“Mom,” she called into the house, voice sugary with entertainment. “Dad—the loser is here.”
The front door opened. My father stepped out in a designer polo the color of fresh money.
A Rolex flashed like a wink. My mother followed, her smile flat and bright, the kind of smile you practice for photos when you don’t want anyone to see your teeth grinding behind it. “Oh,” she said, like she’d been expecting a package and it came early.
“Sweetheart. You made it.”
My father’s laugh rolled across the porch, heavy and unbothered. “Twenty years,” he said, savoring it.
“Twenty years and he didn’t even ask for proof.”
Shell swung her legs lazily. “I told you he’d believe it forever.”
My mouth opened, but no sound came out. Not because I didn’t have words—God, I had an entire dictionary of them—but because my body didn’t know what to do with the moment where grief turned into something else.
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