Chapter 12: Ask Her What Was in the Glass

Dalton knelt on the linoleum with his coat crushed in his fist.

He had not shaved or slept, and the eyes he lifted to me were red.

For once he was not crying for an audience.

"Hal," he said. "Tell me you didn't do it."

"Get up."

"I need you to say it. I need to hear it from you."

"You've heard me say it for seven years," I said. "You never listened once."

He flinched.

"Nobody ever told me you said it," he said.

"I said it in that hotel room. I said it at the police station. I said it at the altar when you wouldn't look at me."

"I thought you were lying."

"Why?"

"Because everyone said..." He stopped.

I watched him hear himself.

Zane stood a pace behind my shoulder, with his hands at his sides, saying nothing.

"Seven years of your family's story," I said, "and not once did you ask who took your shoes off."

"You took my shoes off," he whispered.

"You were sick, and I was the only one who stopped."

"I remember."

"Do you?"

"I remember a girl with a nametag," he said slowly. "And a voice that said it was going to be okay. And then I woke up, and everybody was shouting."

His mouth trembled.

"I hated you for seven years," he said.

"I know."

"For something you didn't do."

"I know that too."

"Then who did?"

I looked down at him.

I could have said her name and watched his face break.

But I wanted him to take the last step himself, so I could watch him do it.

"Ask Cora," I said. "Ask her what was in the glass."

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