Justin had a sudden flash of memory. He’d been fifteen, and Harper must have only been about two. He could remember packing her teddy bears and her dolls into a bag and bringing them down here. Setting them up on the tree stump so they could all have a picnic together. Drinking water out of the cups he’d brought from the kitchen, and calling it a tea party. And Harper’s face lit up with a grin as she babbled away at him.
He’d left not long after that, because he couldn’t take being around Mom anymore. Mom and her string of “boyfriends”, each one worse than the last. He hadn’t run away exactly. He’d stayed in contact. Just, it was better to crash on some friend’s couch than stay in the house when he and Mom were fighting so much back then.
Harper said she couldn’t remember him, and maybe that was true, but Justin remembered those tea parties at the old tree stump with sudden, stinging clarity.
“Harper,” Justin said now. “We have to take Scarlett to the hospital.”
Harper twisted around and sneered. “How? Your dumb car won’t even start!”
“I don’t…” Justin looked out across the field, to the old Abbot place. There hadn’t been anyone living there in that old farmhouse long as Justin could remember, but it had always been called the Abbot place. Small towns had long memories like that. Except now, through the line of trees, branching shifting in the breeze, Justin caught a glimpse of light. “Is there someone living at the Abbot place now?”
Harper climbed to her feet, brushing leaves off her ass. “Some guy.”
“Okay,” Justin said. “Hold your brother’s hand.”
Harper screwed her face up. “Why?”
“Just do it, please!”
“You can’t tell me what to do!”
Fuck. She was six going on sixteen, and Justin really wasn’t in the mood to deal with her bullshit tantrum right now. Not with Scarlett still screaming in his ear.
“Hold it!” Justin snapped.
Harper glowered and grabbed Wyatt’s hand. “I hate you!”
Justin didn’t bother answer her. He dropped Wyatt’s other hand and grabbed Harper’s instead. She was more of a flight risk than he was.
He headed for the Abbot house, pulling the kids behind him across the field. Harper dug her heels in, and Justin wrenched her to keep her moving. On the end of the line, Wyatt stumbled and fell down onto his knees. He yelped—the only sound Justin had heard him make in the last four days—and that was it right there. That was the straw that broke Justin.
Scarlett was screaming and Harper was throwing a tantrum and now Wyatt was crying—pulling in soft little gulps of air as tears streamed down his face.
“You hurt him!” Harper yelled, pulling free of Justin only to start pushing and punching at him. “You hurt Wyatt!”
And Justin was done. He couldn’t do this anymore. He’d been stupid to think he could in the first place. He couldn’t look after the kids. He couldn’t keep them safe. He was just what everyone in town had always said he was. Just another useless piece of shit O’Dwyer.
Justin fixed on the light at the Abbot house and headed toward it, still clutching a screaming Scarlett. He looked back once, blinking through his tears, to see that Wyatt was shuffling after him and Harper was holding his hand tightly.
The Abbot house loomed closer. The porch light was on, and Justin stumbled toward it. It looked nice, nicer than he remembered. It had been repainted since he’d seen it last, and there was a porch swing now. The golden glow of the light was welcoming, and Justin felt drawn to it, this beacon in the dark.
He just…
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. He was drowning and desperate and that porch light was the only thing keeping him on his feet right now.
He climbed the porch steps, sucking in a shaking, juddering breath. He pushed the doorbell, and banged on the door for good measure, and all the while Scarlett screamed and screamed and screamed and an awful, dark part of Justin just wanted to clamp a hand over her mouth until she shut the fuck up, and he hated her, and he hated his Mom, and he hated himself most of all.
And Justin didn’t know—he couldn’t know—what sort of person was behind the door, and he didn’t even fucking care anymore, because all that mattered was that he couldn’t do this.
The door opened slowly, and Justin didn’t even get a look at the man through his tears before he was shoving a screaming Scarlett in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sinking down onto the porch. He buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. Please help me.”
And then he burst into tears. 2
Del’s phone rang just as he was distracted with trying to remember if he’d already added salt to his sashimi tuna or not. He couldn’t oversalt it, because it would taste horrible and the cucumber on the plate would get soggy. His aim was to perfect this recipe to figure out if it would go into the book, but he just wasn’t sure if he even liked tuna enough—the shrill sound pierced the otherwise quiet kitchen again.