In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(41)

“No, but it’s not what I ultimately want to do, so it’s okay,” she says. I squeeze her hand tighter for a second to let her know I’m proud.

“If that’s not your goal, then why are you wasting time on it?” he asks.

I open my mouth, ready to end his interrogation, but Murphy straightens up next to me and begins before I have a chance to speak.

“That’s a really good point, actually,” she says, glancing at me and wiggling our locked hands in reassurance along with her smile. “Your son has kind of helped me with that, you know.”

“Really?” my father chuckles.

“Yes,” she says without missing a beat. “I want to make a record, and Casey made my demo for me.”

I hear the short breaths she’s taking, and I feel badly, because I know my father isn’t going to be impressed. I run my hand over my face and prepare myself for the laughable response that comes the moment my fingers touch my skin.

“A…demo. That’s…what…like, a recording of your song?” He’s being patronizing.

Murphy nods and smiles. She’s proud of it, and I love that she is. He’s going to pick it apart now. I wish he’d listen. I could never get him to do that, though.

“And this demo, it means that you’ll have a job then? Do you get paid for it?” Here it comes.

“Well, no…” she says, her brow bunched and a small giggle mixed with her words. She thinks he’s not understanding. He is, though. He is making a point, working through the process, flagging the faults.

“So you made a recording with my son, and that’s your life goal. You’ve peaked, then, huh? And be damned paying bills,” he says, leaning back and letting out one huge belly laugh. “Boy, Casey. I don’t know how, but somehow you’ve found someone who is more lost than you.”

My mother walks in just as I’m about to stand and flip my father off. I grip the edge of the table instead and look over at my oldest two sisters, getting an ounce of satisfaction in the expression on their faces. For once, at least, they hear the judgment I get.

“Two months,” my father says, and everyone freezes. My mom falls to her seat and turns ghost white.

“I’m sorry,” I shake my head, looking from person to person, until it hits me. I look my father in the eyes, his hand rubbing along the stubble on his chin.

“First, my weight will drop. Then, my motor skills will fail. Soon after that will come the cognitive things, and the basic biological functions until there’s nothing left but a heartbeat waiting to fade into the sunset,” he says, floating his fist out over the table then opening it as if it’s turned to dust. His mouth is a hard line and his eyes stay on mine. “You can have all the time in the world. Or…”

He stands and pushes his chair in, his hands resting on the wood back.

“Or you could have two months,” he says. “If that happened to you, would you be at peace? Or would you think about your friend here, about how the only thing you’ve left behind to take care of her is some…some…recording on a computer that nobody really gives a damn about? Can she live off that? What if she was your wife? What if you had a child?”

“I give a damn about it,” Murphy says, her voice surprising us all. My father’s eyebrows lift as he turns his attention to her.

“Well, isn’t that wonderful,” he says.

The silence in the room is more than suffocating, it’s toxic. My mom’s shoulders quiver while her muscles try not to give in to the cry fighting to escape her chest. All the money saved in the world isn’t going to soothe this woman when he’s gone. What’s going to make her feel better is the goddamned painting she has to keep hidden in the attic. And that legacy dies there. The other legacy—the one of Coffield engineers—isn’t anything anyone cares about. It’s all just files and shredded pay stubs.

“Don’t you ever miss it?” I ask as I look at the top of my mother’s head. She works to steady her breathing before looking up at me, her eyes nervous. I chew at my bottom lip while nobody answers. The man the question was for won’t—he’s spent a lifetime refusing to answer that question of himself. No way will he bend from my asking of it. But I’m angry, and I want to storm out of here, never to come back, to make a scene.

Two months, though. And then that’s all that would be left—the last taste on the tongue.

I stand, and Murphy turns to sit sideways, her legs are facing me.

“Have you ever been to the museum at McConnell? Anyone?” I ask, looking around the room. Two of my sisters studied there, and the campus is close to our home. Nobody nods yes, though. But my mother knows where I’m going with this. She takes a sharp breath, probably an attempt to stop me. “It’s a shame. You really should make time to go there. The art…” I bend my head toward my father, my eyes narrowing. “It’s an impressive collection. The works span maybe a hundred years.”

“Wasted resources,” my father says, his gaze lowered and his jaw hard.

I lock onto his face and search his eyes, but nothing behind the pale green looking back at me says he believes otherwise. Whatever passion ever existed inside Luke Coffield was struck down and murdered by his father. I’ll be damned if that legacy continues with me.