Chapter 13
The money was in his hand and I couldn't look at it at first. I looked at the hardwood instead. A thin line of light cut across the boards from the front windows and I followed it with my eyes so I wouldn't have to see Tara or the coat.
My sweater felt too warm. The cream ribs at my neck had gone damp where I'd been crying. I could feel the texture against my collarbone every time I breathed. I tried to breathe slower.
Dad didn't say anything right away. He held the folded bills in his right hand, his watch catching the light. He looked down at the money, then he looked at me. That was the whole movement. Money to me. Me to money. Like he was making sure the two things matched.
I had stood in that same spot while Tara said I took it. My knees had locked then. Now they felt soft.
"You were right to wait," I said, but my voice cracked on wait.
He shook his head a little. Not at me. At the space between us.
"No," he said. "We were right to wait."
He stepped closer. Not fast. The floor creaked once under his shoes. He crouched a little so his eyes were level with mine. I could see the faint crease between his eyebrows that showed up when he was trying not to make a big thing out of something.
"I told you we were going to find the truth before we decided anything," he said. His voice was low and even. "That's what happened."
I nodded. I tried to, but my chin wobbled. The tears that were still on my cheeks didn't feel the same. Before they had burned. Now they just slipped down and cooled. My lower lip, which had been shaking since he walked in from the hallway, finally stilled because I pressed it between my teeth.
He saw it. He waited.
"You can let go," he said quietly. "You're okay."
That was when I exhaled. I hadn't realized I was holding it. The air came out in one shaky rush and my shoulders dropped. The sweater settled. My hands, which had been balled at my sides, opened. I wiped at my face with the back of my wrist and the knit dragged soft against my skin.
"I didn't take it," I said. It wasn't loud. It wasn't the plea from before. It just was.
"I know," he said.
He didn't add anything extra. He didn't say he never doubted me for a second or make it sound like a movie. He just said it plain, and that made me believe it more.
"You believe me?" I asked.
It came out smaller than I meant it to. It was the same question I'd asked him when he came in from the hallway, when Tara was standing on the right side of the room and I was crying against the staircase. He remembered. I saw it in how his eyes softened.
"I believe you," he said. "You deserve the truth. You deserved it then and you deserve it now."
He held the money out slightly, not to me, just so I could see it was real and folded and ordinary. Two twenties and a ten, creased from being shoved into a pocket. Nothing about it looked like stealing. It just looked like cash that had been moved and forgotten.
I stared at it, then back at him. The pendant light over the living room hummed faintly.
"Does this mean I get to stay?" I asked.
He put his hand on my shoulder. His palm was warm through the thick knit of my sweater.
"You're staying," he said. "This is your home. That hasn't changed."
The knot in my chest loosened another inch. I could hear the house again. The refrigerator in the kitchen, a car passing on the street outside. My breathing evened out and I wasn't trying to make myself small anymore.
He glanced toward the entryway where the coat still hung, then back to me. His jaw tightened just once, and I knew the next part wasn't for me to carry.
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"Stay right here for a minute," he said. He gave my shoulder a light squeeze and let go. "We're not done. But you are done being questioned."
I nodded. My eyes were still wet but I wasn't crying now. I stood in my cream sweater in the warm daylight, with my dad looking at me like I was the one he was supposed to protect, and for the first time since Tara said she wanted me out, I felt steady on the floor beneath me.
