Page 101
“I don’t know.” His voice is almost a whisper, as if he’s forgotten how to ask for simple things.
“I’ll show you whenever you want.”
“Today?”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Fuck, I wasn’t expecting him to want to see them immediately. They’re in a box at my actual home. Wait. “Hold on, actually, I’m pretty sure I scanned them into my files a while back. They might be on my laptop. I’ll check this afternoon, alright?”
The disappointment that had flooded his eyes eases back, and he nods.
This is probably the longest he has looked at me without fear since waking.
And the strangest thing is that for a while, I forget the circumstances too.
Forget the locked door, the cuffs, the Grecos, even the reason we’re in this house.
Then Kamden asks a different question. “Did he ever talk about me?”
I look at him.
He’s watching his own fingers now instead of me, rubbing a loose strand of thread on the comforter between his thumb and forefinger.
“All the time.”
His hand stops. “Really?”
“Constantly.”
He still doesn’t look up. The thread gets pinched between two fingertips and held there, and he watches it like it’s the only safe thing in the room.
“What did he say?”
There are a thousand answers.
More.
I remember John bragging about Kamden’s drawings even though most of us couldn’t tell whether an eight-year-old’s sketches were objectively impressive—we nodded anyway, because John’s face left no room for anything else.
I remember him breaking down when Sherry didn’t answer the phone during the time they’d scheduled for him and Kamden to speak.
I remember him worrying. Planning. Talking about custody and the pink bedroom he intended to make for Kamden.
I remember him saying that he would proudly wear the ugliest dress in America if his son made it for him.
I lean forward, forearms resting against my thighs. “He was proud of you.”
Kamden’s expression pinches. “He had to say that.”
“No.”
“He was my dad.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
His gaze lifts cautiously.
“Your father talked about you when there was no reason to perform for anybody. That’s how I know. He wouldn’t stop talking about you.”
Kamden’s eyes begin to glisten.
