I can’t help but laugh at my sweet girl talking about murdering someone. “You save those hands for playing Oz, okay?”
“How’s your hand?” She uses her delicate fingers to examine my still-battered knuckles. “Will you be ready by Friday, you think? Honestly?”
I cup her chin and kiss her on the nose. “I’ll manage. I’m tough.”
She frowns and I notice how exhausted she looks. “Yeah, but—”
“But nothing. It’s late, Bluebird. Go to bed and get some rest so we can talk to Sheila in the morning.”
She huffs out a breath and gives me one last hug before mumbling something about me being bossy like Dallas.
After she’s gone, I take care of the reason I came to the bathroom in the first place.
When I go back to the couch, Liam is muttering softly in his sleep. I tense, fully expecting something that might trigger a flashback of my own, but all I can make out is “brinner” and “another marshmallow.”
My life is still a mess, one I’ve mostly made myself, but I fall asleep smiling for the first time in a long time.
The knocking seems to be in perfect rhythm with the ringing of my cell phone. I almost reach for my drumsticks to tap it out. Rubbing the hazy blur out of my eyes, I remember I’m in Dixie’s living room. Sitting up quickly, I glance over and see Liam still sleeping in the tent beside me. The knocking grows more persistent and I have a voice mail.
Sheila Montgomery.
I jump up and trip my way across the room to open the door.
Dark eyes narrow at me. “Did I wake you?”
“Hi. I’m sorry. It was a long night.”
She frowns. “I thought you were done with those.”
I nod. “I am. It was, uh, a different kind of long night.” I open the door wider and gesture to the pillow and blanket and tent fortress.
“Ah. I see.” Sheila steps precariously through the room and makes her way to the couch. “So that’s Liam?”
I nod again. “Yeah. He has marks, scars, and sores. My guess is he’s about fifteen pounds underweight and after seeing Carl hit him for myself, I can imagine what a typical day was like for this kid. That plus the fact that he’s skittish, fixated on death, and his house is the local crack den, I’m not thinking the abuse will be hard to prove.” I remember Dixie’s words from the night before. “He didn’t know what scrambled eggs or hash browns were. Ate like he hadn’t seen food in weeks. Said he doesn’t go to school much, which begs the question, how has the state not already gotten involved?”
“They’re understaffed. You know this, Gavin.”
I sigh and watch Liam toss and turn for a minute. “I know. Still. This shouldn’t have slipped by so many for so long.”
“You did,” she says quietly. “When they did come to question you, you lied and made excuses. Protected her.”
She’s right. I did.
I still do.
“I know. I’m guessing he’s been doing the same. Still . . .”
Sheila watches me carefully. “It looks different on this side, doesn’t it?”
I don’t answer because I don’t know how to. It does seem different. Growing up, I blamed myself for the way my mom was. If she didn’t have to deal with me maybe she wouldn’t have gotten so bad off. But looking at Liam, I can’t think of a single way what happened could have possibly been his fault.
As I got older, when I started using myself, I blamed myself for having drugs around and exposing my mom to temptation. She would always find my stash, no matter what it was. When she would get clean, I laughed at her when she told me she was pulling it together. I’d heard it so many times and it had been a lie so many times, I started being an asshole about it. That might not have caused her to fall back down but it certainly didn’t help.
I run my hands through my hair and pull in some much-needed oxygen. “I assaulted his dad, Sheila. I saw him hit him and I lost it. He’s still in the hospital.”
The creases in her aging face deepen. “Well, that’s not great, Gavin. What did you think that would help?”