Chapter 7
He paused.
“It only cares whether you know what you're doing when somebody needs you.”
He looked at me.
“She knew.”
Then he looked back at Mitchell.
“And you spent seventeen years making sure nobody noticed.”
My brother's face had gone pale.
Grandpa wasn't finished.
“I love you, boy. Always have. But I won't help you lie about your sister anymore.”
Mitchell pushed his chair back.
“This is unbelievable.”
He stood.
“Everybody's acting like I'm some kind of villain.”
I looked at him.
“No, Mitchell. We're asking you to tell the truth.”
He stared at me.
For a moment, I thought he might apologize.
Instead, he walked into the kitchen.
A cabinet slammed.
Denise closed her eyes.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.
I shook my head.
“You didn't do this.”
She looked at me with a strange expression.
“Actually, Kate, I owe you an apology too.”
I waited.
“Last year, when Tyler was applying for flight training, you offered to look over his preparation materials.”
I remembered.
“I did.”
“Mitchell told me not to bother you. He said you'd be sensitive about the subject.”
She swallowed.
“I believed him.”
I looked at the doorway where my brother had disappeared.
For seventeen years, I had thought Mitchell was simply making jokes at my expense.
Now I understood that he'd been doing something more deliberate.
He hadn't just told a story.
He had prevented people from discovering the truth.
My father stood.
He walked toward the television, studied the frozen image, and turned back to me.
“I should have come to your ceremonies.”
I didn't answer.
He continued.
“I should have asked questions. I should have known what my daughter was doing.”
“Dad—”
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“I was at every one of Mitchell's football games. I took time off work. Drove all over Alabama.”
He looked at the floor.
“And when you graduated from flight school, I sent a card.”
I remembered that card.
It had arrived two weeks late.
Inside was a fifty-dollar check and a note that said, Hope everything works out.
Dad wiped his eyes.
“I was proud of you, Katie. I just never showed it.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Then I said, “I needed you to.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
It wasn't a perfect apology.
It couldn't give us back seventeen years.
But it was the first time my father had acknowledged that his silence had cost me something.