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I watched Melanie rail at me with a deputy holding her back, and it felt like it was happening to someone else.
Then my focus sharpened. The fog lifted. “You left.”
My voice was raspy with disuse.
Melanie sneered. “You were gone for ten years.”
“I was working, providing for you. I didn’t want to be deployed. It was my job. But you just left.” I didn’t want to pass the blame because we were both just as responsible. “She was upset. She didn’t know when you’d come back.”
When I was deployed, I called. I sent letters. Emailed. I was always there, even if I wasn’t physically.
“I texted Kendall,” Melanie said.
“What did you talk about?” Colton asked her.
The deputy had stepped back now that it appeared Melanie had calmed down. “How she hated it here. She didn’t like school. She didn’t have friends.”
I winced. It was what I was most worried about. That if Kendall was struggling, she wouldn’t necessarily tell me.
Melanie pointed at me. “You shouldn’t have moved her here. She had a home.”
The familiar guilt washed over me. “That you sold so you could travel around the country, or do whatever it is you were doing.”
The truth was, we would have had to buy a home either way. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened had I settled in Indiana. But we’d never know.
“This is your fault.” Melanie wagged her finger at me, and I knew if we were standing closer, she would have jabbed it against my chest.
I deserved this guilt I was feeling. It was my fault.
“This isn’t helping anything,” one of the officers said.
“Has Kendall reached out to you since she went missing?” Colton asked.
I wanted to be searching for Kendall. Not standing here with Melanie.
Melanie shook her head.
“You should go inside. Try to eat something.” The officers guided me and Melanie into my house.
It didn’t feel right. I’d never lived with Melanie. We were never in the same space at the same time, but she didn’t have a place to stay. And it made sense that we were close by so that the officers could ask questions as they came up and so we could hear any updates.
I didn’t like it.
She kept asking where Kendall could be and what happened between Kendall and Sophie that made her leave.
Her voice grated on my nerves, even as I tried to answer her questions.
“You’re fucking her, aren’t you?” Melanie finally asked me, her voice close. Too close.
I finally lifted my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Sophie. Your ex. The one that got away,” Melanie ground out.
My jaw tightened. “That’s none of your business.”
“It is if it’s the reason my daughter ran away from home.” Her voice rose with each word.
I let out a breath. “She saw the custody papers.”
