Grievous (Scarlet Scars #2)(94)

“You didn’t deserve that, sunshine,” I say. “Everything he did, no matter what it was, it wasn’t your fault. You’re not bad, and he shouldn’t have done those things, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers.

“I’m serious,” I tell her. “And you don’t have to call him ‘Daddy.’ You can, if you want, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to call him anything.”

“He told me I have to.”

“I figured, but you don’t.”

“But what if he gets mad?” she asks. “What if he takes Buster away?”

“He won’t,” I say. “I promise.”

“But—”

I gently grasp her chin, tilting her face up. “No buts. He’ll never get mad at you, never take Buster, never show up here again... he’s gone, sunshine. Forever. So you can call him whatever you want, or you can call him nothing at all. It’s okay.”

She stares at me for a moment. “Did he never get his heart or something?”

My brow furrows. “What?”

“Tin Man,” she says. “That’s what he was called. I heard you say he had no heart, like the Tin Man in that movie.”

My stomach sinks. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe he had a heart, but he didn’t show it to me, so I couldn’t see it. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s all over. We won’t have to play Hide & Seek anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, “because I don’t want to play ever.”

“Me, either.” I smile. “What do you want to do?”

She shrugs.

“Come on, there has to be something,” I say. “We’ll get out of this house, just you and me.”

“And Buster, too?”

“And Buster.”

“Can we go eat hot dogs? And ride that big wheel thing? You know, the one that goes whoosh, whoosh, whoosh with the lights and the music?” She holds her hand out, making circles. Ferris wheel. “They have one at that place with the beach...”

Coney Island.

“I, uh... sure. If that’s what you want.”

She nods.

“Well, then... how about we go get dressed and make a day of it?”

She throws herself at me again. “You’re the best, Mommy!”

My stomach is in knots as she gets up and runs into the house. Coney Island isn’t where I’d choose to be, but whatever makes her happy.

Where I’d choose to be, if I had a choice, is at a white house with a picket fence surrounding it… just not this one.



We spend the entire afternoon down in Coney Island, riding rides and playing games and stuffing our faces full of hot dogs and ice cream and cotton candy. She’s glowing, like a weight has been lifted off of her small shoulders, so much my little girl again, carefree and happy. Not broken.

I’m not going to say she’s over it. That’s a lie. She may never get over a lot of what happened, but she’ll learn to live with the memories she can’t forget, because she’s resilient.

She’s definitely my child.

It’s early evening when we stroll through nearby shops, her lugging Buster under her arm in a headlock, as I carry her new little friend—a strange looking rainbow-striped monkey she won shooting clowns with tiny water guns. We end up in a little bookstore, aisles piled high with used books. Sasha stays where I can see her, never leaving my line of sight, as she scours through stacks of children’s books. I pick up a book of fairy tales, flipping through it to see if Sasha might like any of the stories when one catches my eye.

The Juniper Tree.

I know that one.

Well, I remember it, vaguely.

Lorenzo told me the story.

His favorite fairy tale.

Leaning against the shelf, I skim the story, realizing quite quickly Lorenzo did a horrible job of summarizing. He stopped midway through, never telling me how it ended. Some stories don’t have happy endings, he’d said.

That lying son of a—

“Mommy?”

I glance up from the book, looking at Sasha. “Yes?”

“Can I have this?” she asks, holding up a book, this one also about fairy tales, but hers has pictures and color and is made by Disney, unlike the crazy shit I’m reading. “Please?”

I probably don’t have to tell you that there’s no way I could ever tell her no right now. No matter what the girl asks for, it’s a resounding ‘hell yeah’. If I can’t afford it, I’ll fucking steal it, but being as the book has a price tag of a dollar, I think we’ll be just fine.

Lorenzo made sure of that.

Lorenzo.

I glance back at the book I’m holding, closing it as I tell her, “Of course you can have it. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

I pay for the book I’m holding, as well as Sasha’s, and we head out of the store, making our way back to the boardwalk, strolling along it as I hold her hand.

She’s as happy as can be, as she somehow convinces me to let her take her shoes off and play in the sand (yeah, right... like I’d tell her no, remember?), making a little makeshift campsite as she sets up Buster and Mr. No-Name Monkey and tries to read her book to them.

Newsflash: she’s only five, which means she can’t really read, so she’s just making up some nonsense.