Normally, he would have noticed.
He didn’t.
“I’m sorry about the car,” I whispered.
Dad stared at the wreckage.
Then he looked at me.
“Do you know what your uncle would say?”
I shook my head.
“He’d ask whether the stereo still worked.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
It hurt my lip.
I winced.
Dad smiled sadly.
“Then he’d make some ridiculous argument that this improved the resale value.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“I ruined it.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
“You damaged it.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
I looked at the mangled hood.
The right headlight had shattered. One front wheel sat at an unnatural angle.
Dad followed my gaze.
“Things can be repaired.”
“And if it can’t?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Then I still had twenty-three good years with my brother and six years with his car.”
His eyes returned to me.
“I will not trade my daughter for a machine because I’m afraid of losing another memory.”
That did it.
The tears came.
Not dramatically.
Not all at once.
They simply started running down my face.
Dad wrapped his arms around me.
I pressed my forehead against his shoulder and cried so quietly that I could hear the tick of cooling metal behind us.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
His hand moved slowly over my hair.
“You just did.”
“No. Before.”
He didn’t answer.
“I thought you liked him.”
“I did.”
“That made it worse.”
Dad pulled back enough to look at me.
“Why?”
“Because everybody liked him.”
The shame in my voice surprised me.
“Mom adored him. You trusted him. His family was kind to me. Everyone kept saying how lucky I was.”
Dad’s face tightened.
“And every time something happened, I thought maybe I was the one who didn’t know how relationships worked.”
“Claire.”
“I know how stupid that sounds.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I kept thinking if he could be so kind to everyone else, then maybe I was causing the other side.”
Dad closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, there was grief there.
Not pity.
Grief.
“I should have seen it.”
“No.”
“I should have.”
“Dad, he made sure you didn’t.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It should.”
“Why?”
“Because it means I wasn’t the only one who believed him.”
Dad stared at me.
I had never said anything like that aloud before.
The relief was almost frightening.
For months, my mind had been one long argument in which Ryan was always both prosecutor and witness.
Now the words existed outside me.
And they sounded different in the air.
Less like confusion.
More like facts.
The door opened.
Mom appeared.
She took three steps into the garage before seeing my face.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
Dad stood.
“Anna.”
She crossed the distance between us so quickly that I barely had time to brace before she dropped to her knees.
“What happened?”
I looked at Dad.
He left the answer to me.
“Ryan hit me.”
Mom’s face emptied.
Not shock exactly.
