Page 66 of Truly Madly Magically

I try to smile. “You’re so easy, Sadie.”

“You are literally the only one who thinks so.”

Knowing she can’t lie, I want to hug her then—but I don’t because she’d get all stiff and ask me what’s wrong with me.

A question I won’t know how to answer.

I start to move for Zander’s truck, but Stephanie hasn’t quite given it up yet tonight. “I’m sure your father...”

This time we all turn to look at him. He’s standing over by his SUV, still clenching the phone to his ear. When he sees us all watching him, he lifts a hand in a wave.

Not a greeting. A dismissal. Because in classic Bill Wallace fashion, he doesn’t want to deal with it. With me. So he won’t.

I’m surprised to find myself sad, like all my mad deserted me. Maybe that’s Elizabeth’s fault. That talk about getting tired of being angry last night. I swear I could muster it if I didn’t hear her in my head. Legacies are choices.

We walk to the truck and I get in, feeling fragile. I tell myself it’s last night’s poisoning finally catching up with me. Because I won’t let it be anything else.

Zander says nothing. He starts the truck and begins the drive back to St. Cyprian.

I assure myself the silence is good. Certainly not oppressive. The throbbing inside of me must be the aftereffects of yesterday. With a nice helping of morning sickness.

We came here to make an announcement, and the announcement is made. Everyone knows. The end.

I close my eyes on a wave of sadness, laced with a very old, very familiar pain. I can’t seem to bundle it all up and shove it down the way I usually do. Every time I think it doesn’t matter, that I don’t care, that my life is better without old bald Bill in it—he finds a new way to shove the knife to my heart a little deeper.

Bill’s not evil, but that only makes me sadder. It wouldn’t occur to him that he hurt my feelings, because in his mind, he was confronted with being old—the thing he hates most in all the world. So he walked away from the person and conversation that made him feel that way.

It’s as simple as that.

I realize as this quiet drive goes on that I expected much more from him tonight.

Not because he’s been such a great dad to me, but because he’s been a pretty decent one to my sisters. He goes to almost all their various events. He eats family dinners at home when he’s not traveling for work. He seems to love Stephanie, whatever that means to a man like him.

He’s there for them. And it’s possible that deep down I thought maybe a baby...a child...could bring us together.

The way we haven’t been since I was a little kid myself.

A tear wells up and makes it over my eyelid, but I magic it away so Zander doesn’t see.

Because this is dumb. I know who Bill is. I know his limitations. He’s not a cruel man. Not abusive. He just doesn’t give a shit about anything that isn’t the Bill Wallace show.

Never has, never will.

“I’m sorry, El,” Zander says in that quiet, almost-gruff way after we’ve driven a while.

“I don’t c—” I suck in a painful breath and try again. “It doesn’t ma—”

I am not going to cry. I chant this to myself. Its own spell. Its own magic. I am not going to lose it sitting in the passenger seat of Zander’s ancient truck. Not over Bill Wallace, of all unworthy people.

I have never let myself cry in front of Zander. I convinced myself it was because I didn’t want him trying to fix it for me. I only cry over things that can’t be fixed and trying to pretend they’re fixable only makes them worse.

Case in point.

I press my forehead to the passenger window. “Just take me home, please.”

He makes a low sort of noise, but I know he’s agreeing, and I relax a little. He’ll take me...somewhere, anyway. We don’t have to do this. He won’t see me cry.

“What home are you thinking?” he asks. “Your mom’s? Your apartment? Or do you want to go back to Wilde House?”

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