Page 82 of Not a Word

“I know there’s casinos and stuff too.”

“He’s a professional gambler. It’s his job.”

“Fuck off.”

“It’s true. He goes all over the world, playing poker and stuff. Real high stakes, like in a James Bond movie. Does okay most of the time.”

“I never heard of that. That’s weird.”

“That’s my dad.”

“Well, everybody’s got shit they’re dealing with I guess,” Gage said. “I was just talking to someone whose aunt got killed in a bank robbery. She was a teller and even though she handed over the money the robbers shot her. And then the cops killed them when they came out of the bank.”

“That’d make a good podcast,” Moira said.

“Huh?”

“You don’t listen to them? There’s hundreds. True crime. I love them. I guess it’s in my blood or something. Maybe they already did one.” She got out her phone. “What’s the name of the dead lady?”

Gage tried to recall what Alicia had told him. Her aunt’s last name—Zane—that she’d been killed in 1999, in Oshawa.

Moira added more key words, like bank and holdup and takedown.

Finally, she said, “There’s no podcast, and there’s no story about it either. Not one thing.”

“Maybe it’s too old. Stories didn’t go online back then.”

“I can find other stories from around that time, but not your friend’s.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gage said. “I don’t even know why I brought it up.”

“Because everybody’s got shit they’re dealing with. That’s what you said.”

“Oh yeah, right.”

They sat for another minute, saying nothing. Moira nudged him playfully with her elbow. When he didn’t return the nudge, she gave him a stronger poke.

“Come on, talk to me.”

Gage seemed to be trying to work up the nerve to say something. He wet his lips, getting ready.

Finally, he said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Is it a math question? I’m not good with those.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Fine, yes, you can ask me a question.”

“If you knew that someone in your family had done a really bad thing, would you tell or would you keep it a secret?”

“What kind of a bad thing?”

“Just . . . really bad.”

“I don’t know. Like, I guess it would depend on how close I was to that person. And when you say tell, do you mean, like, the police? Or other people in that family? Like if you saw your sister’s husband having sex with someone else, would you tell her? Because for sure, I would tell. She’d have a right to know. Except I don’t have a sister. But just pretending. Like that?”

“Not really. Something worse.”