Page 88 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

She studies me for an ulterior motive before nodding. Behind her, the deputy observes us through the glass insert of the door. “You can send me a few things, long as you don’t do it out of pity.”

Every book I send and every dollar I deposit in her name will be an apology for a different sin, further blurring the line I draw between altruism and guilt. I will send her things throughout her sentence, even if I never hear a word of thanks. I don’t want the only kindness I’ve ever shown Harmony to be contingent on her forgiveness.

“There is one thing you can do for me,” Harmony continues.

“Name it.”

“Please look out for Grace.”

“What happened to leaving her alone?”

“Well, I won’t exactly be around, will I?” When she sighs, her breath smells of the stale remnants of sleep. “Someone has to stick around and look out for her. You’re not my first choice, but who else is there?”

“I’m going to go home soon, Harmony.”

“Take her with you.”

“She’s seventeen,” I say. “It’s kidnapping if I take her across state lines without our father’s permission.”

Her upper lip curls. “You can’t leave her with him.”

“I told her—” I stop myself when I catch the deputy again, looming at us from the other side of the door. I finish my thought in a frazzled whisper. “I offered tohelpif she needed to get out. Whatever she needed. I told her just to say the word.”

“She doesn’t know how to ask for help. You and I never did. Why would she be different?”

“The only option is …”

Her eyes are ferocious. She knows exactly what I am saying. “Finish what you started.”

“I’m not that person anymore.”

“But this time, it’s righteous, isn’t it? Listen to me, Providence. We are both lost causes, but she isn’t. If you can get her out of there and help her have a chance at a normal life, do it.”

“And traumatize her all over again?”

Her patience hangs by a thread. Every movement she makes is quick and twitchy, like insects are crawling on her. “Grace doesn’t hate you now, but I promise the second you drive out of town and leave her behind with him, she will. She will never forgive you.”

“What if something happens to me? What if I die? Then who does she have?”

“Is it fun for you to think of everything that can possibly go wrong?”

I speak softly enough for the incessant chugging of the air conditioning unit to drown out my words. “She will be fucked if something happens to me. You are gone. Mom is gone. We don’t have aunts or uncles or cousins. There is no one now that you’re going away.”

“She’s fucked if you leave her with the old man.”

“She doesn’t want it to end like this.”

“You can’t ask her to make the decision,” she says. “She won’t get there on her own, even if she wants it. She’s a sweet girl. You take the burden on your conscience, not her.”

“Harmony—”

She pushes her chair away from the table. The legs screech against the concrete floor, a sound so sharp I feel it in my teeth. “Do it, Providence. Do it. It’s the only way he’s ever going to stop.”

“You don’t have anything to lose.”

“And you do?”

I swallow thefuck youon my tongue because I don’t want it to be the last thing I say to her. “She said it would make me the same as him.”