Page 572 of End Game

She looks at me like I've struck her. “You knew this would happen?”

“Yes.”

“And you came anyway?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Because I love you.

Because I spent Christmas with you knowing it might be the last one I ever got to have without conditions.

Because one of my cousins saw pictures months ago and I knew the fuse was already lit.

Because Cami almost died and five adults discovered exactly how much the world cares about paperwork when somebody can't speak for themselves.

Because Dex told his mother and she asked when she could meet everyone.

Because Griffin stopped letting anyone treat him like something was being done to him.

Because Cami walked into her parents' house knowing they might misunderstand her and told them anyway.

Because hiding stopped feeling like safety.

“I don't want you loving a version of me that isn't real.”

Mom folds forward slightly.

Dad puts an arm around her.

I look toward the cross by the front door.

Near the entryway hangs the cross Dad made in a church woodworking class. It was one of the first things I ever did with him.

Dark wood.

Simple.

One bottom corner slightly uneven because I insisted on helping him sand it.

Matthew was still new enough then that I didn't know what to do with a man who kept asking me to do things with him without getting irritated when I said no.

Eventually, I helped.

Got a splinter for my trouble.

Mom kissed my finger and told me Jesus had been a carpenter too, which at sixteen I accepted with considerably more skepticism than I probably would have at five.

From here, I can see the little rough place near the bottom.

The place I sanded badly because I was sixteen and didn't particularly want to spend a Saturday afternoon in a church garage with my mother's boyfriend.

He didn't correct it.

I remember noticing that afterward.

Matthew was meticulous about things like that.