Chapter 9: The Fountain

I didn't wake Luciano.

I didn't wake anyone.

I wrote "Gladwyne, back by dinner" on the kitchen whiteboard.

I took a screenshot of my father's name in the sign-in history and called Bernie from the car.

"It's seven in the morning," she said.

"It was my dad."

There was a long silence.

"I'll meet you there," she said. "Don't do it without me."

My father was in the front garden in his bathrobe, fishing coins out of the fountain with a pool net.

He did that on Mondays.

He said it was luck you could spend.

He saw my car and straightened up, and for one second he smiled at me.

Then he saw my face.

Bernie's car pulled in behind mine.

"Shiv," he said. "You look nice. Marriage looks nice on you."

"Where's your iPad, Dad?"

The net dipped.

"In the kitchen, I think. Why?"

"Go get it."

He went.

He came back holding it against his chest.

I held out my hand.

He gave it to me.

I opened the reading app.

It was still logged in to my account.

My own name, my own pen name, my own fourteen chapters, on my father's iPad, with his Eagles wallpaper behind them.

"How long?" I asked.

He sat down on the rim of the fountain.

"Shiv."

"How long have you had my password?"

"Since you were sixteen. I set up that laptop for you. You never changed it."

That was true.

It was my mother's birthday.

"And how long have you known I'm honeybee?"

"I saw the page open once. Last year. I didn't read it, I swear. I just knew."

"Who did you give it to?"

He didn't answer.

Bernie walked up and stood beside me, arms folded, her gold flower glinting.

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