I’m escorted to the living room.

A kind, older officer is saying words to me. I can’t catch them—he’s talking too fast—and I can’t look at him, but I nod. More officers across room are talking back and forth. Oh fuck, Bobby is right. They’re going to arrest me.

Alan is waiting in the hallway.

It’s his house.

I’m his daughter.

Why the fuck isn’t he stopping this?

“Miss Stanton, try to focus on what I’m telling you,” the officer says more commandingly and I look at him. He’s trying to get me to read some sort of document on a clipboard. “We are releasing you to your father. This is a six-month probation. You do what he tells you to do. If you don’t, he’s agreed to call the district attorney. You’ll be arrested and charged.”

Releasing me to my father?

I start to quickly read. They’re not going to arrest me. The officer is holding out a pen to me. Will this all end with me only signing something? It hits me; a painful realization. Everything done reduced to a scrap of paper.

Is that all I’m going to have at the end of this?

I’m not sure what I expected, but not this.

The officer points. “Sign here that I’ve explained this to you and that you understand and agree to comply.”

I shake my head. I don’t want to sign it. Nothing has changed yet. Strange, I still haven’t heard Alan admit he’s my father. The officer said it but, shit, Alan hasn’t spoken the words. Not once.

“Please, Miss Stanton, it doesn’t get any better than this,” the officer whispers frantically. “Someone with a lot of pull managed this for you. You don’t want me to have to arrest you. I don’t want to take you to jail. Don’t blow it now, kid.”

The officer’s voice snaps me from my stupor. I take the pen, sign, and then everything starts going in fast motion. The cops leaving the house. Len Rowan dragging Bobby and Zoe away.

The front door closes.

Silence.

We’re alone.

Father and daughter.

Alan still hasn’t said it.

And in this moment, I shatter yet again.

CHAPTER 24

It’s like I’m buried in thick fog. I can’t see anything. Feel anything. Hear anything…but then again there hasn’t been any talking in the car since we left Malibu. Not by Alan and not by me.

Alan pulls into the driveway and parks.

I stare through the windshield. The house looks like it always does. Stupid, Kaley, to think it might look different.

He takes the keys from the ignition and leans into me. “Go inside. Go to your room. Stay there.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It’s going to be OK,” Alan says slowly, inflectionless. “The rest of this needs to be sorted out privately between your mother and me. It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. I love you. But you need to stay out of this. OK, sweetheart?”

Oh fuck.

Mom.

Somehow I’ve managed not to think of Chrissie before this. I jump from the car and run into the house. It’s quiet in a way it never is. You could hear a pin drop. A heavy, still kind of silence that’s unnerving.

My heart turns over. Oh crap. Everything is different. I can feel it trapped in the walls with me. I hurry down the hall, pausing at the family room. Linda Rowan is sitting on a couch with a twin tucked into each of her sides and Krystal hovering at her feet.

All eyes fix on me.

Worried. Anxious. Afraid.

Overwhelmed eyes staring at me from little faces.

I lower my gaze, continue to my room, and lock the door. I lean back against the wood and slide down to the floor, wanting something to form inside me to help me through this and finding nothing willing to answer.

*  *  *

The minutes tick by slowly as I lie on my bed staring at my door. The slowest moving night ever. I heard Linda’s car leave a long time ago. I heard the back patio doors open and close. Someone is in the house with me.

Still nothing from my parents.

No one has come to talk to me.

They’ve just left me here, forgotten.

This suspended state in between where we were as a family and where I brought us is excruciating.

I need to text Bobby.

Make sure he’s all right.

You’ve hurt us—I brush at my tears. I don’t want to know what that means, not yet.

My door opens and Chrissie appears, her fragile face swollen with tears. “Are you all right?”

I drop my gaze.

I can’t look at her.

She’s completely devastated.

“Please, Kaley, talk to me!”

I can feel her waiting, pleading with her eyes, even though I won’t look at her.

Then the door closes.

I’m alone again.

More minutes tick by.

Something crashes outside against the stone of the patio. I startle.

“Goddamn you, Chrissie. Is that really your first concern here? What the fuck happened to your kids coming first always? Or does that not count today?” Alan yells.

I flinch and debate whether to close my window. But I can’t move. My legs won’t carry me.

“I’ve talked to the kids,” Chrissie says frantically. “I’ve explained. Or at least tried to. I’m not sure how much they understand. Kaley won’t talk to me. What did you say to her? How is she?”

“Fuck, is that all you care about?” Alan returns in a way so acidic it burns me. “That I might have said something that made you look bad to your daughter?”

He’s so angry. I have never heard Alan angry. He’s never spoken to Mom that way.

“That’s not what I meant,” Chrissie counters quickly. “She won’t talk to me. I’m worried. She’s our daughter. You must be worried, too.”

“Oh, sorry, our daughter. Pardon me for the momentary mental breakdown I’m having in the middle of this fucking insane day you’ve created.”

I cover my ears, like a child, but I can still hear them.

“I never intended any of this to happen,” Chrissie says.

“How the fuck do you have five kids that are mine and not intend it, Chrissie?” Alan snaps and I jump again.

“I’ve tried to tell you so many times. I don’t know why I couldn’t. That’s not an excuse. I know there is no excuse. I’m not going to try to make one, and I think it’s better if we wait until you’re less angry for me to try to explain.”

Oh no, Mom’s rambling.

She’s so afraid.

How could I have done this to my mother?

“There is only one explanation I’d like to hear,” Alan says, his tone rough and cutting. “Then I think we’re through. I know that birth control is beyond basic management for you, Chrissie but, fuck, we both know you know how to get an abortion, so why the fuck didn’t you?”

The color drains from my face.

That was the last reaction I’m prepared to cope with from Alan finding out we’re his kids.

He doesn’t want any of us now.

Not even Khloe.

Oh God, he’s going to leave Mom.

And I’m responsible for this.

“That was mean, Alan,” Chrissie says calmly, but I hear her fighting back tears and worry. “I know you didn’t mean that. It hurts anyway. And I’m sorry that I made you angry enough to say something that isn’t even close to who you are.”

“How could you do this, Chrissie? You stole my family from me.”

“I didn’t steal them, Alan. I kept them for you. I loved them. I waited. There’s a difference.”

She waited?

What does that mean?

Chrissie-speak.

The front door slams loudly.

Alan didn’t understand it either.

He’s left her.

I’m sorry, Mom.

I’m sorry, Mom.

I curl in a ball, hugging myself, choking on fresh tears.

*  *  *

My bedroom door opens a few minutes later. My mom doesn’t look at me. She moves through my room like a tornado, grabbing my car keys, my phone, every piece of technology I own.

Cutting me off from the world.

I deserve it.

But I wish I’d texted Bobby first.

Chrissie says nothing.