Chapter 6: Roxanne

By nine that night, somebody in the boardroom had put the video online.

A short clip of me hitting my brother, with a caption: "Builder snaps at his own family."

It had four thousand views.

I turned my phone off and drove home to an empty house.

I had not slept in two nights, and I had not eaten.

Melanie's car was not in the driveway, and Eric's bike was not in the garage, because the van had taken it.

I stood in the hall and looked at his school shoes by the door.

I left them where they were.

At eleven there was a knock.

I opened the front door, and Roxanne Lund was standing on my porch in a camel coat, with a bottle of wine in her hand.

She was thirty-three and had not changed.

She had the same bright smile and the same gold hair, and she was swaying a little in her heels.

"Hi, Dal."

"No."

"Don't shut it. Please. I saw the video."

"Everybody saw it."

"I'm so sorry." She took a step in without being asked. "Your own brother. After everything. He's a snake, and you've always known it."

"You were with him for two years."

"And he dropped me with a text message." She laughed and set the bottle on my hall table. "I deserved it. I left a good man for a pretty one."

I stood with the door in my hand.

I was too tired to throw her out, and I was too angry to want to be alone.

She walked into my kitchen, found the glasses on the first try and took two out of the cabinet.

"I'm not drinking."

"I am." She filled hers to the top. "You look terrible."

"Why are you here, Roxanne?"

"Because I hear Melanie's kicked you out of your own son's room."

I said nothing.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Don't Give Me Tainted Love from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.