He Called Our Night a Mistake, So I Raised His Daughter Without Him novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Sunday Dinner

"That's why I said it," Sullivan repeated from the floor, in a voice I didn't know.

I pulled the sheet up around me and sat very still.

"I woke up that morning with my arm across your collarbone and your wrists in my hands."

I stopped breathing.

"Seven years ago. You were asleep. You had bruises on both wrists, and I'd done it, and I didn't remember doing it." He shut his eyes. "I'll tell you everything. But I need you to hear the first part from somebody who isn't me, because you won't believe it from me."

"Who?"

"Your brother."

"Nico?"

"He gave me your address six weeks ago. He asked me to wait until Sunday dinner at your parents' table, so he could say the rest himself. I gave him my word."

My ears rang.

"What rest?"

"Come with me tomorrow," Sullivan said. "Please."

We drove to Norfolk the next day, the three of us, with Rosetta asleep in the back before the Virginia line.

I have no memory of the road.

I remember my mother's kitchen, and the smell of her gravy, and my father standing in the hall with his arms open for his granddaughter.

I remember Nico's wife with their baby on her hip, giving me a smile that shook.

I remember Nico himself, in the doorway to the dining room, with a shoebox under his arm.

We sat down at six.

My mother had put out the good plates.

My father said grace, and I didn't hear a word of it.

Rosetta was at the end of the table with her octopus in her lap and a cousin on each side.

Sullivan sat across from me, and he did not touch his food.

When my mother passed the bread, he set a thick manila folder on the table next to his plate.

"Mr. Ferrante, Mrs. Ferrante," he said. "I'm sorry to do this at your table."

"Sullivan?" my father said.

"I want to show Carina something. Then Nico has something to tell her."

He opened the folder and slid it across to me.

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