Chapter Twenty-One
“You have to eat something,” Daddy says, pushing a dry hot dog in front of me.
I swear to God everyone wants me to eat, as if food can fix this gaping hole inside me. As if it has anything to do with the way my body has shifted and grown and changed.
The edge of the hot dog has turned white from being in the microwave too long. The ketchup has slid down the crack of the bun, forming a pool on the plate. Nothing about this is appetizing, even if I were hungry. Except that Daddy made this for me.
A hundred nights he was gone playing card games, leaving me to scrounge for food, to learn to work the stove before I really should have. All I’d wanted was this, a dry hot dog that he would make for me.
I force myself to take a bite. Somehow it tastes worse than it looks.
Chew. Swallow. Act like a person.
Daddy’s eyes are wide with hope and worry. “If you don’t like it I can bring something else.”
“No,” I say, a little loud. “No, this is perfect. Thank you.”
The truth is he’s been nothing but supportive ever since Damon dropped me off at the door, like an errant lost puppy he was returning to its owner. Daddy fell over himself apologizing to me, swearing things would be different. At the time I had been too numb and too cold to even run through the ordinary thoughts—don’t believe him, Penny. It will only be worse when he gambles again.
Except he didn’t gamble again. Not in the three weeks I’ve been home.
That might not sound like much, but once upon a time it would have been a miracle.
Now it’s a curiosity. A concern, even. Who is this man?
When I’ve eaten half the hot dog, I push the plate away. My stomach threatens to revolt if I don’t stop. “When is the big game?” I finally bring myself to ask.
He freezes in the act of putting ketchup in the fridge. “What game?”
Guilt burns like acid inside me, because he looks so pained. So ashamed. I don’t want to make him feel bad. That’s how dark and twisted family makes you. You’re desperate to console them even when they’ve hurt you.
“The game you used me to buy in.”
He flinches. “I’m so sorry, Penny. I never should have done that. Your mother—”
There’s a whirlpool inside me, a constant and wild swirl that’s been there ever since Damon walked away from me. And for a moment, everything goes still. “What about her?”
“She would have killed me,” he says, sitting down heavily at the kitchen table. His knee still bothers him, but he doesn’t use the cane. It sits by the door instead, a wishful-thinking weapon in case Jonathan Scott comes back.
For so many years I tried not to think of Mama in that bathtub. And when I saw Jonathan Scott hanging from the ceiling of that mental hospital, I couldn’t stop thinking of her. They didn’t look alike, not in those moments, not before. There was only a kind of helpless self-destruction to both of them. They had not sunk to the bottom of the lake; they had both dived in head first.
“She wouldn’t have cared,” I say softly.
“Oh, Penny. What she did… she was sick. And I wasn’t strong enough to help her.”
Not while he was busy battling his own addiction. Not while he was making his own dive. Maybe Damon Scott and I are destined to repeat history, each of us too wrapped up in our own pain to help the other swim. I already know I can’t rely on him. Or Daddy.
Brennan came to see me three times now. He looked ashen the first two visits, unable to fully meet my eyes. I thought maybe he considered me damaged goods. He wouldn’t have been wrong.
“You don’t have to come again,” I told him the third time, gently because I wasn’t angry.
He glanced at me, his eyes wide with grief. “I’m not sure I can be your friend anymore.”
The words startle me. “What?”
“I know you wanted that from me, so I didn’t push. I didn’t—but I did want more, Penny. I want that now. To marry you and make it so you never see Damon Scott again. Do you want that?”
I could have relied on him, but I couldn’t hurt him that way. I couldn’t lie.
No, the only person I can rely on is myself. “The poker game,” I remind Daddy.
He shakes his head, fierce and quick. “Damon took over the game, after Jonathan Scott—” A cough that I’m not sure is a queasy stomach or genuine sickness. He hasn’t been well. “After Jonathan Scott disappeared. He said all the previous buy-ins were now considered contributions to his father’s funeral.”
My eyes widen. “He can do that?”
A helpless shrug. “Someone could challenge him, but I doubt they’d survive long that way.”
“Then it’s over.”
“It’s over,” he says firmly. “He’s setting up another game, another buy-in, but I’m not interested. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’m interested, but I’m going to stay strong. Like I should have done a long time ago. There’s no chance I’ll enter.”
Another game. Another chance. “We’re going.”
His face goes pale. “Penny, why? To watch? I shouldn’t. I can’t. Even though I’m trying to be strong… I have a ways to go. I’m afraid I’ll slip back into that life. And if you’re interested in Damon Scott, you should know—”
“I’m not,” I say quickly, not wanting to hear one of the million reasons that would be dumb. Which reason would he pick to tell me? That the man is ten years older than me, gorgeous, wealthy, and could have any woman he wants? Or that he’s a dangerous criminal?
Or maybe he would say what he means every time he pushes more food at me, his tone careful, his eyes filled with regret. That I’m damaged goods, after all. Ruined.
I put my hand on his. “I want to enter this. I want to play. Well, you’ll play. I’ll help.”
He looks bewildered. “Why?”
“Because we’ll split the pot.”
“Money isn’t a good reason,” he says. “I should know.”
“It’s the only way I can control what happens to me. It’s the only way I can be free.”