Page 87 of Not a Word

“What woman?”

Whoa, Alicia thought. Don’t push too hard. Let him take his time.

“I didn’t know for a while. But you start putting the pieces together over time, right? It was this woman my dad worked with. They both worked for the same company.”

“What company was that?”

“Did you see all that stuff in the news a few years ago? About this drug company that was knowingly getting people addicted to painkillers?”

She felt her heart starting to beat more quickly. “Maybe . . .”

“Wiffel-Smith,” Holden said.

In her head, Alicia heard: DING DING DING DING DING!

“Yeah, I think so,” she said.

She could barely breathe.

“She was going to expose the company or something like that, and my mother didn’t want that to happen.”

“Wow. That’s wild. Did you ever find out the woman’s name?”

Like she even needed it at this point.

Holden shrugged. “I knew it once but I’m not sure I remember it. A lot of this stuff, I find I try to block it out. But I can’t.”

She nodded sympathetically. “What’s your mother’s name?”

“Catherine.”

“Catherine,” she repeated. “I don’t know how you begin to deal with something like that.”

“She said if I ever told, that it would destroy the family and she wouldn’t love me anymore.”

“Harsh.” Alicia had a sip of her coffee, ate her cookie. “That’s really fucking harsh. But you’re not worried about that now? I mean, is she still alive, your mom?”

“Oh yeah.”

Alicia nodded. “Huh. You’re not worried she’ll deliver on her threat now?”

“Well, first of all, she doesn’t have to know I’ve told you. And second, I don’t know if I give a fuck anymore. If she could say something like that, did she even love me in the first place?”

“There you go.”

“Look, maybe I was messed up from the start, and it wouldn’t have mattered what happened that night. But what if I could have been normal, and she took away my chance? And the more I think about it, the more I wonder, what do I care whether she loves me or not? Some days, I think, if she died, I wouldn’t shed a tear. Not only that, I’d feel like I’d been released, you know? Like I’d have my freedom. That I wouldn’t have to worry about it one more fucking day.”

“I hear you,” she said. “I do.” She reached out and touched his face gently with the tips of her fingers. “You’re a good person. You didn’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to have this held over you. I’m honestly really the first person you’ve ever told?”

He hesitated before answering. “I kinda told one other person. Not as much as I told you now, but nibbling around the edges.”

“Who’s that?”

“My nephew,” he said. “Gage.”

“Gage.”

Holden nodded.