Page 178 of Halo

I look straight at my father.

“You stood by while Matt abandoned his child.”

His face changes.

“You knew what happened. You helped keep it quiet. You let Grady become somebody else’s responsibility because dealing with the truth would have been inconvenient.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I made mistakes.”

“Yes. You did.”

The words hang there between us.

“And the man you’re so worried is going to corrupt me?” My voice shakes now, but I don’t stop. “He’s raising the little boy your son left behind. He loves him. He shows up for him every single day. He’s doing the hard part. The inconvenient part. The part nobody gets applause for.”

Dad looks away.

“So if you want to judge him because he doesn’t sit in a church pew every Sunday, fine. But don’t stand there and act like you have some moral authority over a man who has spent years cleaning up a mess this family helped make.”

Mom closes her eyes.

Dad’s jaw works once.

“Leah.”

I’m crying now. Quietly, angrily, exhausted enough that I don’t bother hiding it.

“He who is without sin, Dad, cast the first stone.”

Silence.

Real silence this time.

The kind that leaves nowhere to hide.

Mom finally stands.

“I think maybe we all need some time.”

My chest aches.

“Maybe.”

She bends and kisses my forehead.

“We love you.”

I close my eyes.

Do you?

“I love you too.”

Dad pauses near the door like he wants to say something else, but whatever it is never comes.