“Hey,” I said into the phone, trying—no, not even trying—to sound breezy and cool. It occurred to me that she might've just watched the game in a bar, and could be calling to congratulate me. But then, that was ridiculous. Ash was under twenty-one in a college town, and had also never demonstrated an interest in football. Plus, she'd never called me before—it was then that I realized something might be wrong.

“Landon,” she rasped, and her voice proved my second theory. I held up a hand to the noisy locker room crew and made my way out into the cement-lined hallway, head ducked in the direction away from the press.

“What? What is it?” I strained to hear the sounds in her background, but all I got was silence. She was speaking softly. “Where are you? Is everything okay?”

“No. No, everything is not okay. Where the fuck is the Pastor?” She seemed to spit out the name. I'd never heard Ash talk like this, with this callow edge in her voice. It rankled me.

“I don't know,” I started, trying to put on my most soothing voice. “I haven't heard from him in a week or more. Will you tell me what's wrong? You sound upset.”

There was silence on the line for a second, in which I thought I could hear her thinking. Deciding whether or not to believe me. Deciding whether or not to clue me in. Some belligerent ESPN reporter took the opportunity to ping a paper football in my direction, grinning like a maniac when I turned around. I frowned. The press could wait.

“He hit my mom,” she said, finally. “I came home today and the house was trashed, and half of her face was knocked in. Four stitches. We just left the ER.” She sounded so tired. So sad. The anger started there, as I felt my jaw set. And the worst thing? It didn't take me more than a second to believe her.

“I need to know if he's ever done something like this before,” she continued. Some of my teammates were emerging from the locker room now, gussied up like show ponies. The press queue seemed to rev at each entrance. I wandered further down the hallway. “Landon? Please.”

“A long time ago,” I heard myself say, without having planned or prepared to speak. The anger began to mingle with worry, and doubt, and an alien feeling: guilt. And I was guilty. I was a participant. I had known, all this time, that he was capable of cruelty. For he'd been cruel to my mother. He'd been cruel to me.

“When my mother was alive, they had fights sometimes.” I felt my fists clench and unclench. I was going to lose her forever. This was how it was going to happen. “Well, we all had fights. He got back from his tour and was just so different. When he got mad, he'd slap her sometimes. If I got in the way, he'd get me.” I tried not to imagine Ashleigh's face as she processed this. I'd never told anyone any of this before. Not Zora, not Denny, not Clay.

“Oh, Jesus,” she breathed. I took the non-screaming as an invitation to continue.

“When she died, that was when he got really religious. Leased the property in the city. Started drumming up 'religious support.' He told me that he was a changed man. He asked me to forgive him for all of his bullshit. And Ash, I really did believe he'd changed. Nothing's happened in years.” I wanted to pull her into me, across the telephone line. I wished I could rest my fingers in her hair. “I truly, truly did believe it. I figured he deserved a second chance, you know? He is my Dad.”

The line fell silent. Behind me, the locker room procession had basically ended. The stadium would be half-near empty by now, the boys well on their way to getting wrecked at any of a dozen post-game parties. None of that sounded appealing to me, now.

“I'm so sorry.” And thank God the press had retreated, 'cause for just the third time in a decade I felt tears bubbling up in my throat. But it was too hard to think about our whole miserable family history without remembering...her. “I'm so sorry,” I repeated again, desperation and anger and grief all souping together, drowning out what remained of my post-game adrenaline. “I'm so sorry,” I chanted a final time.

“Landon,” my step-sister said, her own voice strangely bereft of hatred and fury. If I were in her place, I think I might've wanted to throw lightning bolts. “I'm gonna give you the address to my sister's place, okay? It's near Kerbey Lane. I want you to pick me up.”

“Why?” I blubbered. In the olden days, dudes had carried around hankies to prevent just this kind of gross-face situation. Scanning the area for any unexpected street traffic, I ducked my head below my collar, tried to sop up some of the nonsense.

“You're going to buy me a thousand drinks, is why,” she said.

The anger changed form—and became fear.

Chapter Nineteen

Landon

The older sister was in a far less charitable mood. She had a big, rambling two story full of cool artsy shit—I stepped into her foyer and almost hit my head on a hanging lamp. Though half of me was still expecting nods of recognition from every Austin resident I happened to encounter, as soon as I got to Doll's neck of the woods I realized I was no longer in game-watching country. From the looks of it, Carson didn't even have cable. And one look at her rigid face in the doorway told me that now was not the time to dole out autographs.

“How's Anya?” I asked.

Carson cut me with a stare, but forced herself to reply like a human. “She's resting comfortably. Couldn't get any painkillers because of the preexisting condition, but I've made her some Kava tea and that seemed to do the trick.”

“So she's not in pain anymore?”

“Not any physical pain, no.”

Walked into that one, Landon.

We paced around the entranceway for what felt like another ten minutes, her sizing me up like I was a potentially dangerous stray. Which was her prerogative. She had every right to be suspicious. I was a shit-stain. I'd hidden an important truth from a trio of innocent women. I'd hidden an important truth, I realized, from myself.

“Landon,” Carson said slowly, stopping her pacing. “We're thinking about pressing charges. She doesn't want to, but I do.”

I assumed the she indicated the sleeping Anya. And possibly Ash, who sure was taking forever and a half to get ready. I stopped pacing, too, and took a look at Carson. She seemed the faintest bit...sorry.

I'd been trying to keep myself far, far away from Memory Lane, but it was impossible to stay fully impartial. I didn't know exactly how many nights had resolved with ten-year-old me hiding my mother from my father, but it felt like a dozen at least. He'd always apologized in the mornings. Sometimes, he'd cried. I would watch them make up and feel the deepest confusion. On one hand, I had hated the man who could give my mother bruises, who could come at me with an alien fury in his eyes, like I was the enemy and he was still at war. On the other, there was nothing I could do—he was still my Pop. Plus, it'd been so long ago. All of that had stopped when I was in middle school, even if the fear lingered.

I knew the Pastor wouldn't do well in prison. But perhaps he belonged in some kind of...other place. Some place where they could help an old soldier get back to himself. Some place where he couldn't hurt anyone. I didn't have to think about it too hard, and I didn't have to confuse it with love. I simply nodded.

“If that's what you need to do, I'll support you,” I said. This seemed to mollify the pacing she-tiger. Her eyes softened.

“Look, this is a really shitty situation. We're going to think long and hard, before...”

“I understand.”

“And if you're willing to cooperate, then...”

“I understand.”

“He understands,” piped up a voice I recognized. I couldn't help but smile, though I knew it was inappropriate. Ash hovered at the top of the rickety staircase, looking exhausted, but somehow lovely as ever. She wore ratty jeans and a snug band t-shirt (The Pixies), and her shorter hair fell across her face in lanky waves. It looked good without the highlights, I thought. Not that I super cared either way.