Page 32 of Lies and Lullabies
I just stood there, staring at my shoes, trying to catch my breath. Kira’s shoes moved into my visual field, but I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. Not until my head could clear. Which would probably be sometime next week.
We stood here, awkward and quiet for a couple of long minutes. There was some low-key chatter outside, and then I heard the sound of the bicycle departing.
The guy in the polo shirt came back inside, alone.
“You’re her brother.” I coughed, trying to reconstruct the world into a rational place.
“Yup,” the guy said. “Uncle Adam.”
“Where is Vivi?” Kira asked, her voice raw.
“Luke is taking her for a little bike ride. There may be ice cream involved.”
“Really, Adam?” Kira moved quickly to peer through the screen. “But that’s awkward.”
“Oh, honey. We have first class tickets on the HMS Awkward today. And the ship has sailed. Luke even had a pink helmet for her, Kiki. Just go with it, okay? I told him you were having a moment.”
I straightened up. “She’s having amoment,” I spat out. “Is that what this is?” My pulse was still pounding in my ears, but now from anger instead of shock.
Kira was as pale as a sheet. “I was going to tell you today.” She pulled a photo out of her pocket. “Here. I was trying to find a way.”
I snatched the picture from her hand. “She’s, what, four?” The photo shook as I tried to look at it. The little girl smiled up at the camera, a stuffed animal in her hands. It was purple. Somehow this detail made it all the more real. The little girl in the photo was clutching the purple cat I’d won at the fair all those years ago.
“She’s four next month.”
I forced myself to meet Kira’s gaze. “And what if I hadn’t run into you? Were younevergoing to tell me?”
She wasn’t. I could see it in her face, where tears were drying on her cheeks.
“I was…” she stammered. “I just didn’t know how. And I didn’t think…”
“What, that I wouldcare?” Fuck, that hurt. She was the only person alive that I expected to know better.
“You made yourself unapproachable,” she said quietly. “You gave me a fake name.”
“It wasn’t fake!” My voice shook. “John is the name my parents gave me. After they died, my aunt changed it because… she’s a bitch.” I still wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I took another deep breath, and it didn’t help.
Kira wiped her tears. “Well, I didn’t know that. But if you were trying to blow off someone, and you wanted to be sure she wouldn’t ever be able to find you, what name would you choose? How doesJohn Smithsound to you?”
“Kira, that’s crap. You eventually knew who I was—you told me so yesterday. Any lawyer with use of a telephone could have gotten the message through. You never tried.”
She dropped her eyes.
“I thought we were…”Close. I couldn’t even finish the sentence, it was so pathetic. God, was therenobodyon earth I’d ever been important to?
“She was just afraid,” her brother said, his voice soft.
“Afraid?” The word made my heart lurch again. “Fuckno. She wasn’t afraid of me.Not of me.”
“But you didn’t see how it all went down here in the boonies,” Adam argued. “The whole town slut-shamed her. Our father shamed her.” Adam pointed outside. “Her ex-boyfriend called her a slut to her face. Seriously—it used to be me they sneered at, but for a couple years there they gave Kira their worst. First for getting raped, and then for getting knocked up.”
And that was all I could take. My hand formed a fist, because I needed to shut Adam up.
“Whoa!” Her brother took a step back. “Hands are not for hitting.”
Kira grabbed my fist in both of her hands. “Please. I need you to calm down.”
I dropped my eyes to Kira’s hands. I took another big breath through my nose, and I let it out. “I want to see her at least. You owe me that.”
