How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: Yes

Nobody in the room spoke.

My father walked down the center of it.

"Eighteen months," he said again. "State prison. Vehicular manslaughter, twelve years ago in October."

I turned my head slowly.

Arlen was standing exactly where he'd stood, with his hands at his sides.

He did not look at my father.

He was looking at me.

"The Pike Bridge," my father said. "River Road. One in the morning, a car at fifty miles an hour into the abutment."

The dean said something about adjourning.

"Let me finish." My father's voice cracked, and I saw the ugliness of it, the performance, the wet shine in his eyes. "He killed my wife."

The words did not enter me.

They bounced off my skin and fell on the floor like hail.

"No," I said.

"Willa."

"No. A stranger did that. A man in a truck. You told me."

"I told you what you could carry, sweetheart." He held out a hand toward me, soft as milk. "I forgave him. I put him in my company, I put him at my table. I kept him close because I couldn't forgive myself, and he was my friend. I thought you would never need to know."

"You put him in my house."

"I put him where I could see him."

I looked at the lawyer, whose mouth was open.

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