Marjorie followed me all the way home. When I expected her to turn off to the main house, she didn’t. I got out of the car and waited for her to do the same.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“What do you think I’m doing here?”
“We need a shower.”
“Last time I checked, you have one.”
Exhaustion weighed on me, but still my body quivered at her nearness. “Come on in.”
The house was so empty without my mother and Henry, though they’d have been in bed by now anyway. I looked at Marjorie. Her ponytail sagged, and several wisps of dark hair had escaped their confinement. Her cheeks were flushed red, and sooty dirt marred her face.
She’d never looked more beautiful.
More than that, she looked more content than I’d seen her in a while, which didn’t jibe.
“Something good happened today,” I said.
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“What?”
I listened as she told me about Dale and Ruby and what they’d found at the school.
“A baseball card?” I asked.
“Yeah. Ruby’s going to check everything out, but that’s not the main thing. Dale seemed different after he found the rock. Like he’d done something to help himself. It seemed to mean something to him.”
“He’s been doing a lot to help himself,” I said. “Through therapy and all.”
“No, this was different. Someone else is there with therapy. This was something he found. He took an active role and noticed something didn’t belong in the space. It probably has nothing to do with anything, but it helped him. I talked to Mel about it on the phone before dinner. She thinks this could be huge and that maybe we should let him take a more active role in what’s going on.”
“He’s ten.”
“I know, and Talon and Jade would probably never allow it, but Mel thinks it could bring him out of his shell. It already has, sort of. He smiled today, Bryce. He actually smiled.”
Marjorie’s grin lit up her whole face. Warmth surged through me. Those poor boys—Dale especially, who’d taken the brunt of the abuse to spare his little brother. Had my father done anything to them? I had no way of knowing. He’d died before the boys had been found, and as far as I knew, he hadn’t been in the Caribbean during that time.
I’d never know.
All I knew was that we had to put an end to this once and for all. For all our sakes, especially the boys’.
“What can Dale possibly do to help?”
“Little things, Mel says. We can ask his opinion on stuff. Obviously no one wants to put him in any danger, but he needs to feel like he’s a part of this, and today he did.”
I smiled. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Me? It’s Mel’s idea.”
“I mean with Dale. You’re just as much a parent to him right now as Talon and Jade are. You’re going to be…”
An amazing mother someday. She would be. She could be to Henry. She and I loved each other, so why hadn’t I been able to say the words?
“I’m going to be what?”
I gazed into her chocolate eyes. “You’re going to be well and thoroughly used before this night is over.”