“Brian knew that?” I asked quietly.
“Some of it. You told him.”
I remembered. Our first Christmas together, I’d told him the whole story. The hairbrush and the hundred strokes and the summer after Mom died. I’d cried a little. He’d held my hand and said, That’s beautiful, babe.
He’d used it.
Eight years later, he’d used it.
On the morning of our final court date, Dad arrived at my apartment before I was ready.
Ezoic
I’d been staying in a small rented apartment since I moved out of Dad’s spare room. I still had my hair in a towel and one shoe on when I heard his truck in the parking lot.
He was wearing a suit.
I hadn’t seen my father in a suit since my mother’s funeral. It was dark gray and a little too big for him now, and he’d clearly ironed his shirt himself, because one side of the collar was crisp and the other side was crooked.
