“Bullshit,” he says, his eyes flaring for a moment beneath his perpetual squint. “And the title, even? Child of the Steps? That’s right on the goddamned nose. There’s time. Get it changed. All of it.”

“I can’t.”

“You will.”

“Or what?” I ask. “Are you going to excommunicate me? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve lived outside your bubble before.”

“And look how well that turned out,” he says. “You’ve got an autistic kid, a dead husband who cheated on you, and you’re working in a fucking grocery store. You call that success?”

All those times in my life that my father intimidated me, even scared me, I never fought back. He never raised a hand to me, but sometimes I wished he had, because his towering presence and biting words were more painful than an open palm across the cheek. But I’m not the same frightened child I once was.

I’ve learned how to defend myself.

“First of all, fuck you.”

I’ve never said this to my father in my life.

“Second,” I continue, “Max is not autistic, and if he were, that’d be just fine. He’s your grandson, for god’s sake, and he needs your love, not advice on how to dominate everyone he meets. Third, yes, I have no money. You think I don’t know that? You think it doesn’t stress me out? It does, but not nearly as much as taking your money does.”

My voice has risen multiple decibels, and I suddenly picture Max pressing up against a wall in the hallway, eavesdropping. I walk around my father and peek out the office doorway but see nothing.

“You still have answered my question about Riley.”

I walk back to him. “I don’t have to. You’ll continue to believe whatever narrative is burned into your brain.”

He downs the last of his drink, and I can’t remember if that’s his second or third since I came in.

“You have blood on your hands,” he says. “You do, I do, your sister does. That doesn’t go away, and this book of yours will draw attention to it.”

“I had to write it,” I tell him. “There’s nothing incriminating in the book, but I had to write what I did. What happened… It crushes me. The pain hasn’t gone away.” I think of my recurring nightmare. “If anything, it’s gotten worse. I can’t tell anyone. Not even Riley knew. Only you and Cora, and even just putting that one scene in my book was a relief valve. Can’t you understand that?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Don’t you feel the same thing? The guilt?”

“By the time I came home that night, the damage was done. I just cleaned up the mess.”

There are moments when I wonder about my mother, what she was like, what she sounded like when she laughed, or if she ever laughed at all. I don’t remember her, but in my mind, she was a beautiful, generous, gentle soul, and whatever good qualities I may have inherited I got from her. So if she really was that type of person, what did she see in Logan Yates? What was it about him that allowed her to forgive his cold shoulder to the world, his utter lack of empathy?