Penny sniffled and looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot and shiny with tears. A bitter chuckle eked out of him. When he spoke, his voice was small in the quiet of the barn.
“I’m tired of being brave.”
I cupped my hand to his cheek, and he tipped toward me. I met him in the middle, letting him rest his forehead against mine.
This was the kind of pain I’d said I wanted to protect him from all those months ago back in the graveyard, what I’d tried and failed to take on for him. But I realized now that the burdens had never been mine alone; it was never justmypast looming over us. Penny brought his own baggage, and he needed to face it just like I faced mine. No matter how hard I tried to shield him from it or soften its blows, there was no avoiding reality. He hated the secrecy, and now there wouldn’t be any left. For better or worse.
“I’m sorry I haven’t done a better job of defending you from Merrick,” I said. “I think I’m more afraid of him than you are.”
Penny scoffed and shook his head against mine. “I find it hard to believe you’re afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid of a lot of things when it comes to you,” I admitted softly.
He sat back, his eyes searching my face for a moment before he pulled my arm to urge me up.
I complied and sat next to him on the hay bale. I’d barely settled before he was clambering into my lap.
“Pen, I’m sopping wet…”
My protest went unheeded as he folded himself in as close as he could get. His arms looped around my shoulders, and he pressed his face into my neck to mumble, “I don’t care.”
I didn't expect a second argument to be better received than the first, so I tucked the cloak around him, then bundled him up in my arms.
We sat that way in silence for several long minutes, soaking in whatever peace we could glean from each other’s presence. Eventually, Penny's fingers curled into fists against my back, and he took a chest-swelling breath.
“He killed Father,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. Sadness, anger, hurt, and shame, all in equal measure. “I was here when he did it, and I had no idea it was happening.” He huffed another bitter laugh. “Merrick always said I was a fool, and he’s right. I missed everything. I was too busy in my own head, or buried in my sketchbook, or avoiding work to spend time with the animals, and maybe if I’d been doing what I was supposed to be doing, I would have noticed. Maybe I could have stopped it.”
I slid a hand up to run my fingers through his damp hair. “He’s your family,” I said. “You loved him. You trusted him.”
Penny snorted and tried to lean away from my touch, but I refused to be brushed off.
“You had no reason to assume he’d harm your father,” I insisted. “You didn’t think you had to be looking over your shoulder at someone who was supposed to be protecting you. No one should have to do that.”
He was quiet at that. For as awful as Merrick had frequently been, I knew Penny well enough to imagine that he held on tightly to the rare times he and his half-brother had gotten along. It couldn’t have been all bad with the way he looked up to Merrick, and those rare bright moments would have felt profound enough to infer affection that was never there.
It had been like that with my father. He grew more cruel and cold the older I got, but there were still moments—few and far between though they were—that he let glimpses of the kindman he used to be bleed through. Each time he did, he fed that tiny, flickering spark of hope inside me enough to sustain my devotion a little longer, until he no longer cared for it. Then he ground that cinder into dust and ruled me with fear and threats because those required less effort from him.
“I’m going to have to tell Mother everything now,” Penny groaned.
“I was going to after you left, but Sayla said she’d take care of it.”
Penny made a small noise of assent. “She'll be so disappointed in me… What if she doesn't…” His breath hitched, and his next words came out strangled and edged with tears. “What if she doesn't want me to be her son anymore?”
I dipped back and brushed at his hair again. “Pen, she'd never?—”
“I don’t deserve the farm any more than Merrick does,” he continued as though I hadn't spoken. He didn't hear me. Didn't see me, either, too blinded by panic to perceive any kind of reason. “We’d barely gotten here, and I was already asking you to run things, and it was so kind of you, Kit. Truly, it was. But so wrong of me.”
He dove in to sniffle against my neck. “At this rate, Warren is more the man of this house than I am. He wants to impress Sayla. He wants to do good here, and I... I just wanted to watch you with your wet shirt and your muscles, and I’m so wrong for this, Kit. I’m wrong for all of it.”
Any other time, the comment about my muscles and soggy shirt might have warranted a smile or jest. But now he was so dejected, so defeated, that I couldn't bear to tease him.
I leaned my cheek against his head and pressed a kiss into his hair. “Warren clearly looks up to you. I don't think he has any desire to replace you. And your mother loves you too much to send you away, Pen. I’d sooner have her blame me.”
“I want her to love you,” he said miserably.
My smile strained. “I would settle for being tolerated at this point, but I’m afraid even that may be wishful thinking.”
Penny pushed back and shifted his hands to my shoulders to hold himself at arm’s length. His red eyes met mine, brows drawn. “Well, I’ll love you extra then,” he declared. “Enough for herandme.”
