Page 99 of Devil in Disguise

“It’s not asecret.It’s just …”

“Wait,” Harlan said. “You mean that show they did about your mom and me? Did you watch it?”

“Well,yeah,”Dyma said. “Annabelle and I did. And Owen. And it wasn’t just about you and Mom. It was about me, too.”

Harlan and Jennifer looked at each other, and Jennifer said, “Have I been insensitive? Should I have watched with you? Was it bad?”

Dyma said, “It was … well, it was …”

“Horrible,” Annabelle said.

“But why didn’t youtellme?” Jennifer asked.

Dyma shrugged helplessly. “Because I didn’t want you to have to think about that? Like I said. I realized.”

Harlan said, “If it’s bad, we’d better know.” Not sounding Harlan-fun now. Sounding Harlan-serious.

“It must be online somewhere,” Jennifer said. “We should watch it now. All together.”

“Seriously?” Dyma asked. “This is how you want to spend Christmas? Watching a bad tabloid show about your life? What about your game?” Trying to sound tough, to sound casual, and panicking inside. She did not want to do this.

“It sounds like I need to,” Jennifer said. “And I guess if you’ve learned anything from me, it would be that I do what I need to do.”

“But everybody—” Dyma said, and stopped.

“Everybody what?” Jennifer said. “Everybody’s here, yeah. That’s what family’s for, to get through the hard things together.”

“It’s going to upset you, though,” Dyma said. “Trust me, Mom. It’s awful.”

“What, I’m going to fall apart? First, I probably won’t. And second, if you can’t fall apart in front of the people who love you best in the world, when can you ever do it? Harlan, could you go find that thing online and get us set up in the living room? I’m going to go put Nick to bed.”

42

Sins of the Fathers

Owen and Annabellewere clearing the table and cleaning up the detritus from dessert, and Dyma was helping, but she’d gone quiet. Dymaneverwent quiet. Owen told her, “If you really don’t want to do this, I’ll take you home.”

“What? And be a coward?”

“Ah. No. I see that.” She was still shut down, though, like she was armoring herself against this. Against seeing herself humiliated in front of her family? Or, maybe, against seeing her mom hurt because of her.

He wanted to tell her what he thought about her heart. About the strength of it, and the purity. How she wasn’t just gold, she was platinum. He wanted to say it.

Except that now wasn’t the time.

Sitting on one of the couches beside her, then, and Harlan saying, “Everybody set?”

“Yep,” Oscar said. “Just going to say, though, that they can show whatever they want, but they’re not going to change my mind about a darn thing.”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Harlan said.

And there it was all over again. Owen could see and feel, now, the reaction when Dyma’s father’s image came on the screen. Not just from Dyma, who stiffened, but from Jennifer, too.

Dyma hadn’t even held his hand during any of this, because she had her feet up on the couch and her arms wrapped around her legs, the way she did when life got hard, like a snail going into its shell. Some things were too raw to share, he guessed. Now, she shrank even further inside, and when Jennifer said, “Oh,” on a soft exhalation of breath, she shrank some more.

After that came the part about the rape trial, and Dyma stood up and said, “Stop it. Stop showing this.” When Harlan didn’t react fast enough, she snatched the remote from his hand and turned it off. “Mom. I can’t. It’s like I’m sitting herehurtingyou. I can’t.”

Jennifer said, “It’s not hurting me, and you’redefinitelynot hurting me. It’s already happened. It’s done. It can’t hurt me anymore.”