Page 95 of Gave Proof Through the Night

She blinks at me and sniffs. “What?”

“You texted that your dad got arrested.”

Two little lines form between her brows. “No, I didn’t. I texted that my dad is in prison. Nobody gets arrested and sent to prison on the same day.”

Aye, que la…

“So, he was arrested before?”

“Yes.”

“And got sentenced today?”

She shakes her head. “What? No. Why would you think? Ohhh.”

“So he’s been in prison for a while, I take it.”

She nods solemnly.

“And you’re missing him today, is that it?”

Still a good reason to cry, but not as urgent as I thought.

“I texted you because I want to be honest with you.”

Then she adds under her breath, “Better to lose him with honesty than keep him with a lie.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” I say softly.

“I’m not?”

“No. What happened to your dad is not your fault.”

“But it is my fault. A little.”

Then she tells me about a man who was working with her father on a job. How friendly he was. How smart he seemed to an eighteen-year-old girl majoring in art history. He seemed so knowledgeable on the subject, and she was a young student, trying to make something of herself at the local community college. How one night, he’d snuck away from the other men planning a thing in the basement and walked into her room uninvited. How he’d shut the door behind him and sat on her bed.

My blood boils when she says this, and now I truly want to burn the world down for her. But I let her finish.

He didn’t touch her. But something about the delivery of his words made her uncomfortable. And perhaps he would have made a move. Her father barged in, saw the man too close to his daughter, and went feral. He threw the man against the wall and threatened him. Erica was young, and downplayed the situation. That was her one big mistake. Because after that day, there was a rift between her father and the man. And that is why he’d set her father up for a fall.

I want to scream and tear down every wall in this country to find this guy. Horrible thoughts run through my head. Thoughts of violent, poetic justice.

But Erica does not need that. She needs someone who will be here, to comfort her. So I just pull her back in against me and let her get the rest of it out in pieces, whatever order it wants to come in.

When she’s finally cried herself down to hiccups, I take her by the shoulders and hold her out far enough to see her whole face, bending until we’re level.

“Listen to me. You did nothing wrong. You understand?”

She doesn’t answer, so I keep going.

“It wasn’t your fault. And I don’t see you any differently because of it or anything else. Nothing you say or do will change the way I feel. You can tell me anything. Everything or nothing or just what makes you comfortable. I don’t care what it is. I just need to know you’re okay. And if you’re sad about your dad, I’m right here. If you’re angry and want to throw things, I’m here. If you want to go find this guy and rough him up… you’ve met my cousins. Especially Dante. He’s huge! And I’ve got a lot more in Mexico and LA and trust me, they would ride at dawn. Except Memo. He’s a priest, so he would probably just, I don’t know… pray at dawn.”

Her chin wobbles and a small laugh escapes through the tears. I use the hem of my T-shirt to wipe under both her eyes, the same shirt I never got around to changing out of, but I'm not letting her walk around with her mascara doing whatever it’s currently doing.

“Gross,” she says, and it’s the first almost-normal thing she’s said since the door opened.

“You’re welcome. You want to blow your nose into it? I don’t mind.”