Page 25

“There were others before Melanie,” he said after a while. “You know that.”

“I remember them.”

“The girl in Montreal. The one who followed you to Boston—”

“I said I remember, Papa.”

His voice softened. “I'm not trying to punish you.”

“It feels remarkably similar.”

“I'm trying to make sure you don't convince yourself this is nothing simply because you don't want it to be something.”

I stared down at the traffic crawling along the Strip.

“I know what I am.”

The words came out sharper than I intended, and silence stretched between us.

When my father spoke again, his voice had changed.

“So did your mother.”

My eyes closed.

There were some subjects we could circle for years without ever touching directly, and Mama was the largest of them.

“Don't.”

“You brought up what you are.”

“That doesn't mean I want to talk about her.”

“Perhaps that's part of the problem.”

I almost laughed, although there was nothing funny about it. “Which problem? Melanie? Hockey? Or the fact that you and I haven't managed a conversation longer than ten minutes in fifteen years without one of us wanting to hang up?”

“All of them, perhaps.”

“Efficient.”

“You get sarcasm from me.”

“I know. Mama was nicer.”

The silence after that was different.

Softer.

More dangerous.

I could picture him in the kitchen of the house where I'd grown up, probably standing beside the same window he'd always gravitated toward when conversations became difficult. I wondered whether he'd changed anything since I'd left, whether Mama's things were still where she'd put them or whether he'd eventually found the courage to move them.

I had never asked.

“Your mother loved you very much,” he said.

My throat tightened. “I know.”