By six, the turkey was a golden sun in the oven. As expected, Duke had gone all out with the side dishes: twice-baked sweet potatoes with pureed chipotle peppers and maple syrup, a thirteen-layer potato gratin, roasted brussels sprouts with crispy pancetta. My father had dug three more aprons from a kitchen drawer, and at one point we all paused in our clumsy preparations to watch Duke—he was a marvel, an elegant flash of shiny blades. I’d stopped noticing his talent at home, but here, I saw it with fresh eyes. I was proud of him.
Still, there was a distance between us, the stilted aftermath of last night’s unfinished conversation. We’d barely been alone today, but even when we had been, he hadn’t brought up what I’d started to tell him about my father, and I hadn’t apologized for taking Carlos Russo’s call. Now he mostly addressed my father and Andrew—stories of his childhood on the farm, compliments on Andrew’s peeling technique, questions for my father about aviation. Finally, my father pulled the turkey from the oven.
Duke whistled. “Now that, sir, is a Thanksgiving bird.”
My father laughed. “As long as it’s not still frozen in the middle, I’ll call it a win.”
Table set, I poured glasses of water for Duke and me, while my father filled his own glass and Andrew’s with Dr Pepper.
“Before we eat,” my father said, smiling with steamed glasses, “a toast. May this be the start of new traditions. New memories. Together.”
Was he kidding? Had he forgotten why Duke and I had dropped everything to drive seven hours here? Seething, I clinked my glass against the others slightly too hard. It was the same every time he got sober, as if sobriety itself absolved him of everything that had come before. Repentance without acknowledgment or apology; forgiveness taken without being earned.
Throughout the meal, Andrew darted to the living room every ten minutes to update us on the football score. My cell phone and Duke’s kept blowing up with his family group chat—pictures of Caroline’s famous blackberry pie and coffee milk, videos of the new calf taking her first wobbly step. Light, cheerful messages, designed to uplift.
Separately, Caroline had texted me right before dinner: How’re you doing, honey? I wrote back, Been better. Can’t wait to see you all for Christmas. She’d responded, And we can’t wait to meet that brother of yours. Allie’s already excited to get him on a horse! Tears had sprung to my eyes. Andrew had a place in their family, just as I did. Her kindness, by extension, made me willing to overlook Duke’s reluctance to bring Andrew home with us. When I laced my fingers through his between our places, he squeezed my hand.
My father smiled, noticing. “So,” he said, “when’s the wedding?”
Duke shot me an uncertain look. “We’re thinking May on the farm. Right, Cass?”
I nodded and focused on cutting my turkey. The silence expanded, and I wondered if my father was imagining walking me down the aisle, giving me away, as if he owned any part of me.
“I’d like to contribute,” he said instead. “I know how expensive weddings are and—”
“No,” I said sharply, looking at him. His Eddie Bauer vest and tired, bruised eyes. If I didn’t know about the potential for violence tucked somewhere in a locked drawer inside him, I’d never believe it. But that was all of us, wasn’t it? Facades upon facades, only some were more damaging to believe than others. “I don’t want—”
Duke put a hand on my thigh, cutting me off. “That’s very generous, sir. But I’m sure we can manage.”
I flushed warm with gratitude, wishing I weren’t so surprised he was on my side.
“Well, the offer is open.” My father smiled, but I could see the effort behind it, a conscious engaging of muscles. “So, Cassie,” he said. “This book of yours—isn’t there anything your agent will let you tell us?”
Duke looked at me quizzically. It was, of course, all I’d been talking about for months. Even here, with every nerve on edge, my mind was still clicking through scenarios in the background, shifting pieces around, trying to understand. Screw it. Quickly, I summarized the story for my father and Andrew: Lore’s double life. Andres’s sudden, mysterious visit to Laredo. The envelope that may have contained more than a note—the note with its dubiously cryptic message—the gap in Lore’s alibi, the gun she may have been carrying. All culminating in Andres’s murder and Fabian’s conviction.
“That call last night was Andres’s son, Carlos,” I said to Duke. “It turns out . . . Lore was pregnant. That’s why Andres went to Laredo. He’d just found out. Carlos thinks . . .” I hesitated, remembering Duke’s reaction last time I’d shared my suspicions, and then I plowed ahead. “He thinks Lore killed Andres.”
Duke dropped his fork, surprise clear on his face, swayed by someone else’s belief in Lore’s involvement. “That’s . . . whoa. Does he have any proof? Do you?”
I sighed, crumpling the paper towel in my lap into a tight ball. “No. It’s all circumstantial. Lore has all the motive and opportunity in the world, but Fabian is the one who left his print in the room and was seen around Andres’s time of death. So he either went back on his own, out of jealousy or anger, or Lore convinced him to do it.”
“But everyone knew everything by then, right?” Duke said. “So what would be the point?”
“Whose baby was it?” Andrew said suddenly.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. But I feel like the pregnancy is key.” My leg was jumping. I tried to calm it. “What if she’d decided to stay with Fabian, but Andres, knowing or believing the child was his, threatened to take custody after its birth? Maybe Lore tells Fabian he’s the father—true or not—to keep their family intact. That would give Fabian motive. And it would explain why she alibied him. Why they alibied each other.”
Talking out the theories, feeling the pieces come together in a reasonable, plausible way, made my stomach churn. Because if Lore had—intentionally or not—manipulated Fabian into killing Andres, how would exposing it impact her life? Could she still be charged as an accessory? Could she go to prison? I imagined her garden replaced by a cell, talking to her grandsons through glass. Could I really take a sixty-seven-year-old woman away from her family for her remaining good years, when she’d been performing her own kind of penance ever since the crime?
But Andres deserved justice. His children—and Lore’s, for that matter—deserved to know what really happened.
“Have you spoken to the ex-husband?” my father asked.
Ex-husband. Ex-husband.
“Oh, my God,” I said.
“What?” Duke leaned toward me, more invested in the story than I’d ever seen him.
“I just— This is so stupid.” I laughed, though it wasn’t funny. “I don’t think I’ve confirmed through court records that Lore and Fabian are divorced. They must be. Lore hasn’t said anything to the contrary . . .” I trailed off.
Then again, she’d also said she’d never been in another relationship. Could that be because she was still married to Fabian? Quickly, I pulled up the Webb County Clerk’s website on my phone and searched for divorce records.
Nothing came up in either Lore’s or Fabian’s name.
My head spun. “I don’t get it. How do you stay married to a woman who had a whole other life and family? And let’s say I’m wrong about all this and Fabian did kill Andres without Lore’s knowledge. How do you stay with a man who killed someone you loved?”
“Unless,” Duke said, “like you said, they were in it together, and staying married protects them both.”