As I slid behind the wheel of the rented Mustang, I wondered if Claire thought she was fooling me with her easy-breezy casual attitude. She probably did. Claire routinely assumed she could fool me with her bullshit, and I routinely let her get away with it, because I couldn’t quite figure out what lay beneath the bullshit, or why she wouldn’t just be upfront with me. I could see and sense when she was full of shit, but I couldn’t read her mind, so I couldn’t figure out what she really thought or wanted. It was quite a conundrum, knowing she was lying but not being willing to pull the trigger on the accusation:

You’re lying, Claire.

Oh really? About what?

I’m not sure, but I know you’re lying.

Yeah, that’d go swimmingly. She’d absolutely love that conversation. I’m sure we’d be together for a super long time after that.

I glanced down at Google Maps on my iPhone and followed the directions from the Townsend Hotel to the William Beaumont Hospital almost on autopilot, letting my brain chase down the endless maze of rabbit holes that was my relationship with Claire.

She blew my mind on a regular basis, she constantly surprised me, and she never ceased to amaze me. She always kept me on my toes. But she also had walls a mile high and a mile thick, and sometimes I felt like I’d never really find my way through them. Which was the point, I supposed—I couldn’t get through them, or over them, or under them…she had to let me in on her own, and I just wasn’t sure she was capable of that. We’d been together for going on four months, now, which was an eternity for both of us. We spent every available moment together. We fucked like teenagers who had just discovered sex. We talked nonstop, about everything. She’d told me a lot of her sordid past. On paper, it seemed like she trusted me. Yet I still got the feeling she was holding back, keeping something in—there was some part of herself she wasn’t sharing.

Sexually, she was freaky, which was hot. I mean, I thought I’d liked sex, but she took it to a whole new level. She was insatiable, to the point that I sometimes wondered if she was, clinically speaking, a borderline nymphomaniac. I wasn’t complaining, hell no. But…it was constant. My sex drive was healthy, my refractory period nice and short, my stamina good. I could keep up, and I knew how to please her.

But…

I just felt like there was a but.

She never admitted to wanting anything I wasn’t giving.

Until this morning: The harder the better. Fuck me so hard my pussy is sore for days.

I’d been worried I was going to hurt her, nailing her like I had. She was so small, so dainty and delicate. But she was also fiery, feisty, and strong. I knew she was strong, stronger than any other woman I’d ever met—emotionally and mentally. But physically, I was just scared I was going to lose control and hurt her. I stood six foot one and weighed in at nearly two hundred pounds. None of us Badd brothers were small men, thanks to Dad’s genetic gifts to us. And Claire? Five-five at the most, and probably one-ten after a full meal, soaking wet. Slender, svelte. Bird-bones, delicate features. Stunning features. Like, my breath caught sometimes, looking at her. Like right now, she was staring out the windshield so she was in profile to me, and the sun caught her pixie-short hair—which she’d recently had dyed a sort of silvery blonde, which just worked with her pale skin and virulently green eyes. And, god, I just couldn’t quite breathe right because she was so fucking beautiful, like just…lovely. Those cheekbones, that mouth? God, that mouth, literally and metaphorically. Sassy, biting, wickedly sharp, sarcastic. Vitriolic and cutting, yet also prone to insights and truths, and hilarious and unexpected turns of phrase. And, literally, that mouth. Wide, with plump lips in a perfect cupid’s bow. Those lips could kiss my lips, and they could slide across my chest, and they could wrap around my dick. Those lips, though. I stared at her mouth more often than I’d like to admit. Especially when she put on that bright red lipstick that contrasted so brilliantly against her creamy peach skin.

“You’re staring at me,” she remarked, still staring forward.

“Can’t help it,” I said. “You’re just so damn beautiful.”

“You were looking at my mouth.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because your mouth is…I don’t know. One of my favorite features of yours.”

She glanced at me, a wry twist on her lips. “My mouth? Really?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, really. Why, is that weird?”

“A little.” She pulled down the visor and flipped open the mirror, turning her head this way and that, making a moue with her lips, faking a cutesy smile, a pout, then baring her teeth. “Why my mouth?”

“You have a beautiful mouth. Your lips, the way you smile…it’s just…beautiful. I’m attracted to your mouth.”

“Literally speaking, you mean.” She closed the visor and turned to watch my reaction.

“And metaphorically.”

“Growing up, my—my dad used to say I packed the attitude of three people into the frame of half a person.”

I couldn’t help a laugh. “Sounds about right. You’re all attitude, and I like it.”

“Even when my attitude gets in the way and makes problems?”

“You? Problematic? Never.”

She snorted. “Nice.”

“Hey, I’m a stunt pilot. I do stupid, crazy shit in an airplane for a living. Safe to say I don’t like boring.”

“Well, you’ll certainly never be bored when I’m around.”

“Exactly.” I reached out and took her hand. “Notice how we haven’t spent more than half a week apart since we met?”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head and turned to stare out her window, brushing off my words like she always did when I said something sweet or romantic or cheesy. Yet I saw the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, and the pleased glint in her eyes, before she shut it down again.

“Whatever. You’re just crazy.”

“Guilty as charged. You have to be crazy to intentionally stall out a plane at two hundred feet.”

“Didn’t you once lecture me about the difference between stunts and tricks, and aerobatic maneuvers? And how everything you did was carefully calculated and practiced obsessively?”

I laughed. “And all that is still true. But in this case, I’m just proving a point.”

“And what point would that be, pray tell?” She rested her elbow on the window frame and propped her head up with three fingers to her temple, eyeing me with a half-smile.

“That I’m not interested in boring or safe. I like things crazy and interesting.”

She stared at me hard for a long moment. “Well, you’ve certainly got that in me, then.”

There was more, but she wasn’t going to say it. I could see her wheels turning though, see her thoughts spinning.

“Do you even say half the things you think?” I asked.

She frowned, as if the question was unexpected. “Half? Nah, not even. As unfiltered as I may seem, I hold back at least eighty percent of the crazy nonsense that goes through my head.”

“Why?”

“Because I get enough shit as it is. If I vented everything I thought, I’d be locked up.” She glanced sideways at me. “Why? Do you say everything you think?”

“Not even close. But I get the feeling there’s always more that you’re thinking but not saying, and I always wonder what it is.”

“Hey look, we’re here,” she said, as I pulled into the parking area near the hospital’s main entrance.

She pointed out a parking spot a few rows from the doors.

“Avoiding,” I murmured in a singsong, under my breath.

She laughed, but her heart obviously wasn’t it in it. “I’m not avoiding, I’m putting a pin in it. For later.” She jabbed the air with one hand as if driving a tack into a corkboard, making a popping sound with her lips.

“Nice,” I said, as I slid out of the Mustang.

Claire got out and circled the back end to wait for me, and then took my hand. “Can you not, Brock?”

“Not what?”

“I’m stressed, okay? And it feels like you’re trying to pick a fight.”

“I’m trying to distract you with conversation.”

She shook her head, irritated. “Well…don’t. You’re just making it worse.”

I sighed. “Sorry.”

“You wanna know what I’m really thinking?” she asked, as we entered the hospital and angled toward the check-in desk.

“Absolutely.”

“I’m fucking terrified right now. I haven’t seen my dad in over six years. The last time I saw my mom, I screamed at her for being a pussy and a pushover and giving in to whatever Dad wanted. And now my dad’s dying, and I don’t want to be here, but I know deep down you’re right, that I have to at least make the effort, because this is probably the last time I’ll ever see him, and even though I fucking hate him, he’s still my father.” She let out a shaky breath, shook her hands as if to dispel their trembling, and stepped up to the reception desk. “Hi, I’m here to see Connor Collins.”

“And you are?” The woman behind the desk was middle-aged, harried looking and severe, but her voice was solicitous and kind.

“Claire Collins. His daughter.”

The woman tapped at a keyboard and then glanced up with a smile, but not a bright one, considering where we were, and where she was about to send us. “Oncology, fifth floor. You’ll both need to sign in and wear visitor’s badges.”

We signed in, stuck the bright neon stickers to our shirts, and followed the signs to the elevator bank. The elevator was crowded, so Claire burrowed in against my side, standing stiff and tense under my arm. It took us a full five minutes of walking to reach the correct part of the hospital, and then we had to check in at another desk, where Claire identified herself once again as his daughter, and was then directed to a specific room.

The hallway was wide and smelled of antiseptic, our footsteps echoing loudly. Miscellaneous hospital equipment lined the hallways here and there, and the occasional barely intelligible announcement came over the PA system. We found the room Claire’s dad was in and found the door closed. I heard the low murmur of voices on the other side.

Claire stood in front of the door, chewing on her lower lip. Her fingers were tangled together in a knot, squeezing until her knuckles went white. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and she was blinking hard.

I tucked her against my side, lowered my mouth near her ear. “You can do this, Claire. I’ll be with the whole time, no matter what.”

“I can’t,” she breathed. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

She shook her head. “I can’t go in there. He doesn’t want to see me, and I don’t want to see him.” Her voice was barely audible, and shaky.

I’d never seen Claire like this, not even remotely. She was rarely emotional about anything. Excitable, manic, crazy, wild, fun, weird, sarcastic, quirky…but never emotional.

I felt her trying to pull away, and I held on to her waist. “Deep breath, honey. You can do this. It’s going to be okay.”

She twisted to look up at me, and didn’t even call me on my use of the cliché endearment—which was how I knew she was really and truly freaking the hell out. “You won’t leave my side?”

“Not for a single second,” I promised, trying to keep a serene and comforting smile on my face.

“Swear to me.” She gripped my shirtfront in trembling hands. “Swear, Brock.”

I took her hands in mine, cupped her tiny, shaking hands in my palms. “I swear to you I won’t leave your side.”

She nodded. She let go of my hands, stepped back away from me, and shook hers out again. Then she rubbed her face with her palms, rolled her shoulders, and let out another harsh breath. “Okay. Okay. I can do this.” This wasn’t meant for me, though, but for herself.

Another moment’s hesitation, and then Claire knocked on the door. The voices quieted, and I heard a reedy male voice. “I wonder who that could be?” He had a hint of an Irish accent. “Moira, would you see who that is, please.”

A ghost of a squeaky footstep, and then the door swung inward. A sharp intake of breath. “Claire, my goodness. You’re here?” She said this quietly, in a near-whisper.

The woman was around Claire’s height, and it was obvious that Claire got most of her looks from this woman, her mother. Thin, straight blonde hair, slim figure, striking features. She was exhausted looking, with bags under her eyes and pain in her expression, now mingled with surprise.

“Uh…hi, Mom.” Claire shifted from foot to foot, clutching the strap of her purse with one hand and my hand in a death grip with the other.

The woman, Moira, stared at Claire, and then at me. “Who’s this, then?” Moira, too, had a faint Irish accent.

Claire glanced up at me, then at her mom. “This is…um…my boyfriend, Brock. Brock, this is my mom, Moira.”

I let go of Claire’s hand long enough to shake Moira’s hand. “Hi, Moira. Nice to meet you, although I’m sorry it’s happening under these circumstances.”

Moira’s hand was cold and clammy and she barely shook mine before letting go. “This is a surprise.” She eyed me up and down, scrutinizing me. “Nice to meet you, Brock.” She said the words as an automatic reply, but I could tell she was stunned by my presence, or by Claire’s use of the word boyfriend when introducing me, which had, honestly, taken me by surprise, too.

“Who is it, Moira?” called out the male voice, which I assumed belonged to Connor, Claire’s dad.

Moira sucked in a deep, fortifying breath, held it, and let it out again. “Come on in, then, the both of you.”

She turned and led the way into the room, which was a private room like any other, white walls with a floral-print border halfway up, a TV in one corner hanging from the ceiling, a bathroom, a tan rolling adjustable tray over the bed with the detritus of breakfast still on it. Imitation leather chairs stood on either side of the bed, and there was a nightstand and a remote control/speaker attached to the bed. A medicinal smell mingled with the scent of sickness, and it was obvious from the odor alone that Claire’s father was very ill.

I held Claire’s hand but trailed a step behind her as we entered the room. The man on the bed was…well, sick. Obviously dying. Thin, pale, haggard. Unnaturally bald, with sunken cheeks, yet his eyes were a bold vivid blue, sharp, fiercely intelligent, proclaiming an undaunted spirit despite the weakness of his body. Hooked to an IV and a myriad of wires, he was barely a lump beneath the sheet and the thin white blanket. I guessed he would stand a few inches taller than his wife and daughter, but not by much, and I guessed that he had probably never struck a large figure, physically. His gaze was fearsome, though, as it landed on me, searching, judging, examining, and dismissing before skipping to Claire.

His gaze wavered on Claire for a long, long time, a living, roiling silence enveloping the room. I was aware of two other people in the room, two more women, both younger than Claire. One was a girl barely out of her teens, if that, and the other a few years older, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. They both strongly resembled Moira, as Claire did, although the younger had brown hair, and Connor’s blue eyes, while the older one had Claire’s green eyes and hair somewhere between Moira’s blonde and what I assumed was Connor’s brown—Tabitha, I knew, was the older of the girls, while Hayley was the younger. Tabitha and Hayley both looked like a mixture between Connor and Moira, while Claire resembled only Moira; I saw nothing of Connor in her features at all, except perhaps her slightness of build, which was also true of Moira.

Claire stood stock-still in the middle of the room, clutching her purse and my hand as tightly as she could, barely breathing, staring at her father.

“Dad.” It was all she managed, and even that was a broken sound.

“Claire?” Connor blinked. And then his jaw set and his head lifted. “Didn’t expect to see you.”

“I—I know.”

He eyed his wife, then his other two daughters. “Who was it that told her?”

Hayley’s jaw set, just like her father’s had. “I did, Daddy.”

“Why? I said not to.”

“She deserved to know.”

“That wasn’t yours to decide, Hayley.” He glanced at me, then at Claire again. “And this is your latest fling, I assume? What is it I’ve heard the kids say…? The flavor of the month?” He said the last word moooo-nth, a sharp ascension on the first syllable.

Claire let out a hurt breath. “Jesus, Dad.”

“Do not mock the name of the Lord in my presence, girl.”

I stepped forward, extending my hand. “My name is Brock Badd. I’m Claire’s boyfriend.”

He stared at my hand as if it were a snake, and then took it. He squeezed hard, probably as hard as he could, which…wasn’t very hard. “Connor Collins.”

I wasn’t pleased to meet him, not after what he’d done to Claire, and I saw no point in faking the phrase. “Sir.” It was all I said, taking my hand back and dipping my chin at him.

Connor flattened his hand on the blanket at his side, and then plucked at the loose threads. “Well, since you’re here, I’m assuming Hayley filled you in.”

“Only that you were sick.”

A scoffing breath. “Sick, she says. Oh yeah, I’m sick all right. I’m dying, is what I am.”

Claire blinked hard. “Dad—”

“Terminal cancer. Started in my left leg, in the bone. Spread from there.” He flipped away the blanket to reveal that his left leg had been amputated at mid-thigh. “It took my leg, and now it’s pretty much everywhere.”

“Dad, I’m…I—shit.” She rubbed at one eye with the underside of her wrist.

“Even now you can’t be respectful, can you?” Connor bit out.

“Sorry for cursing, I just—when Hayley said you were sick, I know she said cancer, but…”

“Not the man you remember, eh?”

Claire scoffed, much as he had moments ago. “Oh no, you’re still very much the man I remember.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed. “And what’s that supposed to mean, then?”

“Just that you’re still you, that’s all.”

“And who else should I be? You think just because the Lord has seen fit to take my life like this that I’m suddenly going to just…forget everything? That you can just waltz in here unannounced and that you would just be forgiven?”

Claire laughed openly, mockingly. “Forgiven? I would be forgiven?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“I’m sorry to say, Claire, if it’s a reconciliation you’re looking for, you won’t find it here simply because I’m on my deathbed.”

“I don’t know what I thought I was looking for,” Claire admitted. “But you’re right, I should have known nothing could ever soften you. Why should you apologize, or learn compassion, or understanding? Even now, why would you show any of that to me? Stupid of me, as usual.”

“I should apologize? I should learn compassion and understanding?”

“YES!” Claire shouted, a sudden, startling, deafening bellow too big to have come from her tiny frame. “I did think maybe you could just…let it all go. I thought maybe staring death in the face might teach you a little fucking humanity for once!”

“Claire Brigid Collins—”

“Oh come off it, Dad! Like a couple of F-bombs are going to change anything at this point? It doesn’t matter what I say or what I do, you won’t ever—” She cut off and shook her head. “Never mind. There’s no point.”

Hayley and Tabitha were watching this exchange with wide, frightened eyes, and Moira looked as if she was in too much pain to even speak.

“Ever what, Claire?” Connor’s voice was low, quiet. “I won’t ever what?”

“Nothing.” She turned away and tugged at my hand. “Let’s go, Brock.”

I remained where I was, and she caught up short as I held on to her hand, stopping her. “Not yet.”

She stared at me as if I’d betrayed her. “Not yet? You see what I’m dealing with, and you think I should just stick around beating my head against the same wall I’ve been banging it against my whole life? Why, Brock? For what? I told you this was a stupid, futile idea. I’m leaving.” She yanked away forcefully.

I hauled her back to me, pulling her in close until I could cup her face in both hands. Normally she hated any kind of lovey-dovey touching, but for some reason she allowed this. “Say it, Claire. Tell him.” I lowered my voice so only she could hear me. “You won’t ever get another chance. Just…say it. Any of it—all of it.”

“Why?” she breathed, eyes misting. “It won’t change him.”

“Maybe not, but it’ll be off your chest, out of your soul. You’ve got a lot of shit buried real deep, Claire. I see it. I’m not ever going try and pull it out of you, but I see it.” I brushed her cheekbone with my thumb. “Just…say what you came here to say, no matter how hard it may be.”

“I fucking hate you.”

“I know.”

She shook her head. “No, for real, we’re fighting.”

“Okay. I can accept that. But you’re here, so you may as well get it all out there.”

“Yes, by all means,” Connor said, obviously listening in. “Get it all out there.”

Claire hesitated, looking from me to her dad. Then she straightened her spine, lifted her head, and hardened her jaw, a gesture clearly inherited from Connor. “Fine.”

She pulled a chair up to the side of the bed, sat down, and crossed one knee over the other, settling her purse on her lap. I stood behind her, my hands in my hip pockets. “Fine. But no bullshit, and I’m not censoring myself.”

“As if you ever have,” Connor muttered.

“Oh, I have. You have no idea how much I’ve censored myself around you.” She sucked in a breath, held it, and let out slowly. “Okay, well, the first thing I’d like to say is fuck you. You’re an arrogant, controlling, heartless bastard, and I hate you.” She laughed shakily. “Wow, I’ve been wanting to say that for years.”

Connor seemed stunned speechless. “I knew you harbored some hard feelings, but—”

Claire laughed acidly. “Hard feelings? Yeah, you might say I harbor just a few hard feelings, Dad. My whole life I was never good enough. You wanted a son, and you got a daughter, which was the first strike against me. And then I wasn’t all nice and sweet and compliant like Mom, which was another strike against me. I have—and have always had—a mind of my own, and that didn’t fit in with your high and mighty ideal of how a holy and righteous family should be. I should be seen and not heard, sit still and listen, do what I’m told without question, that’s what you always said. Hell, when I was…what, twelve?…we got in an argument about something, something I did that you didn’t agree with. Which, let’s be honest, was everything. I told you I was just thinking for myself. And you know what you said? You told me, you actually said in so many words that I shouldn’t think for myself. I should just follow along with all your stupid, petty rules like an obedient robot.”

“I was trying to teach you right from wrong,” Connor interjected. “I was trying to train you up—”

“‘Train a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,’” Claire quoted. “Yeah, I remember. What was the other one from Proverbs you liked so much? Oh yeah: ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ The problem is, you weren’t training me, not at that age, and not as I got older. You were controlling me. There was no way but your way. No choice but what you allowed. And it didn’t work very well, did it? You tried to train me up in the way you thought I should go, and what happened?” She paused for effect, but Connor remained silent. “Yeah, I fucking departed from it, didn’t I? And that really steamed your corn, didn’t it?”

I tried my damnedest to stifle the snort, but couldn’t quite manage it, and everyone turned to look at me. “Sorry, but…Claire, what the heck does that even mean? Steamed his corn?”

Claire craned her neck to glare at me. “Oh shut up, Brock. Nobody asked you.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “Shutting up.”

“I blame myself,” Connor said, after a moment. “I always have.”

“Good. You should.”

“I wasn’t…I didn’t do a good enough job. You didn’t learn any of the lessons I was trying to teach.”

Claire sat back in the chair. “Even now, you still don’t get it, do you? No, I didn’t learn any of the lessons, Dad. The only lesson I learned was that you didn’t care what I wanted, you didn’t care about how I felt. I don’t know what you did care about—I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, but it wasn’t me, that’s for damn sure.”

“Of course I did—”

“Well then you sure had a crazy way of showing it. If I made my bed wrong, I got in trouble. If I got less than an A on any assignment ever, I got in trouble. If I was one single minute late coming home from a friend’s house, I got in trouble. And not, like, a talking-to or even a lecture. The tiniest infraction, and you’d beat my ass with that fucking stick of yours.”

“It’s called spanking, Claire—I hardly think that counts as beating you up.”

“I can see spanking being acceptable in tiny doses, for the most major of infractions, and even then the research shows it has a detrimental effect on children. But you whaled on me with that stick for the littlest thing, Dad.” Claire shook her head, whether disbelieving or merely trying to express the depth of her emotions I wasn’t sure. “Every little thing, you spanked me for. And then when I got too old to spank, you grounded me for everything you didn’t like. If I dared to so much as express a differing opinion, I was grounded for a week. No friends, no TV, no computer, nothing. What do you think I did all those hours and days and weeks I spent alone in my room, bored out of my fucking head? I sat there stewing, hating you.”

“You make it seem like all you did was dare to have your own opinion and I locked you in a dungeon,” Connor argued. “You cursed at me, you shouted at me, you refused to listen to the slightest thing I said. If I told you to pick up your room, you made a worse mess. If I told you to stay away from a certain boy, you dated him to spite me. You did literally the opposite of everything I said, no matter what it was, or why I may have said it.”

“Yeah, because I hated you at that point, because I’d been spanked and grounded and shouted at and lectured to and made to feel inconsequential, like a nuisance. You never hugged me, never sat me on your lap and read me stories. You sat me on the couch and preached at me. You read fucking Second Timothy to me, as if a six-year-old girl is supposed to care about any of that. I wanted to play Barbie’s, or read a kid’s book with my dad. Or play. And you wanted to lecture me about grace and mercy and the fruits of the damn spirit.”

“That’s hardly fair—”

“It’s more than fair! I was a little girl!”

“I was doing my best!”

“Then your best was complete shit, and you shouldn’t have had kids.”

Ho-ly shit. I winced as Claire said that, because even from her, that was harsh.

“Claire, now really—” Moira started.

“Shut up, Mom,” Claire snapped. “You don’t get a say in this. You never stood by me, you never tried to soften anything he ever said or did to me, and you never even tried to mitigate the insane punishments Dad handed down, no matter how minor my fuck up was.”

Moira’s jaw snapped closed and she stared at Claire, taken aback.

“Yeah, I’m pissed. Brock wanted me to clear the air because he thinks it might…I don’t know, soothe my troubled spirit or some shit.” She glanced at her mom and then her dad. “So yeah, I’m gonna unload with both barrels. I told you, I’m not censoring myself.”

“That hardly seems a reasonable excuse for the vile language you’re using.”

“Yeah, well, deal with it. You lost any input as to how I talk when you disowned me for having a miscarriage.”

“It’s far more complicated than that,” Moira said, “and I don’t think we need to bring that up right now.”

Claire jabbed a finger at her mother. “I told you to shut up. And yes, we do need to bring it up. Although you’re right, it is far more complicated than that. It wasn’t the miscarriage; it was everything to do with who I am…who I was. That miscarriage was the end of everything. Right when I needed my parents the most, you kicked me out on the street. I needed love and support and understanding…I’d just experienced one of the worst things a woman can go through, and you never even stopped to find out what fucking happened. You just tossed me out of the house without so much as a how-do-you-do. I was still fucking bleeding, and you packed me a backpack and told me to leave.

“I walked, alone, still bleeding, to the hospital, and told them I’d had a miscarriage. I was given a D-and-C, alone. Nobody to hold my hand, nobody to tell me it was going to be okay.” She choked, gasped, and had to breathe a moment. I held her hand over her shoulder, squeezing as she began again. “I was twenty years old, and it was my birthday.”

“Claire—” Connor began.

“No,” Claire snapped, her voice a rattlesnake hiss. “You shut your goddamn mouth.”

Connor’s mouth closed abruptly, and he blinked hard.

“You wanna know how I got pregnant? I messed up, Dad. That’s how. I was nineteen years old, and I went to a party, got drunk, and had sex with a guy I didn’t know. I don’t even really remember it. It was a stupid, innocent, childish mistake. It was a mistake people make all the time. A simple, stupid mistake, and it changed everything. It fucked up my whole life and I don’t even remember it.” Claire let out a breath, pausing to collect herself once more.

“I told myself it was fine,” she eventually continued. “I pretended I was fine. Pretended it never happened. And then a few weeks later, I realized I was pregnant. I was a virgin and I didn’t have a boyfriend, I’d had no plans on sleeping with anyone, so I wasn’t on birth control. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell anyone. I—I was terrified. I didn’t want it, I—what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t afford an abortion. I know, I tried—I couldn’t get the money. I even tried to steal it from you guys, but you didn’t have enough cash. I couldn’t—I couldn’t do anything. So I hid it. I’d sneak trash bags into my room and puke into them as quietly as I could in the morning. I…fuck—I cried myself to sleep every night. Every night, for weeks. For months. I was totally alone.

“And then…on my twentieth birthday, you guys all went to mass, and I stayed home. I was sick. I actually was sick, too, but it was just morning sickness, not a virus like I’d told you. I was three months pregnant, and I couldn’t handle going to church, not after what I’d been through, what I was still going through, and that morning I just…I felt like total hell. So I stayed home. So then at one point I went to the bathroom, and I felt this cramp, and then it got worse, and I started bleeding everywhere. I couldn’t stop it, and it hurt—” She faltered, her voice breaking. “It hurt so fucking bad. I bled everywhere, for so long. I thought I was gonna die. And then you guys came home, and I couldn’t even get off the floor. I could barely move. It hurt, it hurt, god, it hurt so bad. I still remember how bad it hurt, and I’ve never felt anything that bad before or since. I was relieved, too, but I was scared I was dying, and I was in complete and total agony. And then you came home, found me on the bathroom floor, and you realized I’d had a miscarriage.”

“Claire—”

“I’m not finished,” Claire snarled, her voice a low, cold, vicious hiss. “Did you comfort me? Did you help me get cleaned up? Did you ask what happened? No. You told me to get out. You called me a whore. You called me a slut. You threw me out of your house. You didn’t let me get so much as a word in. You just threw me out on the street.”

Connor had tears running down his cheeks.

“You’d better cry, you bastard,” Claire snapped. “Your little girl, your oldest daughter—you called me a whore and disowned me, and threw me out on the street. I’d lost so much blood I was dizzy, and you kicked me out! I walked alone to the hospital, blood still coating my thighs, still in agonizing pain, and got a D-and-C. I slept in the hospital that night, and at Lindsey’s house the next night. I didn’t tell her what happened, just that I couldn’t go home.”

“Claire, please—” Connor started.

She shook her head, standing up abruptly. “No. You don’t get to talk to me.” She jabbed a finger at him. “That’s what really happened. That’s why I became the person I am today. I turned to heavy drinking and casual sex, because I figured if my dad assumed I was a slut, I obviously was one, so I might as well become one. So I did.”

“Claire—”

“I just don’t even understand how, seeing me in a pool of my own blood, you wouldn’t comfort me, or help me, or show me love, or at least to stop and ask a few simple questions. Like oh, hey Claire, looks like you’re bleeding to death. As your mother and father, how can we show you the bare minimum of human decency and kindness? I mean shit, Dad, you’re a fucking deacon in the Catholic church. I’d think you of all people would be required to act like a human fucking being. But no.” She stood up, staring coldly down at her father. “I’d have gotten more mercy and compassion from Satan himself than I got from my own parents that day.”

Connor covered his face with his hands. “Claire, I’m sorry.”

She snorted derisively. “Yeah, you are. You’re a sorry piece of shit, Connor.”

I slid the chair out of the way and wrapped my arms around her. “Claire.”

She snapped her gaze up to mine. “What, you still think I should forgive him? After what you just heard?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes. I do.”

She blinked at me in shock. “How can you say that, Brock?”

“I told you from the very beginning that this wasn’t about him, or for him. It’s about you, for you.”

“I don’t get you, Brock.” She shook her head. “I thought you’d understand.”

“I do. As much as anyone can, I do.”

“Then how can you want me to forgive him for what he did?”

I pulled her aside and murmured my words so only she could hear me. “Because you don’t forgive people for them, but for yourself. You can’t move on with your life until you do. You’ll always hang on to the hurt, the anger, the pain.” I sighed and wiped my face with both hands. “I know I sound like Yoda, or the Pope, or something, but it’s true. Anger will consume you. It has been consuming you. And now with your dad terminally ill, you’re out of time. I’m not saying you should hug it out or try to start some lovey-dovey daddy-daughter relationship. Just that you make the conscious choice to forgive him, for your own peace of mind. And that’s it.”

“You go to church, Brock?” Claire asked.

I shook my head. “Nah. Never been. This isn’t about God or the church or the Bible, or even being a good person or anything like that. It’s about finding a peace of mind I don’t think you’ve ever had since that bitter day, and you may not ever have it if you don’t move past this.”

She rested her head on my chest. “And this is the only way?”

I nodded. “The only way I know.”

She pushed off me, and stared past me at her father. For a long, long time, she just stared at him, and he stared back, his gaze open, tears running freely down his face. Claire’s mother sat staring at her hands, and her sisters were huddled together, looking shell-shocked.

Eventually Claire stepped past me and stood over her father’s bed. “I can’t. I just can’t. I don’t know how—I just don’t know how to get to a place where I can forgive the way you completely and totally betrayed me. I probably never will be able to. You ruined me, Connor.”

“Claire—” he sobbed. “I—please, just—”

“No. You lost any right to speak to me ever again, to call yourself my father.” She whirled around, away from him. “You can go fuck yourself, Connor Collins.” She pushed past me. “Let’s go, Brock.”

I followed her out of the room, and down the hall to the bank of elevators. She jabbed the call button several times, furiously, and I stood near her but not touching her. I heard running footsteps on the tile floor behind us, and saw Tabitha approaching.

“Claire, wait,” she called out, as the elevator doors opened.

Claire stood in the doorway so the elevator couldn’t close. “Hey, Tab. Sorry you had to hear that.”

Tabitha slammed into her sister, wrapping her arms around Claire and clinging to her fiercely. “Don’t leave, Claire.”

“I can’t be around him, Tabby-cat. I just can’t.”

“He’s dying, Claire. Another week or two at most.”

“Call me when he dies. I’ll come to the funeral.”

Tab blinked at her sister. “You’re really not going to come back?”

“Why? I see him, and I—I’m back there, in that bathroom, hearing him call me whore and slut and telling me to leave and never come back. That’s all he’ll ever be to me.” Claire pushed her sister away, out of reach. “At least this way we can have a relationship again.”

“I love you, Claire. I’m so, so sorry you went through that.”

“Yeah, me too, Tab. Me too.” Claire moved her foot so the elevator doors could slide closed between Tabitha and us. “I’ll see you.”

Tabitha’s last look was at me and, unless I was mistaken, it was a silent plea for me to try to convince Claire to go back before her father died.

That would be easier said than done.