“I know Dan has already accepted responsibility for it, but …”
Blood rushes through my ears and I can barely hear the next words out of his mouth. I know what they’re going to be.
“I sent that picture to Roland, Kennedy. When you were five. It wasn’t Dan. He didn’t even know about it until your mother called him all crazy back several weeks ago.”
My mouth hangs open like a broken screen door. “But … the handwriting. It was Dan’s … wasn’t it? Wouldn’t mom have recognized your handwriting?”
Gramps looks unfazed. “Sometimes when people are looking for an explanation, they’ll see things that aren’t really there. It helps them protect themselves. Dan called me after he talked to your mother that day. His hunch was right. I sent it. He agreed to take the heat for it, because he knows your mother about as well as I do and knew she’d be in a fit if she found out it was me.”
“Why?” I ask breathlessly.
He smiles the sweet Christmas morning smile he has year-round. “He did deserve to know. He deserved to know that you were healthy and happy and being taken care of. And, I’d been in contact with his parents only two or three times before that, but I knew his life was in the pits. But, I remembered that fire. The one in his eyes that was there every single time I saw him. I know that fire, Kennedy. When you’ve seen it once, you know it anywhere. I was hoping, beyond hope, that seeing that picture of you would rekindle what I knew was in him.”
“God,” I state flatly.
He nods. “God.”
“So you’re responsible for … all of this?” I wave my hands, meaning to indicate Roland’s life, my attending CU, and my brand-new status as a PK.
“You know better,” Gramps teases, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and leading me back toward the door.
“God,” I mumble.
“God,” he whispers into my ear, opening the door with the silent understanding between us that that conversation is to stay out on the deck where it happened.
“Everything’s different now.” I stretch out on Mollie’s bed as the sun sets, and my Thanksgiving meal still fills my stomach.
“That’s an understatement. I can’t believe your Gramps sent that picture. Or that he was going to be a priest. Or that damn sack-of-shit Hershel Baker.”
I roll onto my stomach, growling into her pillow.
Yeah. It’s been quite the afternoon at Mollie’s. I told her everything. After spending most of this semester feeling guilty about keeping most of Roland’s life a secret from her, I’ve decided that honesty is, without a doubt, the best policy. And, she’s the only person I can fully trust with everything. She’s the only one who won’t overreact and sue the school, like my mom would if she caught wind of Dean Baker’s behavior, and the only one who won’t spread rumors. I still don’t fully trust my friends at CU. At least not the way I should.
I need to pray to let go of my suspicions and judgment of them, but it’s hard. I could probably trust Matt with the Dean Baker stuff, but they did seem awfully chummy the other day.
“Was it weird at Thanksgiving lunch today?” she asks, mindlessly braiding my hair as I continue to lie facedown on her bed.
I shrug. “Probably not for anyone but me. Gramps was his usual self, Dan and Mom ignored all the stress of the last few weeks and actually enjoyed their meal—”
“And wine?” Mollie cuts in.
“And wine,” I confirm. “And Jenny and Paul were their normal lovey-dovey selves before they headed off to her mom’s.” Jenny has always been diligent about splitting holidays between her two parents. A “problem” I’ve never had to deal with.
Until, maybe, now.
“Crap.” I sit up, allowing the unbraided half of my hair hang in my face. “Am I, like, supposed to spend holidays with Roland too, now?”
Mollie shrugs. “Do you want to?”
I shrug back.
“Maybe if we keep shrugging,” she teases, “we’ll find our answer?”
Pushing all of the family drama aside, I offer the first non-CU, non-Roland piece of conversation since I got off the train yesterday. “Are we going to Trent’s tomorrow night?”
Mollie cracks her hand against the side of my butt. “Yes!” she cheers, nearly orgasmically, “I was waiting for you to bring it up. We’re so going.”
I tuck some hair behind my ear. “Do you think it’s a good idea?
She grins, her pixie-cut hair sitting a little shaggy across the top of her head. “I think it’s a goddamn fantastic idea. He needs to see the new, famous you, and then you can rub his stupid rich nose in it.”