The Bad Daughter(61)

The next time Robin saw Alec’s project, it was stuffed in the garbage bin under the kitchen sink, its monkey bars dismantled, its cardboard trees upended and shredded beyond recognition.

Alec’s teen years were no better. If he answered nine out of ten questions correctly on a test, his father would harp on the one question he’d missed. If he came in second in a track-and-field meet, he would be berated for not coming in first. His accomplishments were consistently viewed through the lens of failure, and no matter how hard he tried, he came up short. He was always a disappointment.

Eventually he stopped trying. What was the point when you were never going to be good enough? His grades slipped. He had to repeat his final year. He didn’t even bother applying to college. “What are you going to do now?” his father had demanded. “Start your own business?” Then, without waiting for a response, “I’ll tell you what you need to start a business—you need capital and you need balls. I didn’t have a dime when I started up, but I had enormous balls. You don’t have either. Looks like you’ll be working for me full-time. And don’t expect any favors because you’re my son.”

In truth, it was unlikely that Alec had expected anything from his father, other than abuse. And if he harbored any hopes that Greg Davis would miraculously turn into some sort of mentor, he’d been quickly relieved of those illusions. The man in charge showed no inclination to share anything of what he’d learned over the years. Alec was quickly relegated to the role of glorified errand boy, there to do his father’s bidding and bear the brunt of his daily rants.

Robin recalled stopping by the office one day to get her father’s signature on a scholarship application form, when she heard him berating Alec long and loud from behind his office door, unmindful or unconcerned about the fact that two clients sat waiting in his outer office. “Some men should never have sons,” the female client whispered to her male colleague.

The man nodded. “I hear he eats his young.”

My father the cannibal, Robin thought now, feeling Blake’s arm slip from around her waist as he turned onto his back, giving in to sleep.

The one bright spot in Alec’s life had been Tara.

They’d known each other for years, as a result of Tara’s friendship with Robin. Even though Tara was a few years older than Alec, she never looked down on him. She seemed to value his opinion, regularly seeking his advice on everything from the boys she was dating to the clothes she should wear.

“What are you asking him for?” their father had scoffed once in passing. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“Sure he does,” Tara had responded easily. “He knows lots. You’re being a bully, Mr. D.”

Robin had held her breath, waiting for her father to erupt and order Tara out of the house. But instead, he’d laughed out loud.

“That girl’s a little firecracker,” he’d pronounced at dinner that night.

Robin knew her brother was in love with Tara even before he did. The few girls he dated all looked vaguely like her—the blue eyes, the long, straight brown hair, the willowy, athletic bodies. But these romances never lasted long. “What was the matter with that one?” Tara had asked him after one breakup.

Alec had shrugged. “I don’t know. She just wasn’t…I don’t know.”

She wasn’t you, Robin had answered silently, staring at her friend. If Tara knew about the crush Alec had on her, she never mentioned it to Robin. Still, how could she not know?

“So, Alec, what do you think about Dylan Campbell?” Tara had asked when she and Dylan first started dating.

“Don’t like him much,” came Alec’s quick response. “He’s kind of rough.”

“I know,” said Tara, with a laugh. “That’s what I like about him.”

Tara married Dylan and Alec never said another word against him until Tara showed up at their house one day covered in bruises, her infant daughter in her arms. “You have to leave him,” he’d said simply. “He’s going to kill you.”

And now Tara was dead.

But it wasn’t Dylan Campbell who’d killed her.

Was it Alec?

“Can I talk to you a minute?” Alec had asked Robin one night. She was home from Berkeley for the week of spring break. They were sitting in the backyard, staring up at the thousands of stars surrounding the full moon, like freckles. “It’s about Tara.”

“What about her?”

“Do you think she’d…?”

“Do I think she’d what?” Robin pressed, although she didn’t have to hear the rest of the question to know what it was.

“Do you think…I mean, now that Dylan’s out of the picture for good…if I were to…”

“…ask her out?”

“Do you think she’d go?”

Robin smiled. “I think she’d be a fool not to.”

Tara was no fool.

“I don’t get it,” Greg Davis had sneered. “A girl like that. What the hell does she see in a lightweight like Alec?”

“Alec isn’t a lightweight,” Robin’s mother had protested. “He’s sweet and he’s sensitive—”

“He’s a goddamn wimp. What that girl needs is a man.”