Page 61 of Plain Sight

I go back to the cupboard.

“You should go to law school,” I add. “That’s an excellent plan. I mean that.”

“If I go to law school, that’s something we can decide together.” Lily’s voice is calm, too, but it shouldn’t be. She should be scared. I’m a nightmare. “It wouldn’t be something I did to escape you. We’d decide that as a team. And we would talk about it later, when we’ve all had some sleep.”

“It should be because of me.” I pick up one of the plates and whip it at the opposite wall. It hits with a thunk, cracks, shatters. That’s a good sound. I like that. Why do I fucking like that? “This is what I do. I destroy things.”

I throw another plate. Thud. Crack. Shatter.

“This,” I continue, “is my one skill. I don’t have any others. The stuff at Phoenix is all bullshit. It’s just numbers. Anyone could do it. I’m not special.”

Another plate.

Another one.

“Jameson?” Remy’s at the doorway now, too. Gabriel’s with her. Lily has come into the kitchen. She stands to Mason’s left, behind him. He has his hand out like he’s reminding my siblings not to get too close. Good for him. That’s the right thing to do. “Are you okay?”

“Where were you, baby sis? You shouldn’t be out so late at night. There might not be a Good Samaritan. Walsh might come after you.”

“Walsh is gone,” Mason says, his face placid. “I heard from Zeus a while ago. He and his son left the country. Their flight won’t touch down for a few hours.”

“His son?” Remy asks, eyes wide.

“His son! The Good Samaritan. That’s Walsh’s son. So fucking bizarre.”

All the blood drains from Remy’s face. “But…”

Gabriel says something to her, and she leans into him. He’ll know what to say to make her feel safe again. He always does.

I throw a few more plates, and then there aren’t any more of the big ones.

I move on to the dessert plates.

The only thing that feels good is having the plate leave my hands and thunk against the wall, then slide down to the growing pile of shattered china.

The kitchen turns into our old kitchen. I’m fourteen again, destroying my mother’s plates and sick to my stomach over it. No one, I think, and throw another piece. No one will use this. We’re the last ones. They can’t have it. They can’t have it. They can’t have it.

The next plate I pick up is plain. One of Mason’s.

It turns back into my mother’s.

Jamie, she says. Jamie, listen to me.

“That’s good.” I throw two more dessert plates. “It’s good that he’s gone. And your grandfather will go to jail unless he can buy his way out, Lily. Maybe I can get a cell next to him when I go.”

“Jameson, I⁠—”

“The thing is…” I’m in that first shitty apartment with a bargain pack of paper plates, Remy standing in front of me at the counter, stirring cake batter. My throat tears. It’s only after a delay that I hear the sound I’m making. I could never let her hear it when she was little. It would have scared her too much. I can’t stop it now. “You kept asking me what Mom and Dad looked like when they were dead, Rem. Do you remember? I hope you don’t. She would ask me.” I sound awful, addressing the room. “And I couldn’t lie to her about it. I thought it would be ashes. Fire is supposed to be cleansing, right?”

I don’t know what I’m smashing now. Something glass. It shatters on a different frequency than the plates.

“Right,” Gabriel says.

“Right,” I answer. “So I went and I looked at the photos. I wasn’t supposed to be in the detective’s office, but I found a way, because I wanted to be honest about it. And I looked.”

There are tears running out of my eyes. They feel like salt in an open wound, cutting into my face.

“It was the worst thing you can imagine.” I think I’ve moved on to a separate cabinet. Yep. I have. “Dad’s ring was in the ashes, but the rest was unrecognizable. That’s why they didn’t have open caskets. They didn’t even need caskets. There wasn’t that much to bury. That was—that was a show. The caskets were fake.”