Page 572 of Not Over You

“Which is why Sonny can’t work regularly.”

“You got it.”

“The girls. They don’t know?”

He sighs. “No. Only a few people know the true story. The ones who do—me included—he threatened to kill if they told. I believed him. The head injury plus his conviction that they never find out—he meant business.”

I stare at him. Trying to think through all the reasons I wouldn’t want my kids to know. A few seconds slip past. A bell rings. Students rush the hallways, mingling, before all goes quiet again. A straggler or two pass.

“He didn’t want them to hate her. To think a mother would be capable of such a thing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figure, too. They hate him, though.” He whistles. “They think he ran her off. Was abusive. You know, all the things they can think of why she would have left them. When it was really her selfish nature. I hate to say this, but she never really wanted them. You put a free animal like that behind bars? It’ll accept its circumstances, but only until it can figure out another way to be free. The medicine thing, though.” He shakes his head. “That’s an entirely different story. She could have killed them.”

“They don’t remember?”

“No. Neither of them. Maybe because they were so young. But deep down, I think they know. If that makes sense. It comes out in their behavior now. Ava is the angriest. Put an obsession in front of her and she’ll warm right up to it without hesitation.” He sighs. “Lucila seems to be resigned to the fate of it. She was sick the day Janis left. She thinks Janis left because of her. Because she was too much trouble. Where Ava goes wild, Lucila is the caretaker. You know how many times we had to get her back in school? She tries to quit so she can take care of everyone at home.

“Sonny was a victim of Janis, just like the girls. But he isn’t a saint, either. Instead of stepping up and doing what needed to be done for the girls, he totally closed off. He keeps his wounds open on purpose. He drinks too much. He watches too much TV. Though he’s quiet about it, he started gambling. Sometimes with the only money they had left from whatever check he gets every month. Molly would step in. Even your old man would send extra food with her for them. Not all the time, but enough to cause notice.”

“Then Sonny started going with prostitutes. He got one of them pregnant. A real special kind of a woman, get what I’m saying? She was loaded and dropped the kid on her head. State got involved. She took off and left the kid on his doorstep. Lucila stepped up, and she’s basically the kid’s mother now. As far as I know, Sonny stopped gambling, but there’s no telling what will happen in that house from one day to the next.”

I stand. He does, too.

“Where is she right now?”

“Who the fuck knows? I don’t keep tabs on all of them. I can’t. The only reason Lucila has been on the forefront of my thoughts is because of what she’s been doing lately. Disappearing.”

In more ways than one. She’s not eating. She’s trying to shrink her pain by starving herself.

Nolan can easily find where Lucila’s at, but he doesn’t. I respect him for it, but I also want to bludgeon him for making it harder for me to get to her. It’s a toss-up, but I decide to walk before I do something that will get me put away for years.

He stops me before I can get to the door. “My advice? Follow the candy wrappers.” His face morphs into a worried expression. “She do something wrong? You going to hurt her? Is this about Sonny? You looking for her to get to him?”

We stare at each other.

“She’s going to be easy to break,” he says. “She’s already broken. Not much satisfaction in that, right?”

Even though he’s into shit a man who’s supposed to be a role model for kids shouldn’t be, he’s decent when it comes to his students. I decide to be honest with him. Because he might try to stop me from finding her. I don’t need the time waste.

“No,” I say. “I’m not going to break her. I’m going to give her a break.”

There’s a blonde-headed girl sitting in the waiting room. I go to pass but she calls my name.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she says. “Anyone around here knows who you are. And my sister. She’s got a…crush.”

Ava. She’s got defiance written all over her. I don’t mind a wild chick, especially in the bedroom, but this one has fight me or bite me in her blood. She also has wings, which I wasn’t born with. If the attraction was there—why the fuck not? But all I see when I look at her is Lucila’s little sister. I look at her and know what she’s been through.

I don’t see Lucila as her own history, though. I see her as her future. Bright.

“Good,” I say. “Because I have a…crush, too.”

She grins. “Glad we could be honest with each other. And I’m glad you’ve taken an interest in her. She needs someone like you. A man who will give her back what she gives. Everything.”

“Follow the candy wrappers.”

“Yeah, but not today. Why do you think I’m sitting here? I got into it with that bitch who works in the cafeteria. She hit my sister.”

“Tell me about it,” I say.

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