She lifted her eyes to his, the fear in them warring with empathy and something bigger he didn’t want to try to name.

“I know this is hard to hear,” he said vehemently. “But I want, and need, to be honest with you, because if you decide to give us a chance, you should know these things.”

He explained how overcoming addiction was a process of learning to accept responsibility for his actions, learning to manage the addiction, to identify and avoid triggers, and find other means for dealing with stress and the triggers that can’t be avoided.

“I was a kid with no direction when I got sucked into drugs. I’m not that kid anymore, Roni. As much as I love Truman, I no longer need to fall in line and follow his lead. I’ve hit rock bottom. I’ve gone through rehab and therapy. I’ve dealt with the guilt and the shame of my actions, and every day I do the work needed to stay clean. Killing that man and allowing Truman to take the fall was the catalyst to my undoing. He took the blame with the best of intentions, and he was willing to hold our secret forever, but I couldn’t do that to him. Remember when I said Truman had been afraid of one thing and I’d get to it later?”

She nodded.

“He was terrified he’d lose the kids. Kennedy and Lincoln didn’t have birth certificates. When he had them checked out by one of Bones’s friends, a pediatrician, the doctor made an educated guess at their ages. We say they’re three and five because they needed dates to celebrate birthdays, and Tru used the date he found them. But they’re probably closer to two and a half and four and a half right now. Time didn’t exist back then. I can’t remember exactly when they were born.”

She shifted on the couch, and he knew how hard this was for her to hear. He gave her a moment before saying, “While I was in rehab, Tru asked me to apply for guardianship because he thought he wouldn’t get approved with his criminal record. The record he had for a crime he didn’t commit. I’d been clean for a few weeks by then, and I could see things more clearly—the family I had, the friends I wanted, the life I hoped for—was all right there for the taking. But I knew that if I allowed Truman to live the rest of his life under the shadow of my crime, I’d end up unable to look in the mirror again, and that could send me right back into the life I’d finally gotten out of. So a month after entering rehab, I checked myself out. I confessed to Gemma first, because she thought my brother was a killer, and he didn’t deserve that lie hanging over their relationship. Then I went to the police and told them everything.”

He paused, remembering how nervous he’d been. “I was sure I’d go to prison, and that would have been okay with me, as long as the kids were safe and Tru had a clean slate. But with the help of Gemma’s stepfather, who’s an attorney, the court granted Truman post-conviction relief and vacated his sentence, and he was awarded guardianship of the kids. He and Gemma are raising them as their own so the kids have the love and stability that we never did. The state could have put us both on trial, but the prosecutor exercised his prosecutorial discretion and declined to pursue charges. Our attorney said that my age at the time of the crime and Truman’s prison sentence factored heavily into that decision.”