Chapter 20: On His Knees

The kitchen light was the same yellow it had always been.

The table was set for five, with the green plates, and nobody had put any food on them.

My father sat at the head with his hands flat on the wood.

My mother stood by the stove. Tyler stood next to me, near the door.

Brynn sat at her usual place with her tote bag in her lap, in a pale blue dress, perfectly still.

She had not looked at me once since I came in.

"Thank you for coming," my father said.

Nobody answered.

"Brynn," he said. "I'm going to tell you something. I'd like you not to speak until I'm done."

"I know it already, Uncle Dale."

"You know what a file says," my father said. "You don't know what I have to say."

She tilted her head, sweetly.

He drew a breath that shook all the way down.

"It was your father's birthday. I drank from three in the afternoon."

He stared at his hands.

"At eleven I was drunk, and I drove your parents home in my car, because your father had drunk too much too."

Brynn's face did not move.

"I ran a stop sign at the bottom of Millbrook Hill."

He stopped, and went on.

"A truck hit the side your mother sat on. They both died."

His voice cracked.

"I walked away with a broken wrist."

My mother put her hand over her mouth.

"I pleaded guilty," my father said. "I asked the judge to count that I was raising you."

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