I understood. This was when it had begun with my mother. The secret meetings. The riders. The long, unpleasant affair, if that was what we wanted to call it, that eventually led to me. I wanted to reach out to him, to take his hand. I wanted to comfort him, except I knew where that would lead. Shouting and accusations. Violence that stopped just short of hitting, if not the threat of it.
“There was some stuff happened. Your mother and I had a hard road for a while there. We were tested by God, and neither one of us came out as well as we should have,” Dad said. “And after that, Eric was gone for a while. I didn’t know where. Business, he said. I didn’t have any reason to question it, and there were other things on my mind. Your mother was at church a lot then, and I had my hands full taking care of the two of you.”
“You took care of us?” Jay asked.
“When she was at church,” Dad said. “Someone had to make sure you didn’t just rot in your own piss while she was gone. I mean, there were times that some of the ladies from the outreach committee’d come over and give a hand. But . . . but she was at church a lot. Man takes care of his children, so of course I did.”
Jay shook his head. “I have a hard time picturing you changing diapers.”
“I did what had to be done,” Dad said, his voice sharp and hard with embarrassment. Shame. “Eric came through every couple years after that. Sometimes he’d stay a while. Sometimes just a day or two. Work was steady by then, and I didn’t need his money.”
“What about the last time?” I asked.
Dad put both hands on the tabletop, steadying himself. His head still shook a little, shifting from side to side like the first tremor of palsy. He stared across at the refrigerator like it was an enemy. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. It was what I’d come here for, and I needed to know.
“He came by,” I said. “You went to dinner, just the two of you. And when you came back, you told us never to speak to him again. Forbade.”
“Didn’t stop you, though, did it?” he said. “Didn’t keep you from getting all cozy with the bastard. You never respected me. You never followed the rules of my house. You ate my food, you slept in the shelter I provided, and you didn’t listen to a single thing I said. Not a single goddamn thing!”
He slammed both his hands down on the table with a report like a gunshot. His face was flushed again, his eyes wide enough that I could see the whites all the way around. I’d pushed him too far. I’d made him too angry. He couldn’t control himself anymore.
So I had to.
Help me, I thought, and the rider slid into my flesh. I took his wrist in my looped thumb and forefinger, pressing down against the back of his hand with my palm. The fist he’d been starting to form opened a degree, and he yelped.
“This isn’t what we’re going to do,” I said. I did, with my own voice. I didn’t know what the words were going to be until I was speaking them, but it wasn’t her. This was all me.
“You don’t order me around,” he said. “I am your father, and you will respect—”
“What did he say? That last time you saw him. Tell me what he said to you.”
Dad pulled his hand back, and I let it pull free of my grip. If I’d wanted to, I could have held him there for hours, and I saw in his expression that he knew it. The shape of his eyes changed to something like a wary respect, and that made me as sad as anything that had happened in the whole miserable trip. I’d shown my father I wasn’t afraid of his violence, and that was what made him respect me. I wanted to leave this place and go home. The irony wasn’t lost.
“He told me that you weren’t my daughter,” Dad said. “He told me that he was your real father, and that the time had come that he’d take the burden of you off my hands. You were his heir the way he’d been Michael’s, and that I didn’t have any right to you. He said he’d make it right with me. That he’d repay me for what he’d . . . done.”
“How?” Chogyi Jake asked. His voice was like a shock of cold water. I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“He had a bag with him,” my father said. “It had . . . there was ten million dollars in it, and he just carried it into the place and put it on the bench next to him like it was nothing.
“I told him my kids were my kids, and I’d see him in hell before I gave up any of you. I told him that my soul wasn’t for sale. He never crossed my threshold again. I thought . . . I thought I’d kept you safe. And I would have if you hadn’t betrayed my trust. Only, now you’re his, aren’t you. You chose his path over God’s. This is your fault. Everything that’s happened has been your fault for breaking the commandments. You are to honor thy father and thy mother. Honor and obey.”
“Yeah,” I said, before I could stop myself. “I’m not supposed to kill either, so I’m falling down on a bunch of scores.”
His mouth closed with a snap. The anger in his face retreated, and he looked me up and down like he was seeing me for the first time. I wondered if confessing to murder would have been an effective way to argue against his no-dating rules too. I was guessing not.
He wasn’t telling me everything. I could feel it. There was something more, and I was willing to bet good money that it had to do with riders and magic and what he meant when he said I was in Eric’s place. At the very least, he had to know about the money. But if he wasn’t telling, I wasn’t sure how to get it out of him.
“Did Eric mention the Invisible College or Randolph Coin?” Chogyi Jake asked, his voice as soft and warm as flannel.
“I didn’t want to hear about his unholy ways,” Dad said. “He wasn’t my brother anymore. And she’s not my daughter.”
It hurt a little less this time, but I can’t say it didn’t sting.
“Did he use the word haugsvarmr?” I asked.
“He didn’t talk about any of that devil worshipping. I wouldn’t let him. He was taken by the devil. My brother was lost to the devil, and I couldn’t stop it.” There was a shrillness running through his voice like a wire. I’d pushed him past where he knew how to go. I’d made him look at the world he didn’t want to see. If I stayed, I’d keep pushing until he broke. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
“Okay,” I said and pushed myself back from the table. “That’s all. I’m done here.”
Jay looked up at me. His lips were thin and bloodless. “Did you get anything that’s going to help us?”
“I don’t know,” I said, because Probably not seemed too rude. I’d come wanting my father to explain it all, and the truth was he barely knew more than I did. But he’d told me enough. It wasn’t about Coin or Rhodes or what had happened to Carla. It didn’t give me any insight into the political struggles of spiritual parasites trapped in the Pleroma. But it did give me something, and I could feel my mind shifting under the burden of the new information. From the time I’d walked into the apartment and the dead man on the bed had opened his eyes and started cooking, I’d been making assumptions.
No, since before that.
I felt things I thought I knew melting away, and as bleak as the truth was, it was better than the lies. I closed the family Bible, the leather covers enfolding the names of all the people who’d come before me. Burying them, and me with them. Putting it all in the past.