Enemy Dearest

Chapter Thirty-Four

Sheridan

* * *

I’m leaving tomorrow.

I fold the last of my clothes and seal the plastic tote. I’ve managed to squeeze all of my things into five containers, which doesn’t include the box fan and random items already packed into my car.

Dad knocks on the door. He still hasn’t answered my questions from the other day and we’re not exactly on good terms, but we’re trying to keep it cordial for Mama’s sake.

“Your mom’s resting,” he says. “Mona’s on her way.”

I swear she comes home from the hospital more exhausted than when she went in.

“Okay.” I don’t meet his gaze. I still can’t look at him.

“Sure you don’t want me to follow you up there tomorrow?” he asks. “Kind of sad that I don’t get to help my daughter move to college.”

“It’d be a waste of gas for you to drive all that way to help me move five boxes …”

“I don’t look at it that way.” He takes a seat at the foot of my bed, shoulders sloped, bonier than usual. I didn’t realize he’d been losing weight. Guess I didn’t notice a lot of things about him lately …

He watches me stack the boxes in the corner. I have nothing to say to him.

“Is this … about him?” he asks a moment later.

“You can say his name.”

He hesitates. “I know you don’t understand. And I can’t blame you, Sheridan. We kept a lot from you. We sheltered you from a lot. We thought we were doing the right thing, and we didn’t want to burden you with our family tragedies. I realize now, that we made a mistake. We should’ve told you what we went through so you’d understand exactly why we stay away from the Monreauxs.”

“I read the articles in Mama’s album.” I keep my back to him, hands pressed against the top of a tote as I stare out my window—the very window August climbed through not long ago. “I know everything.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he says. “The way that man drug my name through the mud after what he did to my sister. Had his minions slash my tires and harass your mother. For years, I couldn’t drive home from the grocery store without a police offer tailing me. And every year, on the anniversaries of Cynthia’s death and Elisabeth Monreaux’s death, we’d get a mailbox full of hate letters. And those are just the little things. Don’t even get me started on the job sabotaging. He once tried to pay someone to falsify a drug test I’d taken for that position at the meatpacking plant. Monreauxs are pure evil.”

“August is nothing like that.”

“And you know this how? Because you spent half a summer with him?” Dad scoffs. “Vincent was my best friend, Sheridan. Since I was eight years old. And he murdered my sister and pinned it on me out of spite. Forgive me, but I find it difficult to believe he’s capable of raising an upstanding young man worthy of being with my daughter.”

I don’t know what I could say in this moment to convince my father that I know August’s heart, that he isn’t his father.

“You know, Sher. You can always talk to me about anything. I know it’s been a rough summer with your mother, but if you ever want to talk about anything, I’m here. You don’t need to go running off—”

“—I tried to talk to you a few days ago.”

“I mean, you can come to me with whatever’s bothering you.”

“The texts I saw certainly bothered me.” I don’t have the energy to play ‘nice’ with him, to beat around the bush or guilt him into confessing. Especially when he’s being so dismissive.

He forces a hard breath through his nostrils, hunching and resting his elbows on his knees.

“I’ve already told two people about them,” I add. “So if anything happens to Mama, you’ll be the first person they look at. You and Kara.”

“Jesus, Sheridan.” He buries his face in his hands. “You really think I’d hurt your mother?”

“I don’t know what to think … you won’t tell me anything except that it’s personal and private. Sounds an awful lot like an affair to me.”

“You have it all wrong.” He glances at the door, as if he expect Mama to walk in at any second, and then he shakes his head. “Look. A few months ago, I lost my job. I didn’t tell anyone, not even your mother. I didn’t want to cause her any unnecessary stress. It was a bullshit reason, one I’m sure Vincent Monreaux had a hand in.”

For as long as I can remember, my father would start a new job, work his way up after a couple years, only to be let go for some asinine reason. He always suspected Vincent was behind it, given their history and his penchant for causing chaos, but Dad never could prove it.