Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, but then finally, she nodded. I brought my hand to the back of her head, drawing her close and kissing her forehead. Some of her tension had subsided, and she let me kiss her, though I could see in her face that she remained perturbed.
After Zara was safely at school, I drove back to my parents’ house and parked my car in the drive. I went inside, searching for my dad, but the place was empty. Then remembering that he and Mam sometimes went for brunch with their friends Jessie and Michelle on Mondays, I exhaled a frustrated sigh. I was antsy to move on this, and my dad was the best person to help. However, when I called him, I only got his voicemail. Too geared up to wait for him to get back, I decided I’d get started on my own. First, I needed to understand why Margie might be doing this—if she was doing it—and there were only two people who could give me answers.
Still feeling off kilter, I asked Dixon if he’d drive me to Cai’s parents’ house. I was too amped up to be behind the wheel. Cool as always, Dixon agreed, not asking any questions about why I was going back to the house after the memorial on Saturday.
When he pulled up outside, I got out, and he said he’d wait at the end of the street for me, that I should call him when I was ready to head back.
Cai’s mother, Nina, answered the door, doing a double take when she saw me.
“Jace, I wasn’t expecting you. Is everything okay?”
“I need to talk to you about your daughter, Melanie,” I said, and if my dad hadn’t taught me so much about micro expressions over the years, I might’ve missed it. The slight widening of her eyes, the tense mouth, and raised eyebrows. Fear. The mention of her daughter had Nina frightened, and that wasn’t a normal reaction.
“You’d better come inside.”
I followed her into the house, and she led me to the kitchen where Cai’s dad was standing by the sink doing dishes.
“Dan, we have a visitor,” Nina announced, and he turned to take me in, his expression mildly wary. “Oh, hello, Jace, what brings you back here?”
“He wants to talk about Melanie,” Nina explained, a slight quiver in her voice.
Dan’s eyebrows jumped as he grabbed a dish cloth to dry his hands. “I see.”
“You said she lives in Canada,” I ventured, eyeing them both for signs of deception. I didn’t spot any, but I did see a whole lot of something else: Shame.
Nina nodded. “That’s the last we heard from her. She had a boyfriend who was moving there, and she went with him, said she had a job all lined up. That was almost twenty years ago now.”
“And you haven’t heard from her since?”
“No, Melanie, she … well, we didn’t have the best relationship. It seems like a long time not to speak, but we understand why she didn’t want us in her life any longer.”
She paused to share a look with her husband, and again, they were both drowning in shame. What exactly had happened between them and Melanie that she chose not to speak to them for twenty years?
Dan turned to me, casting me an assessing glance. “Forgive me, son, but why exactly are you here asking about our daughter? You’re upsetting my wife, and it’s a subject that’s painful for both of us.”
I pressed my lips together, staring at the table for a moment before I met his gaze steadily. “This isn’t going to be easy to hear,” I warned, and they both appeared to steel themselves before Dan nodded for me to continue. “I think your daughter is back in Ireland, and I also suspect she’s been meddling in mine and my ex-wife Shannon’s lives.”
An audible silence fell before Nina asked, “What has she done?” Her inner brows raised and drew together, her chin lifting while she pursed her lips. I knew this one, too: Concern.
“You first,” I said. “Tell me why she might be doing this because for the life of me, I can’t understand. I was there when Cai died, but everyone knows it was an accident.”
“It’s our fault,” Nina blurted, her voice quavering with emotion. She glanced at Dan as though looking for permission, and he lowered his head to give it. “Melanie had been a difficult child, but Dan and I, we made some decisions that, looking back, certainly exacerbated her problems. If we could do things over again, we’d do them a lot differently.”
Dan’s shoulders slumped, like there was an invisible tonne of guilt there that he carried daily. A sense of unease swept over me. What had they done?
“You’d better take a seat,” he said, motioning to the table. I pulled out a chair, and Dan sat across from me, clasping his hands together while his wife hovered nearby, nervously fidgeting with a button on her cardigan.