As I went down the sidewalk, the front door opened behind me and Trang called my name. I waved at him over my shoulder, but kept walking. He came after me, crunching through the leaves, all the way to the car.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said. “Gentry asked me to give you this, but I didn’t know where to send it.”

He held out an envelope that had my name written on it. Lady Zhorzha Trego. I didn’t want it. Some of the worst anxiety I’d had in the last six months was about someday seeing Gentry or hearing from him. I could pay the mortgage and the taxes on Bryn Carreg, as long as I never had to open that envelope and read that letter, but Trang was holding it out, so I took it.

“It’s a visitation form. So you can be on the list to go visit him. He wanted to mail it to you, but we didn’t have your address.”

“Why would he want to see me?” I said, even though I could think of a few reasons, and they were none of them good. The way I felt about seeing LaReigne, I figured that was how Gentry would feel about seeing me. He’d stopped seeing Miranda and her kids because they’d been rude, and I’d done a lot worse. I could never live up to Gentry’s standards.

“You’re kidding, right?” Trang laughed. “He’s your champion. You’re his lady. You respect him for what he’s good at.”

“I still don’t think—”

“My mother threw his sword out. The big one over his bed. She took it and got rid of it. I know she’s upset, but she doesn’t care at all about chivalry or his knighthood. You do, and that matters to him. So yeah, he wants to see you.”

“Okay,” I said, even though I didn’t mean it. I just wanted to escape without crying.

Trang stuck out his hand, so I took it. Except instead of shaking my hand, he bent over it, like Gentry would have.

“Fare thee well, Lady Zhorzha. We shall meet again.”

“Thank you, Sir Trang.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“Not yet, but one of these days.” He let go of my hand and waved at me as he jogged back up to the house.

I was such a coward, it took me two days to open that envelope. Like Trang had said, it was a visitation application form for Arkansas Department of Corrections Inmate No. 1489736, housed at the Ouachita River Unit at Malvern, Arkansas. In the middle of the form was a section for me to fill out. Name, address, phone, driver’s license, and a bunch of security questions. I knew how it worked. I would fill out the form, send it back, and the Arkansas DOC would run a background check on me. Assuming they decided I was okay, I would be added to Gentry’s visitors list.

I came home every day for a week and looked at the form on the kitchen counter but didn’t mail it, because according to the instructions, I was supposed to mail it back to Gentry. Could I stick it in an envelope and send it by itself? Or did I have to send a letter with it? I couldn’t think of anything to write. Hey, sorry I totally fucked up your life. XO, Zee.

When I was a kid, Mom made us write letters to my dad every week. Just tell him about what you’re doing, she always said, but it felt awful to send him a letter full of things he couldn’t be there for. This was worse than that, because at least it wasn’t my fault my father had gone to prison.

Maybe I never would have mailed it, but I kept thinking about Gentry’s sword, about his mother throwing it out. Because I knew she loved him, and I knew she didn’t want to hurt him, but she’d taken something he cared about and thrown it away. Every day for a week, I looked at that visitation form, and I thought, I’m not much, but I’m not nothing. I could do at least as good a job of caring about him as anybody else. If I could pay his mortgage and taxes, I could go visit him.

CHAPTER 59

Marcus

   Aunt Zee got a dog. She said he was Sir Gentry’s dog, but he could be my dog, too. Leon lived at her house and slept in her bed, but when I threw his ball out in the backyard, he brought it back to me. I had my own room at Aunt Zee’s house, but if I got up in the middle of the night, I could crawl into Aunt Zee’s bed, and sleep with her and Leon.

I wished I could live with Aunt Zee all the time. She didn’t get mad if I made a mess or if I was noisy, and we had fun. But I only got to visit her every other weekend. Sometimes we went to a movie or skating or to the playground, but sometimes we stayed in our pajamas on Saturday and played Go Fish and ate donuts and petted Leon.

Then one Saturday we drove a long way, at least two hours. I kept asking Aunt Zee where we were going, but she wouldn’t say.

“It’s a surprise,” she said, but it wasn’t a good surprise.

“I don’t want to go to prison.” I didn’t want to cry like a baby, either, but I did. Why did she want to take me there?

“You’re not going to prison. We’re here to see your mom.”

“I don’t want to,” I said.

“Why not? Don’t you miss her?”

“Yes, but she’s bad!”

“She’s not bad. Who told you she was bad?”

“Grandy and Grammy. Grandy says Mommy is bad bad bad. Daddy said a bad word I’m not allowed to say, but Grandy says that Mommy killed people.”

“Oh, bullshit!” Aunt Zee yelled so loud it scared me, and hit the steering wheel with her hand. “What does Grandy say about your dad? Did Grandy tell you that your dad killed somebody?”

“No, he didn’t! He made a bad decision. That’s what Grammy said.”

“Your mom made a bad decision, too. Your dad’s bad decision got somebody killed. And your mom . . .”

“What about Mommy?” I said.

“Well, your mom’s bad decision got people killed, too. She was trying to help someone, only that person was a liar and killed some people. Which is a bad thing, but she didn’t know that would happen. She isn’t any worse than your dad. They both did bad things.”

“You take it back,” I said, because it made me sad. If Mommy and Daddy were that bad, maybe they would never get to come home. Grandpa Leroy never got to come home.

“I’m sorry, buddy. It’s a really hard, complicated grown-up thing. Come on, blow your nose.”

Aunt Zee got a tissue out of her purse and put it up to my nose, so I hit her arm.

“I’m not a baby!” I said.

“If you’re not a baby, you know it’s not nice to hit people.”

“I’m sorry.” I was sort of. She gave me the tissue, so I wiped my own nose. Then I cried some more, because I was scared to go to prison. Grandy and Grammy never took me to visit Daddy, because it was a bad environment. We only talked to Daddy on the phone.