Page 100 of Wreckage and Rain

He doesn't say anything, he just watches me.

"You're tearing them down for the right reasons."

We work the rest of it out over the cold coffee, side by side now instead of across. His mother doesn't know about the money, and he isn't going to tell her, because she'd warn his father inside the hour. She loves Sonny. Whatever else Vivienne is, she loves him. She is complicit in what happened whether she knew about the money or not.

"She loves him more than she loves you," I say.

"I don't know what she loves. I know what she chooses."

Until the arrests, his father won't know they know. There's surveillance. There are eyes on him. By every measure Colt can build, we're clear until it breaks.

"I'm confronting Vivienne myself," I say. "Not about the money. The part she helped orchestrate. What your father did to my marriage and what she chose to do about it, which was helpbuild the narrative and landscape. I want her to hear it out of my mouth while I look her in the eye."

"You spoke to her in October."

"That isn't the same and you know it isn't. I have my own voice. I'm done loaning it out."

"Okay."

It costs him to hear me say I'm walking into that house.

"He's your father, your statement will put him in prison, and it's going to take something out of you."

"I know. I've known since I opened the report." He doesn't flinch off it. "I'd do it again tomorrow."

"I love you," he says, at the door.

"I know, Colt."

He goes.

I sit at the table a long time. The afternoon turns. The light walks across the floor.

Then I pick up my phone and text my mother.

Coming home soon. With Colt. I'll send dates. We need to talk.

The dots start before I've set the phone down.

The guest room's ready. I'll see you when you get here. I love you.

Chapter 31: Family

Sam

Saturday night at Vibes and Summer has commandeered the corner booth.

She is at one end of it in a sweater the color of red wine and a pair of jeans Bex would approve of. Autumn is across from her with a notebook open between them, pencil tucked behind her ear, debating something with the focus of a woman who has been arguing with Summer King her entire life and refuses to be wrong now. Colt is wedged next to Summer in the dark shirt I have come to recognize as his attempt to dress for a venue he still doesn't entirely understand. He has one arm along the back of the booth behind her shoulders. He isn't touching her. He has learned, watching her these last weeks, to wait for her to lean in.

I see when she leans in. Her shoulder against his bicep, her head tilted toward Autumn, finger pointing at the notebook.

"Patricia sent the draft promotional book launch itinerary. I think we start in Knoxville."

"Charleston," Autumn says.

"Knoxville is a shorter drive. Charleston is fourteen hours. You aren't flying to Charleston every other weekend for a book signing."

"Charleston is the book. The whole book is Charleston in a coat. I have to launch it there or I am a coward."