“It just hurts.”
“The crutches were for you,” Jason said.
“So you wouldn’t expect me to go anywhere.”
“So you wouldn’t follow me.”
“Why would I follow you?”
Jason looked at his sister.
She nodded.
“Because of the truck, Hannah,” he said.
“The truck that hit us.”
“It didn’t run the light by accident.”
“It was sitting at the corner.”
“Engine running.”
“It waited for us.”
“And when we came through, it came straight at Ruby’s side.”
My stomach rolled over.
“I saw it coming,” he said.
“I swerved.”
“We spun.”
“It hit my door instead of hers.”
“That’s the only reason she’s in there painting.”
“The driver got out.”
“He didn’t check on us.”
“He went to Ruby’s door.”
“He was pulling on the handle.”
“She was screaming.”
“She was screaming a name.”
He stopped.
His jaw worked.
“She was screaming, ‘Don’t let Dale take me.'”
The orchard went silent.
Dale.
Dale Harlan.
Ruby’s biological father.
I was twenty-two when I had her.
He was twenty-six.
He was charming for exactly one year.
Then he wasn’t.
He broke my arm when Ruby was eight months old.
I was holding her when he did it.
He went to prison when she was two.
Jason came into our lives that same year.
He adopted her when she was four.
Dale was supposed to be gone.
Dale was supposed to be a story I’d tell Ruby when she was older.
Not a man at her car door.
“A witness yelled,” Jason said.
“He ran back to the truck.”
“He took off.”
“The plates were stolen.”
“The truck was never found.”
“The police said it’s his word against a concussed nine-year-old.”
“How do you know it was him?” I said.
My voice was shaking now.
“How do you know it wasn’t just some—”
Jason pulled out his phone.
He opened his photos.
He turned the screen toward me.
A picture of our car’s windshield.
In our own driveway.
Dated six weeks ago.
Under the wiper was a folded piece of notebook paper.
One line.
Block letters.
“TELL MY DAUGHTER I’M COMING.”
I stared at it.
