I take a seat on one of our Stickleys—genuine, not reproductions, as Sophie insisted. I don’t want to get into it with my father-in-law. If there could be a best thing about Sophie’s death, it would be that I’ll almost never have to see this dickhead again. If he wants to see Aubrey, he’s going to have to change the way he acts. I’m sick of it.

I’m sick of him.

“Pour yourself a shot and sit down,” I tell him. “You’re going to need it.”

He looks at me with a quizzical stare. He’s sizing me up. He thinks I’m going to engage with him in a way that he can win. But he can’t.

“Go on, Frank,” I say as he looks at the bottle.

He senses something. I can feel it. I like it. He turns the red wax cap on the Maker’s and pours a healthy shot. He slugs it back.

“You love Aubrey,” I say.

“She’s my blood,” he says.

“Right. She’s the last thing you have of your daughter.”

He stares at me. His eyes bulging again. “What are you getting at?”

“You want to see her, right?”

“It’s my right,” Frank says, setting down his glass. “Grandparents have rights.”

I like where this is going. Fun, I think.

“Only if they’re fit,” I say.

“What are you getting at, Adam? Can you just come out with it? I’m not one of your flunkies at the plant.”

“I don’t work in the plant, Frank,” I say.

Frank doesn’t even blink. “Just spit it out, man,” he says.

I look at my dead wife’s father with what I hope are laser beam eyes burning into his own cold, cruel ones. The ones that never looked at me with anything but disappointment, distrust. Even hate.

“If you want to see Aubrey,” I say, letting each word soak in like rancid syrup on a short stack, “you’ll need to be less of an asshole. To me. To Helen. Understand?”

Frank’s lips tighten, and his nostrils flare.

Heart attack, maybe? This is the best moment in a day of utter misery.

“Are you threatening me?” he finally asks. “Seriously? Is that what you’re doing, Adam? You don’t want to do that.”

I sip my drink, the cube crashing into my teeth.