“Zoe,” her father said, “I never meant to hurt you.”
“You don’t get to talk!” she said. “And you definitely don’t get to say dumb bullshit crap!”
But he couldn’t stop himself.
“It would have been worse if I’d stayed,” he said.
“Really?” said Zoe.
She loathed the sound of his voice.
“It would have been worse?” she shouted.
She threw open the door of the shed.
“I can’t be in here with you,” she said.
She stormed away on the ice. Her father followed her. The lake had been shoveled clean. It was glassy and slick. The holes were everywhere.
When she’d put 20 feet between them, she stopped and turned to him. He knew not to come any closer.
“Jonah used to punch himself in the chest to stop his heart from hurting,” she said. “Would it have been worse than that?”
“No,” her father said quietly.
“I almost killed myself in a cave just so the cops would go get your body,” she said. “Would it have been worse than that?”
“No,” he said again.
“Mom didn’t have a life when you were ‘alive,’” she said, “and she has even less of a life now. Would it have been worse than that?”
“No, Zoe,” he said. “No.”
“You don’t get to talk!” she screamed, then took it up like a chant. “You don’t get to talk. You don’t get to talk!”
Her father made a tent out of his hands and hid his face behind it. He was sobbing. It was pathetic. Zoe walked toward him so purposefully that fear flashed in his eyes, and he stepped backward toward the hut.
“Your BFF Stan?” she said. “He murdered two people we loved—with a fireplace poker. Would it have been worse than that?”
Her father looked stricken.
“Who did Stan kill?” he said.
Zoe let the question hang in the air, unsure if she wanted to answer it. He didn’t get to talk!
“Bert and Betty,” she said finally.
Her father shocked her by letting out a pained cry.
He spun away from her.
Suddenly, he seemed consumed with an energy he couldn’t control.
He knelt down on the ice and checked a fishing line that ran into a nearby hole. When he’d finished, he crawled to another, and then another. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, look at her again. He never left his knees. He scrabbled around like an animal. It scared her. She shouted, “Stop!” He wouldn’t. When he’d run out of holes, he finally stood. Still, he didn’t turn. It was like he’d forgotten she was there—or was trying to drive her away.
There was a giant sort of corkscrew, an auger, leaning against the shed. Her father took it and, hands trembling, began to screw yet another hole into the ice. Above them, the sky darkened. Zoe looked up at the hills. The trees were a solid black mass now, an army waiting for orders. X and Ripper stood there, watching. Soon it would all be over.
She didn’t know if she was ready. Had she said everything she’d wanted to say? Had she gotten what she wanted? What had she wanted?
Her father was twisting the auger furiously. The hole was growing. Zoe tried to squash every bit of sympathy, but she couldn’t. He looked like a man digging his own grave.
“I ran from Stan, not from you,” he said suddenly.
He threw down the auger, and walked toward her.
“I grew up with him, did you know that?” he said.
His eyes were wild. It was Zoe who stepped backward this time.
“Yes,” she said. “Mom told me.”
“Did she tell you he was like a virus?” he said. “That he—that he—that he was hateful and merciless and—and—lonely even when he was a kid? Did she tell you how he polluted everything? When we were kids, he did things—we did things—that I’ll never forgive myself for. I left Virginia because of him. Married your mother. Changed my name. Changed my heart. Truly. I mean, look, to be honest, you changed my heart—you and Jonah and your mom. You can laugh, if you want.”
Zoe knew she was supposed to say something comforting. She said nothing. She made her face blank.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
More texts from Jonah. It had to be.
“I spent almost—what—twenty years looking over my shoulder,” her father said. “I was terrified Stan would find me. You don’t just walk away from someone like that. They won’t accept it. They’re—they’re—feeding on you. But I got away from Stan. I tried to be a dad. Tried to forgive myself. Tried to make some goddamn money so we could—so we could at least freakin’ live. You all used to laugh at my schemes, but every time I was away—every time I was on the road, every time I ‘disappeared’—I was trying to get something going. I’m not smart like you, Zoe. No—don’t make that face, it’s okay—I’m just not. I mean, look at me. But I tried every legitimate, law-abiding thing I could think of. You think I wanted your mom to work as hard as she did? Be careful who you fall in love with, Zoe. You’ve got a big, big heart. Don’t waste it like your mother wasted hers on me.”
Her father stopped talking as abruptly as he’d started. He picked the auger off the ice once more and began drilling, desperate to do something with his hands.
“Why did you freak out about Bert and Betty?” said Zoe. “You never loved them like the rest of us did. You barely knew them—because you were never around. So why do you care what happened to them?”