The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

father settles back deeper into his chair, lost in thought, his gaze not on me but on the wall of books on the other end of the room. He takes a sip of his drink and says, “No matter what you think of me, I’m your father and will always do what I can to protect you. You can tell me anything. You know that. So I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest in your answer.”

An inferno of dread sweeps through my chest.

He leans forward and drills that stare of his right into me.

“Did you?”

It takes more than a second for me to understand what he’s asking, but not much more.

“Jesus, Dad, what kind of question is that?”

“A simple one. Couldn’t be more simple. A yes-or-no question.”

“You are not seriously asking me this.”

“Why not?” he says. “You found out he was cheating on you. Then he ends up dead.”

“I’m not having this conversation,” I say.

“We can end it after you answer the question.”

“What kind of person do you think I am?”

This question elicits a knowing smile, so gentle and slight, yet there’s an underlying menace only another Yates could detect. “You, me, your sister. We all have a thread stitching us together. You ask me what kind of person you are? I know who you are. You’re a Yates.”

I take another sip of my drink, clinging to the glass as if it will somehow protect me, a magical amulet.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I say. “About that. The thread.”

“Don’t you?”

“We said we’d never talk about it. That was our agreement.”

The room is smaller, tighter, the air stale and warm. A prison cell.

“And yet,” he says, “the very thing we agreed to never talk about is part of your next book.”

There it is. That’s what he’s really getting at.

“Cora told you.”

“Cora told me.”

“It’s not the same thing,” I say, hearing the outer edge of panic in my voice. The doubt. The second-guessing. “It’s different. Different circumstances. It’s fiction.”

I can see his pulse pounding in the veins of his temple. Though his voice doesn’t waver in tone or volume, I know him well enough to hear the brewing anger beneath his words. “And what do you say when fans ask you how you get your ideas? What do you tell them, Rosie?”

“I think you’re overestimating my readership.”

“Once it’s out there, it’s out there. Forever. Is that the risk you want to take? You do understand there’s no statute of limitations, right?”

I rise to refill my drink, not because I need it but because I don’t want my father looking at my face. I don’t want him reading my fear.

“Have you even read the book?” I ask.

“Not yet,” he admits. “But I will. Your sister filled in the details for me.”

“She’s overreacting.” My hand quivers as I fill my glass.

I don’t hear him rise from his chair, and when I suddenly hear his voice at the back of my neck, I nearly scream.

“The name Caleb Benner is still well known around here,” he whispers. “You might have left, but the mystery of what happened to that boy hasn’t. People still talk about it, time to time, like they would about a local boogeyman. Once in a while, there’s still an article written about his case. How the police vow to never give up figuring out what happened, despite no new leads for nearly twenty years. Your sister was interviewed back then, if you remember.”

I don’t turn around. “A lot of high-schoolers were interviewed.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that the Yates name is still part of the public police record.”

“It’s different,” I say. “You just… You need to read the book. It’s a very small part of the story.”

He’s closer now. I don’t see him but I can sense it. “You used the name Corey Brownstein. The same initials.”

“Dad, I—”

“The same fucking initials, Rose. How stupid are you?”

Finally, I turn. My father is inches away, and despite his stillness, I picture a thousand springs coiled inside him, ready to release at a breath of a trigger.

“Change it,” he says. “Change the book.”

I’m a little girl again, facing my father’s anger whenever I displeased him. It never took much, sometimes as little as an eye roll when he told me to finish eating my dinner, but I could always feel the instant shift in energy as I do now, that heaviness in the air, an invisible wave washing over me. Logan Yates is an accommodating father as long as you do everything on his terms. The second you draw a line in the sand, the man no one wishes to face emerges.

“I can’t just change it, Dad. The book is coming out in January. The final edits are done. The book is being printed.”

“Bullshit,” he says, his eyes flaring for a moment beneath his perpetual squint. “And the title, even? Child of the Steps? That’s right on the goddamned nose. There’s time. Get it changed. All of it.”

“I can’t.”

“You will.”

“Or what?” I ask. “Are you going to excommunicate me? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve lived outside your bubble before.”

“And look how well that turned out,” he says. “You’ve got an autistic kid, a dead husband who cheated on you, and you’re working in a fucking grocery store. You call that success?”

All those times in my life that my father intimidated me, even scared me, I never fought back. He never raised a hand to me, but sometimes I wished he had, because his towering presence and biting words were more painful than an open palm across the cheek. But I’m not the same frightened child I once was.

I’ve learned how to defend myself.

“First of all, fuck you.”

I’ve never said this to my father in my life.

“Second,” I continue, “Max is not autistic, and if he were, that’d be just fine. He’s your grandson, for god’s sake, and he needs your love, not advice on how to dominate everyone he meets. Third, yes, I have no