Page 62 of The Last Housewife

Jamie frowned, unconvinced. “Yeah, well…it’s late. I’m going to let you sleep.” He rose from the couch.

“No.” I grabbed his hand, stilling him. “I’m too keyed up. I want to talk.”

“About what?”

“Your choice.”

I could see I’d hooked him. “Anything?”

“Anything. Interview me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Will you tell me about your father?”

That was the last thing I’d expected. “Excuse me?”

“You said there was a lot I didn’t know about your life, even though we grew up together.” The words came faster. “It’s always bothered me I don’t know what happened with your dad. One day he was there, and the next, he was gone. I mean, I know he was some important person, some CIA analyst. But you were always so private. I never felt like I could ask.”

I laughed, a knee-jerk response. “Jamie, I lied. You really want to know?”

He swallowed. “Yes. I need it for…background. For the podcast.”

My father was a story I never told. No matter how many times I’d stripped bare, I had never gotten that naked.

But I’d already given up a piece of my body tonight. The proof burned like wildfire in my arm. Why not a piece of my soul? After all, this was the routine, wasn’t it? Letting someone take bigger and bigger bites of me. Pushing the limits, drawing right up to the knife-edge of control.

Dancing that familiar dance.

Chapter Nineteen

TransgressionsEpisode 705, interview transcript: Shay Deroy, Sept. 9, 2022 (unabridged)

SHAY DEROY:When I was ten years old, my dad left us. It might have happened before then—he might’ve always been leaving—but ten was when I knew. I think it was the worst night of my life. I know that’s strange to say, compared to what happened in college. But when I look back, that night is the dark hole. Just skimming the surface triggers this exquisite pain, like the hurt’s been preserved, living raw under my skin.

JAMIE KNIGHT:Like a festering wound.

SHAY:Sometimes I think it’s a shrine.

JAMIE:To what?

SHAY(clearing throat): You know my dad was in the army.

JAMIE:I used to think it was cool you lived on base.

SHAY:He was deployed a lot, sometimes for months. By the time I was ten, I’d gotten used to it. Dad being gone was normal. He was going to stop traveling once he climbed rank. We used to talk about that a lot: our wonderful future, right around the corner.

The night it happened was about three months into one of his deployments. I was waiting for my mom to come home, sitting alone in our duplex—you remember the one with the crazy wallpaper—doing homework and listening to the neighbors have dinner through the walls. I was determined to catch my mom as soon as she came home because Mrs. Carroll had stopped me in the cafeteria that day and told me I couldn’t go to the lock-in. I needed my mom to fix it.

JAMIE:Lock-ins were the only fun thing to do in school. Why couldn’t you go?

SHAY:They made a rule that year that students could only participate if their parents volunteered a certain number of hours in the PTA.

JAMIE:Huh. I bet my mom was all over that. She was queen of the PTA.

SHAY:I remember.

(Silence.)

JAMIE:Why was your mom out so late? At the shelter?