Page 61 of Forbidden Dark Vows

We’re doing what we always do, keeping it normal so that we can stop the darkness from creeping in. We’ll do this forever if we must. Whatever it takes to stop the image of Karl Weiss with his mouth turned down at the corners from taking root inside my head. Karl Weiss who can still walk unaided, still work, still dance if he ever wanted to while my dad has to learn to walk all over again.

“Where’s … your mom?”

And there it is, the question I was dreading.

How can I tell him that I don’t know where she is? That I heard her pottering around the house in the night like a thief, her footsteps careful, the house holding its breath in case she created a din. Then, when I woke up this morning, she was gone.

“She went out to run some errands.” Smile, Ruby, act like you mean it. “She’ll be here later.”

His eyes settle on me while still zipping about like a fly caught inside a window. “She … means well. She … loves you, Ruby.”

I could say that if he needs to tell me this, there’s something not quite right.

I don’t need to hear my dad say the words out loud. I know that he loves me; it’s like there’s something inside my heart that gets tugged towards him wherever we are, but there’s an invisiblebarrier between me and my mom, and I don’t even know how it got there, or who built it in the first place.

She reported me missing to the police.

She told me to go catch an actor, never realizing that I might catch a Weiss instead.

She brings me lip gloss and eyeliner and beauty magazines when all I really want is books.

Everything she does has an ulterior motive that will benefit Celia Jackson, and I often think that she doesn’t know me at all.

“I know.” I force a smile, my eyes drifting to the pile of books I brought in for my dad. “Shall I read to you?”

He settles back against the pillow and flashes me that clumsy lopsided smile. “You’re a … good girl, Ruby.”

I pick upThe Piranhasby Harold Robbins—my dad loves his books—and open it at the first page. This feels wrong somehow. Our roles have been reversed too soon. It feels like only yesterday that my dad was reading to me in bed, the comforter pulled up to my chin, my eyes closing to the sound of his voice, and I’m not prepared for this.

Concentrate, Ruby, for fuck’s sake. If he can hold it together, still smile after what he’s been through, the least I can do is read a book to him like I’m enjoying it.

I start reading, consciously injecting some life into my voice. It’s all I can do to stop the words from vanishing beneath a wall of tears, and they slip out of my head the instant they leave my tongue. I almost cry out with relief when the door opens, until I realize that it isn’t the nurse.

It’s my mom.

Her gaze glides around the room, barely noticing the open novel on my lap. “You didn’t wait for me.” Her glare is accusing.

She doesn’t want to do this now, I think. Not in front of Dad.

“I didn’t know when you’d be back.”

Her eyelids flicker—she knows she’s been caught out—quickly replaced by her usual expression. “I went for bagels.”

“Bagels?”

Really, that’s what she’s going with? She could at least have come up with a plausible excuse.

She slides a brown paper bag onto the mobile tray, and I get a waft of herby cream cheese and smoked salmon. “Your favorite.” She kisses my dad, cheek-to-cheek, and takes my usual spot on the side of the bed. “From the little corner bakery near City Hall.”

Dad’s face turns pink and blotchy, his mouth twitching as he struggles to express his gratitude. “The-the bakery?”

“Uh-huh. The food here is shit. I thought it would bring back memories of early morning breakfasts when Ruby was a baby.”

He looks at me, his eyes wet and full. “Best bagels in town…”

Mom opens the bag and shifts a bagel closer to his good arm. Smug. It’s like a game of chess, the first one to catch the king unguarded, wins. Only she has forgotten one very important rule: it takes two to play chess, and I’m not getting sucked into her little game, whatever it is. She didn’t leave home at silly o’clock to pick up bagels.

I’m not having this conversation in front of my dad though.

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