“But doesn’t every gun remind you of your parents? Doesn’t it make you think about how your father could have done what he did?”

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinkin’ on Exodus,” Jesse said.

I stared at him blankly. I knew that Adam and Eve were in Genesis, and that the Apocalypse was in Revelations, but everything in-between eluded me. I was a very lapsed Catholic who’d been known to pray in times of crisis, but my trips to church were almost exclusively for sightseeing purposes.

“The sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons, or upon the children, if you don’t want to be sexist about it,” Jesse said, sighing.

“I’ve heard that before and I think it’s horrible. Why should a child suffer for what their parent did?”

“It’s not prescriptive, Lil. It’s a fact, and maybe a warnin’. Whatever a parent does is going to stay with their child forever.” Jesse set the gun down. “That’s not the way it’s usually interpreted, but that’s how I think of it. I asked myself for years how could my daddy do what he did? Didn’t even leave a damn note. And just after Christmas.” He shook his head. “But then I remember how sick my mother was. She had a tumor on her spine. She couldn’t walk anymore. Couldn’t lift her head, she was in so much pain. I think she wanted to have that one last Christmas together, and then she wanted to die.” He stared at the floor. “Don’t know if they ever discussed it, the two of them, but I believe my daddy did what he thought my mama wanted. Then, ’course, he couldn’t live without her.”

I rubbed his back just below the nape of his neck. “I’m sorry.”

“When I think of them, I try to remember what it was like before my mama got sick.”

He was quiet a moment. I kissed the top of his head. “Thank you for coming with me,” I said. “For taking care of me. For everything. I’d be lost without you.”

“I know.” We were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Showtime,” said Bruxton. “You ready?”

“As much as I’ll ever be,” I answered.

❖

“We are not in the habit of breaching our patients’ confidentiality.” Zelda Tapply’s thin, angry mouth trembled at the corners. She had transformed into a quivering blue-veined mass of righteousness when we went back to Idylhaven with Bruxton. “May I see your subpoena?”

“I was hoping not to have to go that route,” Bruxton said.