Page 51 of The Logic of Loyalty

“Right.” That’s odd. Does Paige know she does this when Jacob visits?

“Anyway, they are the only two people I really drive anywhere. I mean, yes, I … like Pokémon, but not as much as it looks like. Jacob … You know, your son.” She slaps herself on the forehead. “Of course you know your son. That was stupid. I mean to say that Jacob knows. Knew? Has known? Well, he has known—no, definitely knows that I like to play Pokémon Go! sometimes, and he likes to give me things when he finds them.” She gasps in a breath after saying it all so quickly. Bethany stares straight ahead as she turns at the single stoplight in town. The car lapses back into silence.

Her story about my son gifting her Pokémon makes another memory click into place.

There’s a knock on the door to our Ronald McDonald room, and I freeze. It’s not usually good news when there’s a knock on our door. Paiges sits up straighter, and shockingly, a smile lights up her face. “It’s your sister!”

It’s her first sign of joy from anything outside of the brief moments she gets to hold our baby, so I ignore my own immediate impulse and open the door to see Bethany standing alone in the hallway. I inconspicuously try to lean out and check over her shoulders, down the hallway of the hospital, but she notices.

“They’re not with me. I came alone.”

Thank God Mom didn’t come with her. I get a brief look at her blue eyes—a mirror of my own, filled with a gleam of excitement and some kind of stuffed animal in her hand as she flashes me a shy smile before rushing to Paige’s side.

“Where is the baby?” Her quiet, low voice fills the otherwise silent room, and I watch as some of the joy present in my wife’s face fades.

“In the NICU,” I answer before Paige has to.

Bethany’s shoulders slump and tighten all at once. “Oh, okay. Um, I got him something.” She holds out a small, weird-looking blue turtle. I step closer to see it’s actually a Pokémon.

“We can’t bring anything in there, Bethany.” My voice is harsher than it needs to be, but seriously, we have bigger shit we’re dealing with.

Her face falls, and I hate that I feel guilty. “Oh, well, I’m sor⁠—”

“I love it,” Paige interrupts and does gimme hands at my sister, whose shoulders begin to ease at my wife’s gentle words and ways. She hesitantly walks the rest of the way into the room and hands Paige the toy. My little wife pats the bed next to her, and Bethany hops on without hesitation. Their voices become part of the background as they talk some nonsense about boys, bands, and Pokémon while I go back to change the course of my entire life, starting with changing my next semester classes from auto mechanics to business.

I blink a few times and frown. I have a feeling Bethany didn’t show up with our parents’ permission that day, and I have a feeling the little toy was not bought with their money, either. She was only thirteen or fourteen that day.

“Bethany.” I make her startle and jerk the wheel slightly in the process. “Shit, sorry. I just—” Fuck. Why can’t I talk to her? I need to talk to her about her boyfriend, but I need to get in a better headspace first. “Can you tell me how to play Pokémon Go!?” I am not putting this off. I can’t throw this at her when we barely talk.

Her cautious agreement, hell, her cautious everything is giving me a crash course in why the hell I should never have listened to my mother. This young woman, calmly and gently walking me through the process of starting my Pokémon Go! journey, is nothing like the neurotic, selfish mess my mother—our mother—presents her as. “Bethany can’t deal with you boys playing in the house. Bethany needed me to take her shopping. Bethany won’t be able to handle going to the baseball game, and we can’t leave her at home alone.” I’ve known Bethany for her entire life, but suddenly, I’m left wondering how much of this was her, and how much of it was an illusion my parents and Krista created.

“Go ahead and download it, and we can get started.” Bethany gently guides me. I shake my head. “Yeah, about that. I don’t have a phone yet.”

“You don’t … What happened here, Trevor?” She pulls up to the Catholic church on Main Street, parking far off to the side, but near the pathway that leads to the pretty white gazebo.

I rest my head in my hands and groan. This sucks. The way I feel right now, looking at my sister, knowing what I know, and with what else I suspect to be true? “I’m—I am so sorry, Bethany.”

“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for right now.” Her voice is growing smaller, confusion in her tone. A hit of guilt simmers through me, but before I can catch my breath, she makes it worse. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know. I’m not trying to … upset you.”

I laugh. I don’t really know why, but my sister is not the person everyone has had me believe, and it’s such a strange mix of relief and pain. I don’t know how to process it all. “Bethany, you just apologized to me when you have to know that I am the person who is entirely in the wrong between the two of us.”

Her voice somehow manages to become smaller in a question I hate to answer. “What do you mean?”

“How long have you and Bobby been together?”

“Um, a couple of years, coming up.”

She was twenty years old, and he was over thirty. “Right.”

Bethany tugs at her shirt and wrings her hands for the millionth time since we got into the car, and I realize I have to say something. Not only did I promise Paige, but this Bethany, the girl sitting next to me, who displays her nephew’s gifts to make him happy? This grown-up version of my little sister does not deserve what may be happening to her. “Something happened Friday night.” I take a calming breath, willing my calm to soothe her. “Something I think has to do with your boyfriend.”

She goes rigid, eyeing me across the car. “We left the party before the fireworks. He dropped me off before he headed home. He seemed fine. Did something happen other than …” She trails off and turns bright red. Her eyebrows draw together as she tugs on her bottom lip. Jesus, how could I forget that part of the night?

“I owe you an apology for that, too. I should have said something right away⁠—”

“He shouldn’t have said it.” She whispers it, but I hear her clearly.

I shake my head. “No, he shouldn’t have.” I gather my courage and conviction and lay it all out for her. “I’ve been watching him this last week, and he’s been real close to Krista. It’s not been anything overt. She’s been in his office, and I’ve seen them enter rooms together when they have no reason to be. All things that could be explained away. Until the conversation on Friday and their second one I walked into.”