All Good People Here(41)

“Billy,” Krissy snapped, inclining her head toward Jace, who was standing so still and stiff he looked like a tiny mannequin.

But Billy just shrugged. “It’s one dance.”

So Krissy put on January’s practice CD and she and Billy sat side by side on the couch to be January’s audience for the second time that night. Jace, dressed in his little button-down and khaki church pants, squished between them. When the song ended, January bowed deeply at the waist, drawing out the moment by bowing again and again in every direction.

Billy, who was holding the bouquet they’d given her at the theater earlier, plucked out one of the dethorned white roses and tossed it onto the living room floor. “Bravo!” he called. January pounced on it and pressed it to her chest. He grabbed a few more stems and handed one to Krissy and one to Jace. Krissy tossed hers onto the makeshift stage, but Jace held his tightly between his two small hands.

“Jace,” Billy said. “Are you going to throw the flower to your sister?”

Jace stared down at a spot on the floor, his little chest rising and falling with quick breaths.

“Here,” Krissy said lightly, reaching over him to pluck a flower from the bouquet in Billy’s hands. “Why don’t you keep that one and throw this one?” She handed him the second rose.

When he still didn’t move, Billy said, “Jace, your sister just danced for us and she did a really good job. Do you have anything to say to her?”

By now Jace was trembling.

“That’s okay,” Krissy said. “If you’re not feeling it right now, maybe you can say it later.”

“No.” Billy shook his head. “Jace, tell your sister congratulations.”

Krissy shot him a look. “Billy, it’s fine. They’ve had a long day.”

“No. Jace, say ‘congra—’?”

But before he could finish, Jace stood. His face crumpled, turning red. “No!” He threw both his roses onto the floor and stomped on them. “I hate dance!”

“Jace,” Billy bellowed, his voice hard. “We do not behave like that. You just earned yourself a spanking.”

Krissy shot him a look. “Billy—”

But Jace was screaming over her. “I hate you!” he shouted to Billy, thrusting his tiny palms into his thighs. “I hate Mommy!” He shot around the coffee table toward his sister, who’d been watching the scene unfold with wide eyes. “And I hate January!” He shoved her so forcefully she fell backward, her hip and shoulder colliding against the hardwood with two painful-sounding cracks. She burst into tears. Jace ran out of the room.

The next night, as Krissy tucked her into bed, January turned onto her side and Krissy spotted a bruise blossoming on her shoulder. It was right on that tender spot beneath the bone, almost the size of a fist. It was then, as she stared at the dark splotch on her daughter’s body, that Krissy realized she was afraid of her own son.



* * *



—

Now, standing across from Jace in the doorway of their hotel room, Krissy thought of everything she’d done last night to protect him, every lie she’d told Billy and the detectives to keep him safe. And she wondered, as he gazed back at her with those flat, serious eyes, if she’d made the right decision, or if protecting him had been a horrible mistake.





FIFTEEN


    Margot, 2019


It was just after eleven on Monday morning and Margot was driving to the hardware store to make a copy of Luke’s house key when her cell vibrated from the seat beside her. She stole a glance at the screen, and when she saw the name at the top, she grabbed it.

“Hi, Linda.”

On the other end, she could hear the sounds of Shorty’s, the loud murmur of an early lunch crowd, ice clinking in glasses, the TV playing in the background. “Margot?” Linda nearly shouted her name and Margot yanked the phone from her ear. “Hey, hon. You okay? You sound tired.”

“I’m fine.”

It was a lie, though. Margot had slept poorly the night before, tossing irritably on the futon as her mind pinged from Luke to January to Natalie Clark then back to her uncle again. She was beginning to feel that she was in over her head when it came to helping him out, unsure how to navigate the choppy waters of his condition and guilty for not being more available, more competent, more…everything.

The previous evening, after her string of interviews that day, Margot returned to her uncle’s place, eager to eat, shower, and crash, only to find she’d been locked out of the house. She rattled the doorknob a few times to be sure, nudging the door with her foot, but it wouldn’t budge. She closed her eyes. Making a copy of Luke’s key was on her to-do list, of course, but it had been languishing at the bottom, seemingly nonurgent beneath the other tasks like making sure he had food to eat and preventing him from falling behind on his meds.

She knocked loudly on the door, then waited, but nothing happened. The house remained quiet and dark. “Uncle Luke!” Margot called through the door. “Are you in there?”

She gazed at the closed garage door, envisioning its one and only clicker clipped on to the visor in Luke’s car. Then, with a pang of panic, she realized she didn’t even know if his car was in there. He rarely drove places these days, but what if he had today? What if he had an episode on the road? What if he forgot where he was going, got flustered, and had an accident? Margot shouldn’t have left him as long as she had. She should have researched what to do when it came to his driving. She should have made a copy of the fucking house key. All the ways in which she’d failed her uncle began to stack one by one on top of her shoulders.