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I laugh at the memory. Irvin was so damn scary that day, I was sure I was either getting hauled off to jail or murdered in some lunatic’s basement. Cara’s face has paled and her mouth is gaping but not one sound comes out.

“Anyway, I was running with the wrong crowd, but I lived in a neighborhood where there was the bad crowd and the deadly one so I was making the best choices I could at the time, and I don’t know what it was that day, still don’t, but Irvin took me in. He gave me a place to stay, made me come to his house after school to help me with my homework, all that shit my mom couldn’t deal with. Lived four blocks away from my own home but after that first day, there was something between us, and his home eventually became more of a home than my own.”

“Wow, it’s good you had that. Good you have someone like that in your life.”

“Yeah, well, Irvin’s son died in a gang when he was thirteen. Joined up despite the fact he had a dad in his life who gave a shit about him, which is better than most of us around there had, so I never really got it because Irvin’s a scary beast, but his heart was just as large. Anyway, I was struggling in school, barely passing, and it was pissing me off because all I wanted to do was get out of that hellish neighborhood and do something.” I paused, took a long drink of my coffee, and glanced out the window. “I couldn’t read, Cara,” I say when I look at her again. “Don’t know if it was the drugs, or I was born wrong, but I couldn’t read. Fucking killed me too, to have everyone think I was so damn stupid.”

“You couldn’t—”

“Nope. Not until about eighth grade, I couldn’t read shit except small words I could memorize, but Irvin helped me out, had me write shit out and he figured out I was writing half my letters backwards or upside down. Eventually, he took me to some doctors and we discovered I have dyslexia.”

I drop the bomb and wait for the look of pity but all Cara does is blink rapidly. “You met Dan in college.”

“Yup.”

“But—”

“Still sucks to read, I’m not going to lie. Takes me three times as long as anyone else, but that’s why I majored in art and then switched to tattooing. Not a lot of reading required, and when I do scripts on people, I have to think of the letters as art drawings and not an actual word. I haven’t messed up yet.” I flash her a grin, belying my own unease with this. “Stella’s from my old neighborhood. I grew up with her, and she’s a fucking whiz with numbers and definitely better with words than I am. I wouldn’t be able to run the business without her.”

“Wow, I mean, I want to say I’m sorry you have to deal with all that.” Her brow scrunches. “Although that doesn’t sound right either. Mostly I’m just really impressed with what you’ve been able to make of yourself even with your disability. I mean, you live in one of the most expensive buildings in Portland, for crying out loud. I’d say you’ve done okay by yourself.”

“Irvin bought this place for me.” Damn. A lump lodges in my throat and I push it down. Then I push away my food. “Not really.”

“I don’t understand.”

I rarely talk about Irvin with anyone anymore, except for occasionally with Stella. Somehow, Irvin became the dad or uncle to the fucked-up kids in our hood. Stella and I are two of the few who took to him like he tried to take to all of us, trying to save us from the shit his son went through.

“He died when I was still in college. Man lived in this crappy, falling-apart two-bedroom home as long as I knew him. Had no clue he’d done some major investing over the years. Man died a multimillionaire and lived like a pauper.” I drop my head and squeeze my eyes closed. I can’t even look at her. “He and I used to sit outside on his crumbling front porch and he’d ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always told him I had no clue, but I’d point across the river, and tell him, ‘I just want to live high. See what it’s like to live in the sky.’ ”

“Braxton—” Her voice sounds broken and so uncertain.

I lift my head and grin. “He gave me all he had. I gave half to Stella and she reinvested all of it into MadInk. But when I heard I was the beneficiary to all this damn money I never knew the man had, the lawyer had given me a note he’d written. All it said was, ‘You better put this to use, so you can live high in the sky, or I’ll haunt your white ass.’ ”

I chuckle, because the man was always rough, always giving me shit, but fuck…he was a good man. The best man I’ve ever known.

I shove off from the table, needing space, but before I can stand, Cara is in front of me, scrambling onto my lap and straddling me. She throws her arms around me and yanks me to her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and her voice isn’t only broken, she’s crying. “I’m so sorry you lost such a good man, but I’m certain he’d be so proud of you.”

She holds me tight. I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her tighter. Settling my chin on her shoulder, I grit my teeth. Both of us don’t need to fall to tears.

“I lost Jimmy,” she says, after minutes of us holding each other. “My brother.”

“Yeah?” My hand drifts up her back. I brush hair to the other side of her shoulder and continue running my hand up and down her back, settling her. She’s gripping me tighter like she needs to cling to me to be able to talk.

“Yeah. He died just over a year ago, but he was sick for years before then.” She clears her throat and says, “Leukemia.”

“Shit, Cara. I’m sorry.”

She pulls back, but I still hold her firmly in case she’s planning on running, but instead, she wipes tears off her cheeks. “We were twins. He was older by five minutes, but you’d have thought I had never been born at all with all the attention he got and how little I did. Made him so mad, all the time, the way my parents would expect so much from both of us, but they only ever praised him or acted like he was the only one who could do anything. The day of his funeral, my mom looked right through me, like I wasn’t there, shook her head, and said, ‘I don’t know how I’ll live without my child,’ like she didn’t even realize her other one was standing right in front of her.”

“You kidding me?”

“No.” She blinks harshly and opens her eyes. They’re swirling with emotion, pain, and anger, but I see a spark of determination in them too. “I moved out that day. Quit school. Found my apartment and I decided, screw them. I was only going to law school because it’s what we were supposed to do and I never wanted it in the first place, but I kept thinking if I tried hard enough I could make them love me.”

Jesus. My mom was a drug addict who eventually overdosed, but if we were comparing the two, I’d almost say Cara’s mom is worse. “You shouldn’t have to make her love you, Cara. She’s your mom.”

“I know. That’s what Jimmy always said to me. When he went to hospice, he made me promise I’d get out of there, and I’d live my life. I tried telling him they’d need me, but when Mom said that to me, I knew, like always, Jimmy was right.”