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“But it’s true.”
“No. You shouldn’t blame yourself. It’s my fault that you do. I shouldn’t have put that burden on you. I shouldn’t have let it get that far. I should have come forward and stopped the whole thing as soon as that article about you hit the newspaper.”
Suddenly, I’m no longer at Hope’s End. The whole cursed place disappears from my vision as I flash back to home, my father at the kitchen table, newspaper in hand. He looks up at me with watery eyes and says, “What they’re saying’s not true, Kit-Kat.”
He didn’t say that because he wanted it to be the truth.
My father said it because itwastrue.
He knew I hadn’t given my mother those pills.
Because he’s the one who did it.
FORTY-THREE
Shock and despair.
That’s all I feel.
Not anger. Not grief. Just those two extremes of shock and despair, feeding off each other, turning into an emotion I can’t describe because I’ve never felt it before and I pray that no one else is forced to experience it. It feels like every part of me—brain, heart, lungs—has been ripped from my body, leaving me hollow.
That I remain standing is a miracle.
I can’t think.
I can’t speak.
I can’t move.
My father, still blessed with all those qualities, steps toward me, arms outstretched, as if he wants to embrace me but knows I’ll shatter if he does.
“I’m sorry, Kit-Kat,” he says. “I know you wanted more time with her. I did, too. But she was suffering so much. All that pain. I understood why you left those pills out for her. Because you couldn’t take any more of her suffering. None of us could. So I decided to end it.”
I don’t want to listen. Yet despite all the functions currently failing me, hearing is the only one left. I have no choice but to take in every word he says.
“I didn’t force the pills on your mother. She took them willingly.We both knew it was better that way. What I didn’t intend—what neither of us intended—was for you to be blamed for it. When that happened, I didn’t know what to do. But believe me when I say I wasn’t going to let Richard Vick arrest you, Kit-Kat. I vowed to turn myself in if it came to that. But it never did. So I stayed quiet, because I knew you’d hate me if you ever found out.”
I do hate him.
Finally, a third emotion, one that eclipses my shock and despair. Those fade to background noise as the hatred takes over. But it’s a wounded sort of hate. Raw and burning. Like I’m the one who’s just been stabbed.
I can’t tell what hurts more—that he and my mother decided to end her life without telling me, thereby denying me a chance to say goodbye, or the fact that he stayed silent when the police came for me, when I was investigated by the state, when I was suspended from my job.
“That’s why I couldn’t talk to you afterward,” my father says. “It was too hard to look you in the eyes, knowing what I did, knowing I was the cause of your suffering.”
Somehow, I find my voice. “Yet you refused to stop it. You just let everyone think I killed my mother. Worse, you letmethink that.”
“I shouldn’t have,” my father says. “I was wrong.”
He takes another step toward me, wincing as he touches his side. At any other moment, my caregiving instincts would kick in. I’d check the wound, try to clean it, find something to stop the bleeding. But I remain stock-still. His wound is nothing compared to mine.
I might have remained like that forever if not for a sound coming from the hallway.
A sharp clack as Lenora Hope finishes loading her shotgun before stepping into the bedroom. Upon hearing it, my father raises his hands and turns to face her.
“Hello, Lenora,” he says.
Lenora levels the shotgun barrel at his chest. “Who are you? Why are you here?”