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Willa
Age 7
“But, Da,” I pouted, “I’m literally starving.”
I flashed my father a smile showing off all the new teeth I’d grown since I’d started the second grade at St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy last month.
“I heard you all ten times on the way here.” He grinned as he ruffled my messy hair. “We’ll go to Dunks for doughnuts and hot chocolate after my meeting.” He lifted my chin with a gentle touch, but his blue eyes stared into mine with a look he only gave me when he was being super serious. “Now go play in the garden—but stay out of the apple tree. Your mother will break my fucking balls if you get hurt.”
I shoved my hand in front of him, eyes wide. “Pay up.”
My father sighed as he dug into his pocket. He grumbled something that made me think he now owed me two dollars instead of one.
“Do you make your mother do this too?” he asked.
“Ma doesn’t curse.”
“Fuck that, she doesn’t curse my—”
I coughed like I’d choked on his swear word.
My father’s nostrils got real big, and then I had a twenty-dollar bill stacked on top of the one. “That should fucking cover me for the weekend,” he growled before heading down a hallway toward the giant room he called Mr. Flynn’s study.
Mr. Flynn lived in a palace in Boston. He even had guards like he was a king or a sultan in one of my Disney movies. When I begged hard enough, my mother would let me spend a whole entire weekend at my father’s apartment. But in all those sleepovers, this was only the second time we’d ever made a pit stop to visit Mr. Flynn. I hoped that, like last time, Da would bribe me with sugar and Barbies not to tell Ma.
I had a pretty good idea why my mother didn’t want me hanging out at Mr. Flynn’s. Mack Carroll, a sixth-grader who rode my school bus, once told me that Mr. Flynn was a mega-rich bad guy who ruled over Boston and that my father was one of his captains. But not a good-guy captain like Imogen Patterson’s father, who visited our class on Veteran’s Day last year.
No. My father, Mack told me, was a bad guy.
A real bad guy.
Mack said Da chopped off two of his uncle’s fingers because he’d gotten “too handsy” with one of the ladies at a place called The Ruby Slipper. I didn’t know what that meant, but when I asked Da if it was an “eye for an eye” sort of thing, he laughed and told me I was definitely his daughter.
On Sundays, I asked Father O’Brien to forgive my father’s sins, but I never admitted that I secretly hoped he’d continue to curse until I had enough money saved to buy a pony.
I watched my father’s back as he walked away. My hands turned into fists. “If I were a boy, I’d be allowed to climb the apple tree!”
“Feet stay on the ground, dollface!” my father called over his shoulder.
I hated that nickname. My dolls always broke eventually, even the really expensive ones that Da bought me for Christmas every year.
I was not a doll.
I stomped toward the doors leading to the garden. My angry steps only lasted a few strides, and then I was skipping past a couple of tough-looking guys who both wore ugly scowls and big guns. I waved at them as I passed. They grunted something back to me using words I didn’t understand, but I smiled anyway.
I broke into a run the moment I was outside only to stop quick when I spotted someone standing by the apple tree. I twisted my fingers together behind my back and took baby steps toward the stranger. He was barefoot on the wet grass, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. It was the middle of October.
What a weirdo.
A tattoo covered most of his back. I heard Sister Alice’s shrieky voice in my head telling me it was unholy to stare at a half-naked man, but the picture on his skin made it hard for me to look away—a kneeling angel with his wings wrapped around himself.
A fallen angel.
I crept toward him, careful that I didn’t make a peep. My father said I had the tread of a mountain lion—that’s how easy it was for me to sneak up on him. Once, he’d pointed a gun at me when I’d gone into the kitchen for a cup of water. He’d forgotten that I was in his apartment and that he’d tucked me into bed just three hours earlier.
I went home a hundred bucks richer that weekend.
A puff of smoke rose from around the man’s head. “Who’s there?” a deep voice asked.
