Page 22 of The Hanging Dolls
“Yes. The truth always matters. You’ll realize just how much if you have to live without it.”
TWELVE
The next day, Travis Hunter rubbed his chest to ease the pressure blooming behind his ribs. He rummaged through his bag for his medicine. Finding the bottle, he flicked open the lid and popped a pill in his mouth. He turned on the faucet and sprayed cold water on his face over and over again.
He heard the front door open and close, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps.
He checked his watch. It was only 1 p.m. He went out of the restroom and saw his tall, gangly son with a messy mop of hair in the kitchen. “Why are you home early?”
Ryan stirred in surprise. “Uhm… what areyoudoing here?”
“I was at the station all night so came to take a nap before I go back. Don’t you have school?”
Ryan avoided his gaze as he took out a root beer from the fridge. “Yeah, but I had a free period so I came home early.”
Travis eyed him. “How’s… how’s school going?”
Ryan paused and sighed. His lips pressed in a tight, hard line. With a jolt, he threw the can in the trash. “I have schoolwork to do.” He tried to shoulder past him, but Travis blocked his way.
“Ryan, what’s been going on with you? We don’t talk anymore,” he said, avoiding his son’s eyes. For someone whohad spent his lifetime interrogating criminals and boring into their eyes until they fessed up their crime, he was shockingly bad at speaking to his own son. The words that he wanted to form with his tongue always seem to get lodged in his throat. The air between them swelled with tension before Ryan spoke.
“We never talked. Let’s keep it that way,” he said, his tone curt and dismissive. He pushed past Travis and marched to his room, slamming the door shut behind him.
Travis fell heavily onto one of the chairs around the dining table. The air in the kitchen was still thick, a witness to his failing relationship with his son. Ryan was right, they didn’t talk much, but Travis always felt a lot was said in those snippets of strained conversations. He stared at an old picture hanging on the wall—of him, a newborn Ryan in his arms and his late wife.
Somehow during all those years spent analyzing and breaking down strangers, he had lost track of his own son. The pain in his chest increased, like a sharp object growing bigger. His thoughts flew to Lily. In the periphery of his vision, he saw a young girl with pigtails.
He didn’t look at her. It was the ghost that always followed him.
“Say hi to Aunty Zoe!” Gina shoved the phone in the face of a little boy who was too busy making a Pac-Man with Lego. “Davey! If you don’t say hi, I’m taking that away.”
Davey’s head snapped to the camera with a wide toothless grin that was forced. “Hi, Aunty Zoe!”
“Hello, Davey.” Zoe blew him a kiss. “I heard you’re kicking ass in school.”
He chortled at her use of the wordassand Gina took back the phone. “Zoe! You can’t use such language in front of kids!”
“Aunty saidass! Aunty saidass!” Davey sang as he danced in the background.
“Thanks, Z. Thanks.” Gina sighed, her hair haywire. “I’m going to be listening to this for days now. Where are you, by the way?”
Zoe was sitting on the bonnet of her car, munching on a sandwich. “I’m on a case in a small town.”
“What kind of case?”
“You don’t want to know,” Zoe replied with her mouth full.
Gina’s lips puckered. “Oh God, it involves kids, doesn’t it? How do you do this, Z?”
Zoe gave a watery smile. “Someone’s gotta do it.”
Zoe and Gina were polar opposites. Gina, harebrained and erratic, had somehow found her groove in motherhood. But Zoe knew her baby sister lived a sheltered life and was too young to really remember anything. That ignorance gave her the superpower to infuse lightness into everything. Unlike Zoe who was only good at painting a bright, sunny varnish. But Zoe was hellbent on trying to scratch that itch of truth. There was a gaping hole in her life, her own mother a big question mark, and she had made promises she was too young to make.
She sucked on the straw, drinking more pop when Gina’s face dropped. “What is it, Z?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re drinking pop. Is something upsetting you?”
