Chapter 2 - Tell Her or I Will
Wade didn't say anything. He just stood there in the hallway with his arms stiff at his sides, hands pressed flat against his thighs, like a man trying to keep the pieces of himself from sliding apart.
"Wade." It came out sharper than I meant it to. "Look at me."
He lifted his head. And I saw something in his face. Not quite guilt. Something older than guilt. Something he'd been hauling around for a long time.
Erin stepped past me into the house. She didn't look at me once. Her eyes stayed nailed to him.
"Tell her," she said, low and steady. "Or I will."
"Erin, you don't understand what you saw—"
"I understand exactly what I saw." Her voice didn't move an inch.
The whole house went dead quiet.
I looked at my daughter. The shaking hands. The weight gone from her cheeks. The way she kept him in her sightline like she couldn't afford to turn her back on him.
"What did she see, Wade?"
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again with nothing in it.
Then Erin dug her phone out of her jacket pocket. Her fingers trembled so hard it took her three tries to unlock it.
She turned the screen toward me.
For a second it didn't mean anything. Just an image.
Then it clicked into place, and the floor seemed to drop six inches.
"How long?" I whispered.
Wade said nothing.
May you like
Erin's voice cracked straight down the middle.
"Mom. That's not even the worst part."
