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Harlow had picked up the keys this morning, but wanted to wait until her family left for their homes tomorrow—Hadley with her parents—to go shopping for the furniture and everything needed to move in.
She shifted in my arms when her phone chimed, and pulled it out of her pocket. With a slow exhale, Harlow showed me the screen, which held a text from Collin’s mom, asking if she would come over to talk.
“You gonna go?”
Harlow nodded once, then shook her head. “I’ve hardly talked to them since everything happened. T
hey’re good people, Knox,” she whispered. Words she’d said before. “They’re good, but when I did talk to them, they sounded so mad.”
“They aren’t mad at you. They’re just having a hard time, too,” I reminded her. “It’s different than what you’re going through. They probably didn’t know this was happening.”
“They couldn’t have.”
“Then they’re probably in shock and didn’t know how to react to the situation, or how to talk to you. But it looks like they’re ready now . . . if you are.”
Even though Harlow had reached out to them a few times, Collin’s parents had been distant all week. They’d come by the house yesterday while everyone was gone to make sure there wasn’t anything they wanted after we’d already piled up everything that was to be donated, and bagged what was to go to the dumpsters. As far as we could tell, however, they’d only taken a few of Collin’s things from high school and college, and hadn’t responded to most of Harlow’s attempts to talk to them. Something that had been hard on her all week.
“I want to go, I know I need to. Will you go with me?”
I made a face and glanced back at the text, like it would give me the answer to whether or not I should go. “Do you think having me there the first time you see them would be best?”
“Probably not,” she said laughing, but there was no real humor behind her tone. “But I’d thought they would have contacted me first. I had thought they would have come to see me. The fact that it’s been the complete opposite is terrifying me for how it will be when I do see them.”
My first reaction was to tell her that I would do anything she asked me to, but I was worried that if she was scared how they would react, then my presence might make it worse even though they wouldn’t have any clue who I was.
One look into Harlow’s eyes and I knew what my answer was then, and would always be. “Of course I’ll go.”
“I’M SORRY . . . what did you just say?” Harlow asked a couple of hours later once we were at the Dohertys’ house. We’d barely gotten our introductions finished before they’d dropped a bomb on us.
Mrs. Doherty just continued on: “And we want to get you help for those things, dear. There’s a place we can have you admitted to today; we know the director there. It’s a great facility, the care is said to be some of the best.”
“I don’t need help. I’m not depressed, and I’m not on drugs!”
“We’ll pay for the treatments and for your stay there,” Mr. Doherty added. “With everything you put our son through, and now that he’s gone, this is very generous of us.”
I scoffed, but bit back the comments running through my head.
The prosecutor pinned a glare on me. “I’m still not sure why you’re here.” Looking back to Harlow, he said, “As for the drugs, we just have to make a call to the hospital to find out what was in your system last week. The depression won’t be hard to prove, and it’s not a bad thing to admit to.”
The Dohertys sighed and gave each other a sad look. “Collin told us everything,” Mrs. Doherty said. “He’s been telling us for nearly a year about your depression with being unable to get pregnant, and for months about your substance abuse because of the depression. We’ve stayed quiet about it because he was worried it would only get worse if you knew that we were aware of what was going on. But now that he’s gone, we feel we have no other option.”
“Wha—no!” Harlow yelled, clearly in shock. “No, none of that is true! I haven’t been getting pregnant, because I refused to have a child with your son!”
“Harlow,” Mrs. Doherty said disapprovingly.
“I had an implant put in so I wouldn’t get pregnant, and so Collin wouldn’t find out about it! Your son was abusive; there is no way I would’ve let a child enter into that house wi—”
“Young lady, hold your tongue! Our son has given you the world,” Mrs. Doherty seethed. “Every single thing you have ever asked for he has given you, and more. To speak of him this way—”
“Asked for?” Harlow asked, cutting her mother-in-law off, and laughed humorlessly. “Asked for? I never wanted any of it, which is why all of it is being donated and I’m not keeping any of it. He forced me to buy things for myself, and if I didn’t I had to pay for it in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine! He threatened my family to keep me with him, and tried to kill my sister the morning of your anniversary party. That night he tried to drown me in our guest bathroom!”
“Drown you?” Mr. Doherty asked loudly. “Collin called us before the party started, panicking because you’d overdosed and were in the hospital. He was so worried that he was going to lose you that night!”
My eyebrows rose, and a shocked laugh ripped from my chest at how ridiculous each thing they said sounded.
“He said he was going to tell you that I was upset over Hadley and drowned myself . . .” Harlow whispered. Then, as if something had just clicked for her, she said, “You would’ve known that wasn’t true if you’d tried to come see me when I was supposedly in the hospital.”
“Collin didn’t want us to miss our party.”
