Page 78 of The Trust We Broke
“Aphasia. It’s a language disorder. My father’s mental acuity is working perfectly fine, but he, currently, can barely get a word out. He can write certain things, but he can’t form sentences.”
I sit up and lean back against the solid wood headboard it took help from Atom and Smoke to lift in here. “If we weren’t talking about your father, I’m certain there would be a joke to be made about him already saying enough in life.”
“There’s so much you don’t know. Before coming back, I hadn’t spoken to my father since the day I left the courthouse after your sentencing.”
Lucy was present every day of the trial. It was the joy of every morning, showing up to the courthouse and seeing her sitting next to my mom. The two women in my life who meant the most to me.
And then, at sentencing, just before the judge told me how long I was going away for, I turned to look at Luce, to reassure her that the two of us were going to be okay. But she was already gone.
“You haven’t?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know where to start telling you all this.”
I can see her chest stutter as she breathes. She’s scared of what she’s about to say, which makes me nervous too.
“I promise I won’t leave this room until you’re finished, Lucy. Can’t promise what I’ll do after that, but I’m going to listen.”
The snow is falling a little heavier outside, and while I found myself wishing earlier that it would just blanket us and insulate us from the rest of the world, I find myself praying that it doesn’t stick, so she can leave when she’s done.
Lucy picks at a bobble of fabric on the sheet. “Mom asked me to see to the running of Dad’s law firm, and the transition of him from the business, for the immediate future. While Dadhas aphasia, he also has other limiting difficulties from the heart attack and stroke.”
“You stayed in contact with your mom?”
“Of a fashion. She’s enabled and supported my father all these years. But when she called, she caught me at a weak moment. Most of the people who work for Dad could handle his absence, but she wanted family, and someone who would take the time to manage Dad’s reputation. I’d just found out Henry had cheated on me, and I had no idea where I was going to go. Coming home felt like the easiest solution. In hindsight, I should have just sent out an SOS to my friends and crashed on one of their sofas.”
“No one had a guest room you could stay in?”
She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s Manhattan real estate, nobody has a closet, let alone a guest room.”
“Sounds awful.”
She lets her head rest against my shoulder, for a second. “It had its moments.”
We both watch the snow fall, and for some unidentified but masochistic reason, I don’t nudge her along. There’s expectation in the air, and it weighs heavy.
“I tried moving home,” she says finally. “But everything about being at my parents’ house is triggering.”
“So, that’s why you moved into the bakery?”
“Yes.”
I take hold of her hand and find it’s clammy and shaking. “Hey, whatever it is, it can’t be worse than what we’ve already gone through.”
“It’s usually easy to organize my thoughts, present a case. But I don’t know how to tell you all this without hurting you more.”
We used to joke about the size of her heart. That’s why I called her Bug, short for Love Bug. She was filled with love. But with controlling parents and no siblings, she had no one to giveit to. It’s why a part of me never understood what she did that day, because it was so unlike her.
And while I want to just hug her and say it’s fine, it’s not.
I think about that night. A charity fundraiser for something her father was on the board of. A senator’s son whose privilege led him to believe he could have anything he wanted, including Lucy.
When she arrived at the clubhouse with mascara-tracks of tears down her face, I’d got her settled in the clubhouse and ridden to the party, just in time to see the asshole leaving. Two punches. With a fist so hard and heavy and furious, it had knocked him down in one and out in two.
Just as I’d been about to kick the ever-loving shit out of him on the sidewalk, Wraith had wrapped his arms tight around my chest and dragged me away.
“You’re still only down for assault. Don’t make it attempted murder,” he’d whispered.
So, I’d ridden back to her, spent the night watching over her.
