I hear what she’s not saying, and I hear it in a hazy cloud of gray. Talon knows. Talon truly knows. And if possible, I feel even sicker.

I open my mouth, but she gestures for me to stop.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to go into any detail. I’m going to say simply this. Please come home. Please don’t give up on my son.”

“I didn’t, Jade. He gave up on me.”

“He hasn’t. I know he hasn’t. He’s given up on himself.”

I scoff softly. “How is that any different?”

“Because he loves you. He loves you so much, Ashley, and I’ve never seen him quite as alive as he is with you. Ryan says the same thing. As much as Dale loves those vineyards, as much as he loves making wine, none of it put the spark in his beautiful eyes like you did.”

A spark of warmth tries to take flame in my heart, but I stop it. I can’t go there. I can’t risk the hurt again. I won’t survive it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s over.”

“Please. He needs you.”

“Whether you’re right or wrong doesn’t make a difference,” I say. “In his own mind, he can’t do this, and until that changes, nothing will.”

Jade doesn’t reply. Instead, “Why don’t I take you into Grand Junction? We’ll book a spa day tomorrow, both of us. We can get Bree to play hooky and join us. It’ll be a Steel girls’ day.”

I gulp. “I’m not a Steel girl.”

“You are. You always will be.” She smiles and places her palm over my hand.

Except saying something doesn’t make it true. And the best facial in the world won’t cure my swollen, red eyes. I shake my head slowly.

She nods. “Okay. What, then? What can I do for you, Ashley?”

Nothing.

She can’t do anything.

“It is what it is, Jade,” I say. “And we both have to accept it.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

Dale

“Why?” I ask Dad. “Why in here?”

“You’re holding a book,” he says. “The library seems appropriate.”

I unclench my hand from the mass market paperback book of poems.

Dad takes it from me. “What is this?”

“Nothing.” I turn away.

“You were holding on to it for dear life, so it’s something.” Dad opens the book to the turned-down page. “Hmm. Frost, huh? I didn’t know you read poetry, Dale.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why—”

“It belonged to my father, okay? It’s the only thing I took from his house.”

Dad eyes me. Is that a hint of sadness in his gaze? Regret? “I see. I’m glad you have something to remember him by.”

I scoff, images coming to me in vivid color—so real I feel that if I reached forward, I’d touch something solid. “I don’t want to remember the bastard.”

“Oh?”

“Throw the book out.”

“This is a great poem,” Dad says. “One that obviously meant something to him.”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“If that were true, you’d have left the book.”

He’s right. Logical and right, and I know it. I say nothing. Silence looms for a few minutes, until—

“How can I help you, son?” Dad asks.

“You told Ashley.”

He doesn’t ask what he told her. He knows. He knows exactly what I mean. “I did. I take responsibility for that, and I have no regrets.”

“It wasn’t your place.”

“You’re right. I still have no regrets.” Then, again, “How can I help you?”

“You can’t help me. No one can.”

He sighs, heads to the small bar where a crystal decanter of bourbon sits, and pours himself a glass. “Want one?”

I shake my head.

“Probably just as well. You’ve obviously already had a few.” He brings his drink back and takes a second sip as he pulls up an ottoman and sits across from me. “You know what? You’re right, Dale. You’re right. No one can help you, and there’s a simple reason for that.”

“Yeah? I’m all ears.”

“Because you won’t let anyone help you.”

“Bull, Dad. I let you help me. You got me therapy. You got me—”

“For fuck’s sake, Dale. I’m not talking about all those years ago. I’m talking about now. You carry the goddamned world on your shoulders, and I should know, because I used to do the same thing.”

“You didn’t—” I stop abruptly.

“I didn’t what?”

I swallow, wishing now that I had some bourbon to coat my throat with its spicy warmth. I face my father.

He’s old now. Still a full head of thick hair but sprinkled with gray. Crow’s feet crinkle around his eyes. Lines from his dimples draw an intersection down his cheeks. He’s still vibrant, though. He’s calm, but his fiery brown eyes tell the true story. He’s angry with me.

Angry, and he has no reason to be. I’m not hurting him.

I’m hurting Ashley.

And myself.

And it dawns on me. That’s why he’s angry. Sure, he doesn’t want to see Ashley hurt, but even more so, he doesn’t want me to hurt.

He doesn’t know the truth. He doesn’t know about the phone call from the fire marshal. But even that isn’t the biggest thing I’ve hidden from him.

He doesn’t know about that horrible day. The day they broke me.

And I smile. Not a happy smile, but a smile because I’ve just discovered a universal truth, and there’s a certain constancy—even beauty—to it.

When you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. So I basically have nowhere to go. Period.

It pours out of me, then. From my mouth and in my voice, though in some ways it seems to come from somewhere far away.

I confess.

I confess all the truths of my life to my father. It flows out of me like lava hiccupping out of an active volcano. All of it. Every last bit. The fire. My birth father’s confession. Even the day they broke me.

Tears run down my cheeks, though I don’t sob. I speak. I speak in actual words what I’ve never told another soul. What I’ve let eat away at me for the last twenty-five years. What I was sure would never surface.