Page 60 of Head Over Heels

I'm safe.

I bury my head in his chest and dissolve into silent sobs—of fear and panic, but equally the relief of finally feeling safe in Dad's arms. He tightens his arms around me, patting me softly, soothing me, hushing me. Another arm wraps around me, and I instinctively know it's Florence. Then Mel is on my other side, and I'm surrounded by the most important people in my life. The smell of my dad's musky cologne mixes with the age-oldeau de Mel—the two people who've been my home for as long as I can remember.

Florence tenderly pulls my face to look at her. "We've got you, Josie." She leans her forehead against mine. "You're going to be okay. We've got you."

Dad and Mel loosen their arms, and Tilly steps into my periphery. She softly pushes Florence's shoulder, breaking us apart. "We've got you," she repeats, "but we have things that need to be taken care of before we let our guards down." She squeezes my arm gently and turns to my dad. "He had cameras at Mel's place, too. We've taken down the ones here and at Mel's. We need to get the ones from your house down."

"It's aimed at the couch in the living room," I tell Dad. "It's been disabled, but it could still be hacked into. I want to get it out of the house. If you could take Mom out for dinner, even just to the store for half an hour—I don't think she needs to know about it."

He sits down at the table again, hard. "I never thought he would stoop that low," he whispers, shaking his head. "I'll get her out of the house for a little while. Tomorrow." He looks at me, and I nod. "I don't want to keep it a secret from her, but she doesn't need to know until it's gone."

"Dad." I sit down next to him at the table. "Tell me what you know of him. I want to understand why Mom is so angry at him.I want to know what he did. Part of me is ready to walk away from all of this and let it all go."

"What you know already isn't enough?" he asks, his tone serious.

"I don't really know much. He was a creep. He was a thief—not only in his younger days, but judging by some of the things in the penthouse, he never outgrew that." Florence's warm hands are on my shoulders, and I lean back into her.

"Your mother thinks he killed your Grandma Greta."

The way he words that makes me think. "You don't."

Behind me, Florence squeezes my shoulder. "In the letter, it sounded like an admission."

Dad's eyes glance up to Florence and he nods. "I didn't before, but your girlfriend is right,mieloji."A deep sadness crosses his eyes. "There were two kinds of people who lived through the war—those who did horrible things and were at peace with that, and those who weren't."

I feel Florence take a breath behind me to say something, and my dad's eyes look up at her again.

He shakes his head at her. "It's the same with victims. You had people on both sides who did horrible things." He leans back in his chair and squeezes his eyes shut. "My dad fled the war in 1944. The Nazis had taken control, and when the Soviets took back our country, he fled to safety. While that gave him—and me—a much better life, he always felt like a chicken. He hid under the bed when he was twelve, when the Nazis came and took his parents away."

Florence opens her mouth to say something, but he sits up straighter. "Don't youdaretell me that what he did wasn't horrible. It haunted him every day of his life." He sighs. "Every single person lived through their own version of hell."

Florence starts to pull away from me, but I put my hand over hers to stop her.Don't you dare pull away from me when I need you.

"I'm just saying," he continues, "I've seen pieces of what the war did to people. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Your grandfather was on the wrong side of things, but I chose to believe that he had humanity—that maybe what he did during the war haunted him, too."

"Sorry, Mr. Mueller," Tilly jumps in, "but you're wrong on this one." She leans against the wall and casually puts her foot up behind her. "Back to Grandma. Was there actually a reason your wife thought he killed her?"

He shakes his head. "Other than she was a healthy woman in her sixties, and it was unusual that she just died in her sleep like that, no."

"It's not all that unusual, actually," Mel points out. "A lot of seemingly healthy people die of heart attacks or aneurysms in their sleep. If you figure a quarter to a third of our day is spent in bed—"

"Mel." Florence's voice behind me stops her.

"Why does Mom despise him so much?" I ask, letting out a long breath. I've wondered this for so long.

"One of her friends died in an accident when she was a teenager, about the same time your grandpa and his business partner were having differences. It was the business partner's daughter."

Mel reaches for Renna's hand and squeezes it. "You don't ever get over that."

Enough reliving everyone's trauma. This isn't helping."Do you know anything about the ring that he talks about, Dad? It feels important."

He shakes his head. "No. Your grandfather was a womanizer, though. Your mom has always wondered if she has any half-siblings out there. I never heard anything about a woman from the war. But that—what your grandfather describes in his letter—that kind of thing happened everywhere."

"I assure you it was more traumatic for the woman than it was for him," Tilly says sourly. "Can you imagine if he had managed to track the poor soul down? I'm sure the woman went through enough trauma." Everyone murmurs their agreement.

"Did you ever talk to him after Mom cut him out of our lives?"

He avoids my eyes. "I gave him updates on you the first few years, but I didn't like misleading your mom."

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