True Colors

Aurora came into the family room. “Vivi Ann,” she said. “I just saw the news. Are you okay?”

Vivi Ann looked at her father, and in that last, quick glimpse, she felt the final brick in her childhood wall tumble free. For the first time, she wasn’t just looking at him; she was seeing him. “I feel sorry for you,” she said, noticing how he flinched.

Walking past him, she linked arms with Aurora. Together they walked through the house and out into the salmony-pink early evening.

“What the hell was that about?”

“He’s an asshole,” Vivi Ann said.

Aurora grinned. “It’s about time you figured that out.”

“How did I miss it?”

“We see what we want to see.”

Vivi Ann hugged her sister, whispering, “Thanks for coming over.”

“How are you?”

“I knew this would happen. Hoped otherwise, maybe, but I knew.”

“And Noah?”

Vivi Ann sighed. “He won’t handle the news well. He let himself believe.”

“What will you say to him?”

The idea of the conversation was overwhelming. “I don’t know. Words are cheap when you’re waiting.” She cut herself off, unable to finish that thought. “I guess I’ll tell him I love him. What else is there?”

I hardly had time to get amped up over the news that my dad’s DNA didn’t match the sample from the crime scene when Aunt Winona tore the shit out of everything by saying that the prosecutors were fighting to keep him in prison.

But he’s innocent, I said.

If the DNA had convicted him, maybe it would have freed him, she said, but there had been lots of evidence against dad.

It’s still going forward. Aunt Winona filed her motion and the prosecutors filed theirs and next week we’ll all be in court to see what happens, but I can tell what’s what. Aunt Winona has talked to lots of lawyers and they all say the same thing: keep trying but don’t hold your breath. The prosecutor told the newspaper that maybe dad killed that woman in a jealous rage cuz some other guy banged her.

They have a guilty answer for everything.

It’s funny, Mrs. I., even though you haven’t been reading my stuff all year, I still feel like you are. I’d give anything right now for one of your dorky questions like Who am I? or What do I want out of life? Or How do you make friends?

All that school shit is way easier to think about than my real life. I wish I could sit down and talk with Cissy. She always makes me feel better about this crap. But her assface dad still thinks I’m this terrorist and won’t let us hang out after school. It makes the time go slow between school days.

The good news is I don’t lose my temper any more. At least I didn’t when I figured my dad was getting out of prison.

Who knows what I’ll do now?

Tonight when I was feeding the horses, Renegade came up to the fence and shoved me with his nose and made me fall. It was totally bizarre cuz usually he just stands back and watches me throw the hay to him. He’s the only horse we have that doesn’t seem to care about food. After he knocked me into the mud puddle, I yelled at him and threw a flake of hay right at his face.

That’s when my mom walked up to me. I told her that horse was a whack job, and she said, Did I ever tell you about the day I rescued Renegade?

You said he was all starving and shit, I said. I was still pissed off about everything, about the sucky courts and my dad who wouldn’t see me and the horse that knocked me on my butt. I was mad at mom for lots of stuff. I guess I’ve been mad at her for a long time.

She rested her arms on the fence’s top rail, looking at that raggedy black horse as if he were something special. Your dad could make that horse dance Swan Lake if he wanted to, she said. I never saw anyone who was better in a saddle.

I wish I knew the right word for how it felt to hear that. All I know is that it was like seeing the next generation of a video game before anybody else. I said You never told me that before and she said there were lots of things she should have shared with me.

She told me that when I was little I would cry every morning until my dad picked me up. He whispered something to you, she said. I never knew what it was, but you waited for it. Mom was smiling when she said that everyone used to call me a daddy’s boy, and that she didn’t think that had changed.