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I stand in the doorway of her room and say her name, Franks, Franks, Franks, until she stills because she’s heard me, and that’s usually when she starts to cry.
I wish I knew if I was fucking her up.
I sit in the living room after she’s asleep and think about how if Frankie ends up depressed, ends up cutting herself, ends up dead, ends up pregnant at fourteen—it’ll be because of me.
Something I did or didn’t do, some sign I missed that it was my job to see.
“They could make her testify if there’s a trial,” Joan says.
“No fucking way. Even Jack isn’t that big of an asshole. He’s got to know I’d kill him for even trying it.”
“I think that’s the idea. He’s got it in for you since the funeral.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“But if he gets at her—”
“She was at a fucking sleepover!”
Joan sucks at her cigarette so hard I can hear it. Exhales. “Day before the funeral, Frankie talked to Stephanie.”
Jack’s wife. Shit.
Shit.
“Stephanie’s telling everybody Frankie was there at the trailer when Wyatt got shot. Frankie will get dragged into this thing if it happens—it’s not going to do any good to pretend she won’t.”
She’s right. Fucking Leavitts—there’s a reason I stayed away from them so long, and the reason’s that it’s always like this. Drama after drama, fighting and feuding, arguing over money and sex and drugs and whatever the hell else they can think of. They feed on it. They love it.
Jack’s going to put Frankie right in the goddamn middle of it.
“Can’t you talk him out of this suit? Bo hasn’t got much money. Whatever went down in that trailer, I guarantee you Wyatt deserved it.”
“When have I ever been able to talk a Leavitt man out of anything?”
I laugh. Don’t mean to.
I don’t have any control over myself.
I don’t have control over anything.
Six years ago, Frankie was too young to be hurt by this kind of Leavitt bullshit, but I wasn’t. I cut ties to the Leavitts because they wouldn’t take my side, wouldn’t protect me and my sister from my father.
They won’t protect us from this, either. I have to.
“Thanks for the warning,” I say.
“Let me know when you decide what to do.”
I disconnect and drop the phone on the seat next to me.
The morning is cool, the sun bright over the mountains. The wind’s blowing through the cab of the truck, rattling the paper bag with my lunch in it.
I’m young and healthy, alive. Free of my father. I should feel good.
I should be able to find a way to feel good about the giant fucking palm smacking into my back, shoving me toward Iowa.
Take your sister and go. That’s what Dr. T is trying to get me to do.
