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But where would I go?

Mama and Father are gone. The farm sold. Every friend I once had is his friend now, his congregation, his disciples. They would never believe me. They would say I’d lost my faith.

I could pack a bag, take the car, take Lydia. But what if he finds us? What if the church helps him? He always says, “A good shepherd knows how to bring his lambs back.”

I used to think he meant the lost.

Now I know he meant me.

I can’t stop shaking. Every sound in the house feels like a warning.

If he ever finds out I’m writing this, he’ll take the words from me too.

And then I’ll have nothing left that’s mine.

CHAPTER

FIFTY

Morning drags its way in through the curtains, a gray wash of light that feels more like exhaustion than dawn. My body’s stiff from sleeping on the floor. My shoulder and hip throb. I’m way too old to sleep on the hardwood floor. I roll to my back, staring up at the ceiling. The words I read flit through my mind. When did I end up falling asleep? Did I finish the diary? My head falls to the side, the diary lies beside me, open-faced like it’s been watching. It’s still on the entry from January. When my father found out she was preventing another pregnancy. Did she regret having me? I wonder if she would have known who my father really was if she would have found a way to get rid of me. Did she see me as a tie that wasn’t able to be loosened?

I swallow down the grief. My throat is dry, and it burns from crying. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. Man, my eyes ache. I can feel how puffy they are.

For a while, I just lay here, listening to the stillness, trying to remember what it felt like to sleep without waking to ghosts. Then reality presses in, the rhythmic tick of the clock, the faint hum of the refrigerator, and the reminder that he’s still here.

My father. Shit. I didn’t do the normal bedtime routine.

I take a deep breath, trying to give myself enough strength to get through the day. There’s still more of the diary I want to read, the pages soft and cool under my thumb, but I don’t need Janice showing up, seeing my father sitting in his own filth.

Duty, or something uglier, pulls me to my feet. I move through the house in quiet steps, each one heavier than the last. In the kitchen, I fill a glass with water and drink it down. I fill it a second time, set it on the counter, and set out his medication. Habit. Survival. Maybe penance.

When I reach the living room, the air hits me first. It’s thick, sour, and wrong.

It’s the smell of sickness left to rot: sweat and urine, spoiled milk, something sour and almost sweet, like meat left out too long in the sun.

The curtains are still drawn, sealing everything in. The room hums faintly with the radiator’s low struggle, but it does nothing to mask the stench. I can only imagine how much worse the stench would be in the heat and humidity of the summer morning. It’s the little things, I guess.

He’s slumped in the same chair as last night, only now the blanket has slipped from his knees to the floor. A dark stain blooms beneath him, spreading into the threadbare rug. A puddle gone sticky with time. His head lolls to one side, mouth open, eyes half-lidded, the whites jaundiced and filmed over. A thin string of drool glistens on his chin, catching the light. His breathing is shallow, rasping in and out like a leaky bellows.

I stop a few feet away, swallowing hard against the bile rising in my throat.

For a second, I just stare. There’s a part of me waiting for him to move, part of me wishing he wouldn’t.

The man who once filled rooms with fire and judgment now looks hollowed out, like something left too long in the sun. And still, even like this, he manages to take up space.

How I hate this man.

The words pulse behind my teeth as I step closer. The smell clings to everything. Sour sweat, ammonia, decay soaked into the fibers of the rug. The sight of him makes my stomach turn, but I force myself forward anyway.

I set the glass down hard enough that it clinks against the table. For a long second, I just stand there, fighting the urge to turn away. “Wake up, Father,” I say, but my voice barely stirs him. His head slumps to one side, drool threading down his chin, breath wheezing in slow, shallow bursts.

Then I grab a rag from the table and crouch beside him. The floor is sticky under my knees. His blanket is damp and cold, the fabric stiff with urine. I swallow hard, tug it free, and toss it into the corner.

“Christ,” I mutter, wiping at the arm of the chair, the hardwood floors, anywhere the filth has gathered. My hands tremble, not from effort but from fury. The same fury that kept me alive all those years. Why did I say I would care for him? I don’t have anything to prove to anyone in this town. I don’t care what others think. Why am I torturing myself? Haven’t I paid enough of a price?

I get up off the floor, tossing the rag on top of the soiled blanket and head to the kitchen, pulling out the drawer my mother used to keep the kitchen towels in, sure enough, they’re all still there. I turn the spigot on, full blast so I can soak a few of the towels. The water is freezing, my hands turning red as fibers in my grip get heavy. My jaw is tense. Leaning down, I pull open a cupboard and grab my mother’s mixing bowl, dumping the soaked towels inside. Shutting off the water, I throw more towels over my shoulder and head back to my father.

Just as my knees hit the floor again, the jingle of the front door snaps through the silence.