"And that's when I saw you," Brooks said.
I nodded. "Your father opened his eyes and said my name. I ran after that. When I got home, my mother was freaking out. She said she'd gone there to talk to your father about the baby. She didn't know what to do, but he wanted her to get an abortion. She didn't believe in that and told him so. She asked for money so that she’d be able to take care of the baby, but your father laughed her off.
"I guess as they were talking, your father got a phone call. He turned his back on my mother. She was going to leave, but then she heard how he was talking to the other person on the phone. She said she could tell it was another woman. And the things he was saying to her made it obvious that she hadn’t been the only woman he'd been having an affair with. She didn’t remember what happened after that. Just that your father was on the floor. She didn't know how the fire started, but when I got your father out, I saw a cigar on the ground."
"So she might have hit him with something, and when he fell, he dropped the cigar and it started the fire."
"Yes," I said. "The hayloft was right above the tack room. The fire was on one side of the tack room when I got in there, but the entire hayloft had gone up in flames. But that's just speculation, Brooks. I'm not a hundred percent sure that that's how the fire started. The bottom line is that it was still her fault. She attacked your father. I don't think she meant to kill him, but I couldn't take that chance. She'd already started showing signs of mental instability by then, so I was afraid of what would happen if she was arrested and put in jail or a mental institution. She wouldn't survive something like that, Brooks. And the baby…"
"The baby would've been taken away from her," Brooks finished for me.
"When the police came to arrest me, I admitted to doing it. To setting the fire. I thought I could just plead guilty to it and get some community service or something. My lawyer said if I didn't fight the charges, the sentence would be reduced. The fact that I was still a kid and it was my first offense was supposed to help keep me from going to jail. But something happened with the lawyers after I agreed to plead guilty. The prosecutor changed his mind and decided I should be tried as an adult which meant I’d go straight to an adult prison. And then he added a second charge."
"Why didn’t you change your plea? Why didn't you fight the charges? There wasn't any proof that you or your mother attacked my father, right? He never mentioned her even being there that night."
"My mother doesn't remember much about that night. Whatever she hit your father with, it was something that was already in the barn. She doesn't remember what she did with it afterward, but I do remember seeing something in her hand when she came out of the barn. I searched the house but found nothing. She probably dropped the weapon, whatever it was, on her way home. It was still out there somewhere, and her fingerprints would've been all over it. If I hadn't taken the blame, the investigation into who’d assaulted your father would've continued and they might have found that weapon with my mother's prints on it. I couldn't risk that. I had to stop the investigation before it started. So even after the prosecutor added on the charges, I kept my mouth shut."
"Oh my God, Xavier," Brooks murmured and then he was hugging me. "Baby, I'm so sorry." He began kissing my face with soft butterfly kisses. He repeated the same words over and over again.
I'm sorry.
I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight. This huge tidal wave of relief seemed to crest through me. I struggled to force back the tears that threatened to fall. I wasn't sure why I felt so emotional, because I'd already accepted everything that had happened, but somehow having Brooks be a part of it now made it a little less scary. I gave up on trying to make sense of what I was feeling and just clung to him. He rubbed my back and whispered soft words in my ear. Things like how much he loved me, how brave I was, and how everything would be okay. They were the exact words I’d always dreamed of hearing from him in the fantasy I'd had about him coming to get me out of jail.
"What about your mother? How is she dealing with all this? The guilt?"