Chapter 22: Window Three Again

Darius's POV

My brother sat behind glass in the county jail, in an orange jumpsuit.

For the first time in his life he looked like a man nobody was coming to save.

I picked up the phone on my side.

He picked up the phone on his.

"You came fast," Luka said.

"You said you had a statement."

"I told the assistant attorney general this morning. All of it."

"I wanted you to hear it from me before it's in a newspaper."

"I'm listening."

"Mother wrote the page Mrs. Corwin tore up," Luka said.

"I didn't read it until I was standing on the porch. She told me it was an apology."

"You knew it wasn't."

"I knew it wasn't when I picked up the carnations."

He rubbed his face with his free palm.

"I've never said no to her. Not once. I was twenty-two and drunk, and she cleaned it up, and I let her."

"I kept letting her."

"You raped a girl, Luka."

"Yes."

He said it flat and fast, and he looked straight at me through the glass.

"I'm not asking you to like it," he said.

"I'm telling the state what Mother did, and the lawyer, and the fund, and Brinley. I'm giving them every date I remember."

"I'm not trading it for anything."

"Why?"

"Because the second half of the story is the only part that's any use to anybody," Luka said.

"That isn't why."

My brother was quiet for a while.

"Tell Nadine something for me," he said. "Tell her..."

I held up my hand.

"No."

"You haven't heard it."

"She didn't ask for it," I said. "If she wants a word from you, she'll send for you."

"She has never once asked me to carry anything of yours, and I won't start."

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