Page 64 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

Once we’re back on the reservation, I ask Sara to make a pit stop at her brother’s trailer.

“Please don’t tell me you and him are buddy-buddy now,” she grumbles as we turn off the main road. We jostle violently over a pothole. “That would put me in a coma.”

“I’m thinking maybe he can tell me something I don’t know yet. He’s the closest thing I have to a friend in law enforcement.”

Five minutes later, we pull up to his trailer. I’m relieved to see the front porch empty and curious how I failed to notice the snowflake-shaped Christmas lights strung along the eaves last time I was here. Sara starts to get out of the car with me, but I shake my head. “I want to go alone,” I tell her, “in case I need to charm him.”

“For my sake, don’t elaborate.”

I’m perfectly happy to let her believe I’m talking about flirtation instead of blackmail. I promise to be back in a few minutes and jog to Daniel’s front door.

He answers the door with that sameWORLD’S BEST DADmug in hand, which he hurriedly sets on the end table. “Most people call before showing up at someone’s house.” Then more quietly, a plea, “My daughter is here, Providence.”

“I can hear you talking about me.”

Defeated, Daniel invites me inside. The trailer screamsbachelor padwith its movie posters on the walls (he is apparently the world’s biggest fan ofNo Country for Old Men,with not one, not two, but three iterations of Javier Bardem staring blankly across the living room) and cheap, mismatched furniture.

A teenage girl with fuchsia-streaked hair paints her nails on the couch. She is thin and ungainly, her limbs stretched like taffy. She blows on her nails before toggling her fingers at me in a bashful wave.

“Scarlett, this is Aunt Sara’s friend, Providence. Providence, this is my daughter Scarlett.”

Scarlett’s smile reveals two rows of fluorescent orange braces. “I really like your name.”

“I like yours too.”

“My dad doesn’t like it,” she says. “Apparently my mom went rogue when she filled out the birth certificate. They were supposed to name me Lauren.”

“We’re divorced,” Daniel explains.

I have to get this conversation back on the rails. I’m dangerously close to getting the entire verbal family tree. “It’s nice to get to know you better, but I need to talk to you alone. It’s about my mother.”

Daniel motions for me to follow him down the hallway. I boil with jealousy at the wholesome pictures on his walls: him cradling Scarlett as a baby, him with Scarlett on his shoulders in front of the elephant exhibit at a zoo, him holding Scarlett’s tiny hand as she’s dressed in a bumblebee costume for Halloween.

I hesitate infinitesimally at the threshold of his bedroom but step forward anyway. Involuntary response. My brain can’t help but short-circuit at a man inviting me into his bedroom, unable to interpret it as anything other than a fly hurtling toward a spider’s web. The air in here is antiseptic with alcohol. Coffee mugs everywhere. The bed is unmade.

“I want to see the files you have on my mom.”

“Sheriff Eastman is—”

I interrupt him with a sharp shake of my head. “I know you must have something. Please, Daniel.”

“I can’t share confidential documents with you just because you’re my sister’s friend.”

“Please don’t force my hand.”

“Providence, I don’t know what you think—”

I tap my nails on the handle of an abandoned mug. “I think you went to rehab once upon a time, which means you’re not just having a few drinks on the down-low. You’re an alcoholic. I think your sister would never recover if I told her you were drinking again. I think …” The next hit is below the belt, so cruel I almost let my sentence fizzle without launching this final barb, but I came here on a mission. I refuse to be derailed byimprudent pangs of sympathy. “I think you have a daughter you should consider. Scarlett must remember you going to rehab. I bet it’d crush her to see you do it again.”

His face remains steady, handsome features turned to stone, but his eyes betray the fury churning beneath his stoic surface. “Fuck you.”

“Don’t play chicken with me, Daniel. You’ll lose every single time.”

“You want the files?” He yanks the drawer of his nightstand so hard that the handle pops off. He keeps the handle squeezed tight in his fist, knuckles whitening, veins in his forearms bulging obscenely. “Here. You can have them if it means I never have to see your face again.”

The fat manila folder thrust into my arms is bound shut with rubber bands:BYRD, E.—HOMICIDE (COPIES). I look at the treasure trove in my hands and swallow my budding guilt. I have the vague sense that my mother would be disappointed in me for doing this.

“And Providence? Don’t you dare say my daughter’s name again.”

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