Page 72 of A Killing Cold

I give a choked laugh. “Yeah, it didn’t turn out too well for you.”

“That’s not what I mean. I pretty much got what I deserved,” he says. He sounds genuine. I think of the last time I saw him, soaked in blood, the knife on the ground between us. The way he looked at me, like I was a wild animal, like someone ought to put me down. Maybe he wasn’t wrong.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened,” I say in a deadened voice. “But someone has been talking. About the things we all agreed we wouldn’t.” It feels like swallowing down something rancid, using that word:we. Like I’m making myself one of them, the way I used to be— the way I never was.

“I know,” Joseph says. “I’m sorry, Dora.”

“It’s Theo,” I snap. “I always hated that name.”

“Theo,” he repeats, like he’s reminding himself, training himself into it. He doesn’t need to. We won’t speak to each other again. “You know why they gave you that name?”

“Because I was a gift from God,” I say bitterly.

“It’s because it’s the only thing you would say. ‘Teddy.’ It was the only word you spoke for the first solid month. So: Theodora.” He says it like it’s sweet. Like he has no idea there might be something terrible wrapped inside that story. “Things have changed, you know. For me. Beth and I—we split. Not long after you left. I’m living in Colorado now. I’m actually getting married, next year.”

“Felicitations,” I say flatly.

“Bradley’s great. I think you’d like him,” Joseph says. My stomach gives a flip.

“You…” I try to fit this piece of information into my recollections. Joseph and Beth. The way they never touched. The way she said so many times how she saved him. How his sister would purse her lips and shake her head whenever she mentioned her brother’s religious turn. Those moments when Beth would spit out blame at him for her infertility, in her lowest moments, true acid and hatred in her voice.

“You don’t need to say anything,” Joseph continues. “It doesn’t make up for what I did. What I didn’t do. I was supposed to take care of you. But I was too afraid. Of a lot of things. God-fearing, that’s what we’re supposed to be, right? But I’ll tell you. I’ve only ever felt God since I stopped being afraid.”

“Then I’m happy for you,” I say. I’m surprised to discover it’s even true. I can’t forgive him. But I can be glad that he found his way to being someone new.

“That’s not really why I called.” Joseph clears his throat. In that sound I can hear the fracturing of hope. He must have known this wouldn’t be some joyous reunion, a mending of all our wounds, but some part of us always holds on to those fantasies.This will be the day they finally love me. This will be the day I am finally good enough.

“Someone contacted you, didn’t they? About me. About what happened.”

“Yes,” Joseph says.

“And what did you tell them?”

“I wasn’t going to tell them anything,” Joseph says. “But I’m not the only one they called. I guess some folks figure it’s been enough time. Chief Monroe retired; he’s down in Boca Raton now. His threats don’t carry so much weight anymore.”

“I hadn’t heard.” There was a time I’d fantasized about Chief Monroe taking me in, adopting me. But his interest in me extended only as far as getting me the hell out of there. It saved my life. I couldn’t have asked for more, not really.

But the heart hopes.

“This guy, he already knew most of it, only it was all the worst version.”

“The version Beth would tell, you mean,” I say. Or Peter.

A grunt. “That’s the one. So I… I sent him those photos. So he’d see. So he’d know why you did it. I told him I didn’t blame you. Because I don’t. I deserve these scars. Every inch of them.”

My breath is labored. The cold air makes my eyes water, but there are no tears, not now. “Do you know who it was?” I ask. My voice is so calm. I don’t understand how it can be so calm. “The person asking, I mean.”

“There was more than one,” Joseph tells me. “First time it was a guy who wouldn’t give me his name. Frankly, he seemed like a dumbass. Second time it was a private investigator. I looked him up—it seemed like a real slick firm. What kind of people are you tangling with, D—Theo?”

“It’s not important,” I say. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“The thing is…” He pauses. I can hear the sound of his weight shifting, a chair creaking. I wonder what the stars look like in Colorado right now, whether he’s far enough outside the city to see them spread out overhead. Here, there’s nothing but the dark blanket of clouds. “That second time around, they weren’t just asking about what happened. They were asking about where we got you from. About if you’d told us anything, about before.”

I watch the path of a single snowflake as it drifts down inches from my face. “And what did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” Joseph says, voice gruff. “It’s no one’s business but yours.”

“But there was something to tell.”

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