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Chapter Sixteen
Daphne
All the way home from dinner, I think about the picture my father made in front of his office window. It’s like a painting in my head. I keep noticing things about him. In his angles and expressions. I was too terrified to see them before.
I’m not unique in being afraid of my father. Most people are. But most people are also afraid of Leo, until they get to know him. In some ways, they’re right to be. My brother is a dangerous man. He’s not only a dangerous man, though. And he was never a danger to me. To us. He was a safe haven. Still is.
It’s a roll of the dice, I guess. Some combination of nature and nurture. Some of Leo’s characteristics come directly from our dad. Some are a reflection of Dad’s anger, used as a distraction. Some were beaten into him, or strapped, or whipped.
I’m not excusing what our dad did. It’s just that the few minutes we spent together tonight made me remember that he was a boy once, too.
My reflection looks back at me from the SUV window. Leo was a mirror for Dad’s worst impulses, except he’d try to keep them contained. If Dad yelled, Leo snarled. If Dad made his hands into fists, Leo broke windows and vases.
What if it was two mirrors facing one another, the images enclosed, getting smaller?
What if my father’s cruelty is a lesser reflection of what his father did to him?
What if?
I need to sketch. I have too many thoughts about men and monsters and mirrors.
Canvases. Paint.
For the moment, I sit with my hands in my lap and go over the scene in the office.
What about Caroline Constantine?
If she’s the person my father wanted, I can’t see how that would have worked out.
There is no beginning and no end to the feud between us. The Morelli-Constantine weddings make it more complicated, but they don’t end it. That’s the family lore.
Maybe the lore is wrong. Maybe there is a beginning.
It’s a mystery to be solved. I’m not going to solve it tonight. Mainly because I can’t stop thinking of Emerson. I hated leaving him at home. I wanted him to be next to me at the dinner table.
I want him now.
I get more anxious to see him with every mile that passes. It should be the opposite, but it’s not. My heart races. It’s harder to breathe. There’s no reason to think anything happened while I was gone. He wouldn’t shut me out.
I’m anxious, but I’m also pleasantly scared.
What my father said about Emerson made him seem stronger and braver than before. Emerson took what he wanted. Even my father, who has always seemed terrifying, didn’t go that far. It changed everything about his life. His obsession slipped through his fingers. If what he said is true, his father denied it. Put someone else in that place.
Did she want him, too? Did she wish she could give herself to my father?
I’d give anything to Emerson.
Logan pulls up in front of Emerson’s house. The door is already open when the car stops. There’s Emerson, silhouetted in the doorway. My heart reaches for him. My body. My soul. Everything I am wants to be closer to him. Needs it, really. I don’t wait for Logan to open the door for me. I jump out and run. Across the driveway. Up the steps. Into his arms.
Emerson whirls me inside and slams the door behind him. He can kiss me, hard, and lock it at the same time. I was only gone for a few hours for dinner, but his heart is racing. He tastes like mint and urgency.
“That was unacceptable, little painter. Entirely fucking unacceptable.”
“I know.” He puts me on my feet and takes my coat off. Drops it to the floor.
“You’ll never do that again.”
It heats me up, head to toe. Emerson strips off my dress. He’s not careful with the rest of my clothes. Seams snaps as he yanks them off, leaving me naked in the foyer. My panties fall from his hand last, and he backs up. It’s an intentional space between us. Meant to make me sorry.
