Especially since Jennifer had been making French toast at the time. Back to looking cheerful, and so pretty again in a pair of stretchy gray jeans and a turquoise top with long sleeves and a wrap front that showed a bit of cleavage, because she had so much going on under there, she couldn’t help it. She’d changed into those clothes just about as soon as she’d climbed out of his bed in the gray light of morning, when she’d found the thin white nightgown, pulled it down over her body, and been covered up … not much at all.
He’d grabbed her wrist, pulled her back down onto the side of the bed, and said, “Stay.”
“No,” she’d said, then leaned over and kissed his mouth so sweetly. She trailed her hand down his jaw, smiled into his eyes, and said, “Time to go back to the real world. Cinderella doesn’t get to dance with the prince forever.”
He could still see that little swell of belly through her nightgown, because it was just that thin. He could also see, or he imagined he could, that silver ring with the black bead that would be rubbing against her all day. The only jewelry he’d ever seen her wear. He wasn’t sure which thing he wanted to touch most. He just knew that he wanted his hands all over her, because she was going to be the only good thing about this day.
She’d pulled away and left him anyway, though, and she’d also offered to take the kids once his sisters had shown up for breakfast, everybody quiet and subdued. Steve had said, though, “No, I’ll take them to the park. You’ll probably sit there for hours just to see ten minutes. Not sure why you want to do it anyway. It’s not like it’s going to be a happy family memory. It’d be better to head back to Minneapolis right now, so we’re not driving after dark. You all can text Alison what happened.”
Alison said, “I think I need to go, though.” Looking troubled.
Annabelle said, “I’d feel better if we were all together. Does anybody else feel like that? Like, I don’t want to be there at all, but I kind of think I have to, or it won’t be real. Even though I saw Dad getting handcuffed and everything. It still doesn’t feel real. Maybe if I see him like that, it will. If we feel like a family, too. Maybe then I can … believe it.”
“That’s it,” Vanessa said. “That’s why Ally and I have to go. We didn’t see Dad get arrested like you did, or see Dad in jail, either, like Harlan did. It’s not going to feel real until we do. And I want to see his face.” Her own more-than-pretty face hardened. “I want to see him look at us and know we know. I want him to know how much I hate him for it. I want him to look at me and know I’m hoping he burns in Hell.”
Everybody had been silent at that, but Jennifer had asked, once Harlan was driving everybody to the courthouse, the three sisters squeezed into the back like they’d been so many times in their mom’s car, “Did your father call you again yesterday?”
“Yeah,” he said. “While I was giving Bug her batting practice.”
“Did you answer?”
“No.”
He hadn’t listened to the message, either, but it had been such an effort not to push the button. He was going to need to get a new number, because he couldn’t stand much more of this.
And when they’d reached the courtroom, their grandparents had been there.
Not their dad’s parents. Their mom’s.
He hadn’t seen them for more than twelve years, and at first, he didn’t recognize them. A woman with her silver hair pulled neatly back into a clip, but her face drawn, her eyes red, and a tall, still-broad man with eyes like dark coals in his face, full of banked rage. The woman had uttered a choked cry and run for them, and the man had turned, his face impossible to look at without hurting.
His daughter dead. His little girl buried like something you’d throw away. And the recognition had jolted right through Harlan’s body.
His grandfather.
Hugs, then. Halting explanations. And so many tears.
He’d had their phone number and address for the past two months, since the private investigator had found them. Why hadn’t he gotten in touch? He could say that he hadn’t wanted to hurt them with questions about how their daughter could have left her kids like that. He could say it, but it wasn’t true. He’d been afraid of his temper. Afraid of the power of his anger.
Instead, they’d had to provide DNA to identify their only child’s remains. They hadn’t even been able to contact their grandchildren, they explained now, in case one of them had been … His grandmother’s chin wobbled as she said the word. “Involved.”
Harlan said, “No. We’ve all talked to them now. They know he did it by himself.” An image he didn’t want, that he couldn’t shake. “And he practically admitted it to me.”
The bailiff had called for quiet, then, and he’d been glad. His chest had hurt, and as hard as he’d tried to relax his muscles, they’d tensed up again just as fast.
There was nothing like sitting in a den of low-grade misery for two hours, though, to turn raw emotion into resignation.
Now, he sat on the hard bench as another prisoner, his neck marked with crude tattoos, headed back out through the doors again, a weeping older lady blundered out of the courtroom doors at the back, and the bailiff called the next case. He whispered to Jennifer, “Doing OK?”
She muttered back, “I have to pee,” and he smiled. The only time that had happened this morning.
“Go on,” he said. “I’m guessing we’ll be here more or less forever.” And she scooted past his sisters and left to do it.
Annabelle whispered, “Is she leaving?” A bailiff looked over at them, and Harlan shook his head. He sure hoped not, anyway.
Everything came to an end, though, even waiting for your father to enter his murder plea. By the time it was his dad coming through the doors, it was nearly noon, and the spectator section of the courtroom—whatever you called that—was almost empty. At the sight of the familiar puffy face, though, the line of women beside Harlan stiffened like they were about to jump up and do the wave. The row was anchored by his grandfather at the end of that line, because he’d never un-stiffened. Harlan would bet he was glaring now, that his grandma had hold of his hand to keep him from jumping up and taking his son-in-law out. He knew, because that was exactly how he was holding Jennifer’s hand.
He’d seen the orange jumpsuit before. He hadn’t seen the wrist and ankle shackles, though, and his sisters had seen none of it. He heard Annabelle suck in a breath, grabbed her hand, and muttered, “You’ve got this.” She took another breath and nodded, and he thought, I’m going to take care of you, Bug. I couldn’t do it before, or I didn’t, but I’m going to do it now.
His dad stared at all of them, but mainly, he stared at Harlan. The kind of look that, if Harlan had been a kid, he’d have turned away from fast.
He’d been rocked off his feet this whole weekend. Now, though, he realized that he wasn’t. He was doing the right things, and he was sure. The feeling was like helium rising up through his body. Even with Jennifer last night. He was sure.
He knew why he was here.
A guy in a suit stood up at a question from the judge and went to sit beside Axel at a table, so that must be where the defendant sat. There was some preliminary stuff, and the judge asked, “Do you agree to waive your right to hear your rights and the charges against you?”