Page 33 of All Good People Here

“Here,” Krissy said lightly, reaching over him to pluck a flower from the bouquet in Billy’s hands. “Why don’t you keep that one and throw this one?” She handed him the second rose.

When he still didn’t move, Billy said, “Jace, your sister just danced for us and she did a really good job. Do you have anything to say to her?”

By now Jace was trembling.

“That’s okay,” Krissy said. “If you’re not feeling it right now, maybe you can say it later.”

“No.” Billy shook his head. “Jace, tell your sister congratulations.”

Krissy shot him a look. “Billy, it’s fine. They’ve had a long day.”

“No. Jace, say ‘congra—’ ”

But before he could finish, Jace stood. His face crumpled, turning red. “No!” He threw both his roses onto the floor and stomped on them. “I hate dance!”

“Jace,” Billy bellowed, his voice hard. “We donotbehave like that. You just earned yourself a spanking.”

Krissy shot him a look. “Billy—”

But Jace was screaming over her. “I hate you!” he shouted to Billy, thrusting his tiny palms into his thighs. “I hate Mommy!” He shot around the coffee table toward his sister, who’d been watching the scene unfold with wide eyes. “And I hate January!” He shoved her so forcefully she fell backward, her hip and shoulder colliding against the hardwood with two painful-sounding cracks. She burst into tears. Jace ran out of the room.

The next night, as Krissy tucked her into bed, January turnedonto her side and Krissy spotted a bruise blossoming on her shoulder. It was right on that tender spot beneath the bone, almost the size of a fist. It was then, as she stared at the dark splotch on her daughter’s body, that Krissy realized she was afraid of her own son.

—

Now, standing across from Jace in the doorway of their hotel room, Krissy thought of everything she’d done last night to protect him, every lie she’d told Billy and the detectives to keep him safe. And she wondered, as he gazed back at her with those flat, serious eyes, if she’d made the right decision, or if protecting him had been a horrible mistake.

FIFTEEN

Margot, 2019

It was just after eleven on Monday morning and Margot was driving to the hardware store to make a copy of Luke’s house key when her cell vibrated from the seat beside her. She stole a glance at the screen, and when she saw the name at the top, she grabbed it.

“Hi, Linda.”

On the other end, she could hear the sounds of Shorty’s, the loud murmur of an early lunch crowd, ice clinking in glasses, the TV playing in the background. “Margot?” Linda nearly shouted her name and Margot yanked the phone from her ear. “Hey, hon. You okay? You sound tired.”

“I’m fine.”

It was a lie, though. Margot had slept poorly the night before, tossing irritably on the futon as her mind pinged from Luke to January to Natalie Clark then back to her uncle again. She was beginning to feel that she was in over her head when it came to helping him out, unsure how to navigate the choppy waters of his condition and guilty for not being more available, more competent, more…everything.

The previous evening, after her string of interviews that day, Margot returned to her uncle’s place, eager to eat, shower, and crash, only to find she’d been locked out of the house. She rattled the doorknob a few times to be sure, nudging the door with her foot, but it wouldn’t budge. She closed her eyes. Making a copy of Luke’s key was on her to-do list, of course, but it had been languishing at the bottom, seemingly nonurgent beneath the other tasks like making sure he had food to eat and preventing him from falling behind on his meds.

She knocked loudly on the door, then waited, but nothing happened. The house remained quiet and dark. “Uncle Luke!” Margot called through the door. “Are you in there?”

She gazed at the closed garage door, envisioning its one and only clicker clipped on to the visor in Luke’s car. Then, with a pang of panic, she realized she didn’t even know if his car was in there. He rarely drove places these days, but what if he had today? What if he had an episode on the road? What if he forgot where he was going, got flustered, and had an accident? Margot shouldn’t have left him as long as she had. She should have researched what to do when it came to his driving. She should have made a copy of the fucking house key. All the ways in which she’d failed her uncle began to stack one by one on top of her shoulders.

She banged her palm against the door. “Uncle Luke! It’s me! Your niece, Margot.”

Nothing.

“Uncle Luke! Are you there? Please open the door.”

Still, nothing.

“Shit,” she hissed. She pulled her phone from her backpack and called his cell, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t answer the house phone either. “Shit, shit, shit.”

She stepped off the little concrete landing onto the ground next to it, then tromped around the bushes lining the house’s exterior. When she made it to the window that looked into the kitchen,she pressed her face against the screen, cupping her hands around her eyes to peer inside, but the kitchen was dark and empty. She walked around the corner of the house, the bushes scraping against her thighs through her skirt. Along this wall was another window, but the ground had sloped down and she had to stand on her tiptoes to look through.

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