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It wasn’t a complete lie. I was pretty sure Mom had picked up a job, which was good, considering the fact that she’d started spending money like we actually had it again. I figured maybe that was why she was so hesitant to talk about where she went when she left the house—for someone who hadn’t worked for as long as I’d known her, it was probably hard to admit to needing a job like every other person in our new neighborhood who struggled to make ends meet.
My words seemed to placate him. He nodded, settling back.
“Well. Good. How is everything?”
“Good.” I nodded awkwardly. “I wanted to see how you were. And… um. Well actually, I had some questions.”
His brow rose. “Questions? What could you possibly have questions about? If it’s about when I’ll get out, Cordelia, I have no idea when. Damn system is so incompetent, it’s a wonder anything gets done around here.”
“No, it’s not that. Remember the last time I was here? And I asked you some about… I guess things that you did for work?”
He gazed at me through the glass with narrowed eyes.
“Yes. I remember.”
“Well… there was something else I wanted to ask you about. A few years ago, there was a clinic. The one that you took over in this area. The non-profit?”
He shrugged, adjusting the collar of his jumpsuit the way he used to adjust his tie. It was a habitual gesture that apparently he hadn’t lost in prison.
“What of it?”
“Well… I’ve heard a few things. About how it ended up being inaccessible to a lot of people after you took it over, and that there were a lot of people who were affected by it. I know that you aren’t a bad person, but maybe there’s some reason for why you were targeted and taken into custody, and I just, I might be on to something—”
“Cordelia.” He stopped me in my tracks, holding up one large hand. “You know I’ve never done anything that I didn’t need to, in order to take care of you, your mother, and my business.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed. “I know—”
“And you know that whatever I’ve done, whatever the results, there was always a reason. A good reason. Whatever these… people have said, you can’t please everyone, Cordelia. And you can’t trust everyone. There are people in this world that will hold a grudge for anything.”
“But, Dad—”
“Cordelia did you come here just to interrogate me?” His voice turned cold, dripping like ice water down my spine. “Did you come here to insinuate that it was my own actions that put me here—that there’s some cosmic, karmic reason the world is punishing me? Is that what you think?”
Despite all my previous resolve, I found myself shrinking back into my chair, guilt and shame burning through me. This man had raised me. He’d taken care of me my whole life, given me everything I could’ve ever asked for and more. And beneath the chill and the anger in his voice, I could hear the barest hint of something like pain.
My father was a proud man, but I was sure it stung to have his daughter insinuate that she, too, thought he was guilty—if not of the crime he’d been accused of, at least of other bad dealings. Of being a bad person.
“No.” I softened my voice, gripping the phone harder. “That’s not it at all, Dad. I’m just trying to figure out why all this is happening. That’s all.”
“Well, I’ll tell you why it’s happening.” He was sitting ramrod straight now, his jaw set and his brows pinched. “Because there are people out there in the world who hate to see other people succeed, and they’ll do anything to make sure people who are on the top of the heap fall—no matter how innocent they are. Do you know how much money my businesses have pumped into this city? How much economic growth, gentrification, and fucking job creation can be attributed directly to me?”
I was quiet. My stomach twisted and churned as if I’d swallowed a snake, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
Father never swore. Not to me, anyway. I’d heard him talk like this behind the closed doors of his office from time to time, when a deal was on the verge of going sideways. But he’d never talked like this to me before.
“All my
life, all I’ve done is work. I’ve provided everything you have, Cordelia. Do you think, after all this time, that there’s something wrong with the privilege you’ve had? With the things I’ve given you and your mother? While I’m here, behind bars, and the two of you are out there, do you think this is somehow deserved? Do you think I deserve this, Cordelia?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I believed Bishop, and Kace, and Misael, and even all those other voices at Slateview that had hated me because they had hated my father. I understood now why they hated him. How could I not, knowing what I did?
Still, how could I say my father deserved to be where he was? He insisted he was innocent of the crime he’d been accused of, and although I’d always known him to be a hard-edged businessman, I had never thought he was a liar or a cheat. How could I lose faith in him when I knew him in a way that no one else did?
Then again… if any of what I had been told about my father was true, did I truly know him?
Eventually, I swallowed and shook my head.
“No, that’s not what I think. I don’t think you deserve to be here, Dad, of course not. I was just—I just want to help and figured if I understood what was going on, it would help.”
