just hung up the phone, didn’t go in to see her, didn’t tel me about the cal . I went to the hospice for a visit after school that day, same as I had every day for the three weeks Mom had been there. The hospice director had to take me into her office to tel me that Mom was dead.
My father refused to get out of bed. I was sixteen years old, and I had to arrange my mother’s funeral.
After she was buried we went back to a weird kind of normalcy. I kept going to school. Dad mostly stayed at home. He’d been in and out of work for most of my life. Every time he got fired it was not his fault. His manager had it in for him. The CFO was corrupt. My mom had earned al the money in our house. She stayed sunny and positive and worked real y long hours as a supervisor at a pharmaceutical company. But no matter how hard Mom worked, we always seemed to be broke, which pissed me off, and I hated that she was never around when I needed her. I was so clueless. Things happened at our house that never happened at my friends’ homes.
Debt col ectors, repo men showed up so many times that I knew them by name, but I just went to my room and closed the door and pretended it wasn’t happening.
Before she died Mom told me that there was an insurance policy.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dol ars that went straight to my dad after she passed. I had to beg him for pennies. He gave me cash on Mondays and Fridays, just enough to cover basic costs. I did the cooking and the cleaning and I kept on going to school, so it probably seemed to other people that my life hadn’t changed that much even though everything was different.
At home everything was real y messed up. Dad was worse than ever. Some days he wouldn’t get out of bed, others he was ful of energy but angry at the world. He had friends over to play poker, people I’d never seen around when Mom was alive. People I didn’t want to be around. I started to stay over at Jenna’s a lot, until her parents let me know I was overstaying my welcome. A week after my seventeenth birthday Dad sold the car. A couple of days later he started sel ing the furniture. He refused to answer any questions about where al the insurance money had gone, ranted and raved at me when I tried to push him, but I knew it was gambling. I’ve never been close to my father, not real y, but I think that was when I started to real y hate him. Two weeks later we were evicted from the house.
He’d somehow managed to re-mortgage it, even though he had no job. He never made a single repayment and then acted like it was a complete shock when the eviction notice came. I knew what had happened. He would have ignored al the bank’s letters, al the foreclosure stuff, until it was too late. What’s real y messed up is that he seemed almost relieved. After he’d ranted about banks and crooks for a few minutes, he dropped the notice on the kitchen table and put his hands in his pockets.
“Wel , that’s it, I suppose.”
I stared at the notice and nodded. I had no idea if we could fight the order or not, but I knew he’d be no help either way. “Wil there be anything left? If the house is sold and the bank is paid back?”
“Probably not.” He said it like it had nothing to do with him.
“What are we going to do?”
He looked at me kind of absently, like I was someone he barely remembered. “I’m going to stay with friends. It’s not a good place for a young woman, so I think you should do the same. Stay with your friends, I mean. But that’s up to you, Laura. Your mother and me, we gave you the best start we could. I wish we could have done more . . . I wish I could have done more, but losing your mom, it just about kil ed me. You’re a good girl, and you’re al grown up. I know you’l do just fine.”
He went upstairs and packed a couple of bags. Then he cal ed a cab. He was gone within an hour of that notice arriving and he didn’t give me a dol ar before he walked out the door. I went to Jenna’s house, for a little while. Then I got myself a job and since then I’ve been on my own. When Jenna went to Northeastern for col ege, I fol owed her there. I never heard from my father again.
So that’s why I can’t cal on my father for help. I have no idea where he is and even if I could find him, he would be useless in every way. The only person who can help me is me.
Hannah
ELEVEN
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019
Hannah woke at five A.M. with a headache and a dry mouth. She climbed out of bed and padded downstairs in search of a glass of water. Howard the golden retriever lifted his head and she knelt to pat him.
“Good old boy, Howie,” she said quietly. She fil ed a glass from the sink and drank, then fil ed it again and silently retreated to the bedroom. Howard got to his feet and fol owed her up the stairs and then into the bedroom.
“Real y?” she whispered. He looked at her seriously, then settled down comfortably on the carpet and closed his eyes. Hannah sighed. “Fine.” She got her laptop and sat on the floor beside him.
There would be no more sleep tonight anyway, she might as wel get some work done. She clicked and scrol ed and when she could, she rested her left hand on Howie’s soft fur, finding it surprisingly comforting.
She thought about Neil Prosper and Robert Parekh. If Parekh brought his monster charm to Charlotte, applied it to Neil Prosper, reassured him and gave him confidence, would Prosper change his mind about testifying? Something had kept him away al these years.
Sean’s theory about Jerome Pierce might be correct. She could email Pierce right now, let him know exactly where Prosper was. If Pierce was the intimidating type maybe he would do what was necessary . . . Hannah shifted uncomfortably and pushed her hand deeper into Howard’s fur. She looked down at the dog.