50. Graham
GRAHAM
“She cashed the check,” I say to the ceiling in Grayson’s living room. “She’s really done with me.”
“You can’t set a boundary and then get mad when people acknowledge and accept it,” Finn says lightly from the couch.
“A boundary? That was a cry for help.” Aaron snorts.
The morning talk-show clip is replaying on the TV. I’m in a daze.
Connor’s lying next to me on the floor, surrounded by computers and phones, feeding the online flame war.
“Everyone’s going after Window Cat Girl, saying she set this up.” Connor smirks. “Apparently, she’s selling unpasteurized pink ranch dressing?”
“Wait, what?” Lexi rushes in from the kitchen. “Pink sauce is bad for you?”
“It is if you don’t refrigerate it,” I tell her dully.
“Well, take the ones out of your suitcase that I put in there.” Lexi sighs.
“What? Where are you going?” Spencer demands, coming into the living room. “Grayson, do you know he’s trying to leave?”
“Yes, I told him he needed to get out of the city for a while. We dodged a nuclear warhead with Dani’s mother and grandmother taking the fall for that kidnapping.” My eldest brother frowns.
“I’m sending them a gift basket of oranges,” Lexi calls from where she’s cooking some very spicy-smelling soup.
“I have that mountain house. He’s going to stay there for a few months,” Grayson continues.
“I’m going to be up there too.” Lexi gives me a thumbs-up. “We’re going to be mountain-house buddies. It’s a fixer-upper, so I hope you know how to use a hammer—”
“Because she does not.” Grayson shakes his head.
“I have YouTube and a dream.” His girlfriend beams.
“The only reason I’m letting her do this is because the architect has a five-month delay before she can start on the project,” Grayson tells Aaron quietly.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll hammer things.” My voice sounds far away. “I just… I have to do something first.”
“Stay away from Dani,” Aaron warns me.
“I’m not—”
“Where are you going?” Aaron demands.
“I… I…” I raise my shoulders. “I’m going to go see my mom.”
Grayson gives me a pitying look.
I can’t take it.
“You sure you want to do that?”
“You sure she wants to see you?” Finn asks, concerned.
“I can’t leave without saying goodbye.”
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Ryan says when he opens the door to our parents’ house.
His parents’ house.
Frank has definitely disowned me, and my mom is probably furious. She’ll never forgive me.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
Ryan takes a deep breath then pats my arm.
Shit. Of course. He’s angry at me too.
“Well, uh…” I finally say. “I guess tell her goodbye for me.”
“Goodbye? What do you mean? Where are you going?” He frowns.
I don’t answer him.
“Mom!” Ryan calls. “Graham’s leaving. Forever, it sounds like.”
“It’s for the best,” I remind him. “I obviously shouldn’t be around normal people. I can’t handle it. I don’t deserve it.”
“Mom says you made a mistake.”
“I made a bad choice that a sane, good person wouldn’t have made. And I should have been punished for it, and since I’m not going to jail, I at least need to make sure I’m not a danger to those around me.”
“You can’t just leave.”
“Grayson is sending me away. It’s for the best,” I repeat.
The screen door slams, and there’s my mom.
She looks pale. She’s wrapped in an oversized cardigan. Her mouth droops down at the corners. She has bags under her eyes, and I’m reminded that the last time she looked that miserable was when we were trapped in the cellar.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Don’t you dare just leave, Graham.” My mom is crying.
Ryan shifts on the balls of his feet.
“Ryan, go back inside. I’m fine.” She takes a steadying breath.
“Claire is heating up that chicken soup,” my brother tells her as he heads inside.
My mom nods and pulls out a tissue. “I just can’t stop thinking about poor Dani.”
I want to curl up and die.
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to make it right.”
“Oh my God.” Mom runs a hand over her forehead. “Dani must have been so scared. And I didn’t know—I didn’t help her at brunch. I can’t imagine her sitting there, wondering if anyone was going to help her. Save her from her violent kidnapper.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I whisper.
“Wasn’t like that?” My mom is incredulous. “Kid, that’s exactly what your father said in court—that it wasn’t like that, that we wanted to be there with him, that he gave us children so we wouldn’t be lonely.”
I feel the tears, cold and wet, on my face. “I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I love her, though. I actually do.”
“Oh my God, kid, listen to yourself. You can’t love Dani. You can’t fall in love with a girl you kidnap off the street. That’s not how this works, kid. God.” She tangles a hand in her hair.
“I wanted you to be different. I wanted this to be different. I thought you were good. I always told people that you were a good kid. You were the one I didn’t have to worry about.
You always just did what you were supposed to do.
Frank would try to catch you, try to see if you were lying—he never found anything.
I would always tell him, ‘Lay off him. Graham’s a good kid. He’s good.’”
“I never was. I was always going to turn into this,” I tell her sadly.
We stare at each other. I know all she can see is my dad, is Stuart Richmond.
“You should have given me away, like Siobhan did with Grayson,” I tell her quietly. “Never seen me again.”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t send you away after everything. That wasn’t right.” She wipes her eyes.
“It wouldn’t have been so bad,” I whisper. “I think it would have been for the best.” I shrug.
“At least then he and I could have been together. I could have been with Grayson. With my brother. At least I wouldn’t have felt so alone.
I know I didn’t belong here—everyone could see it.
I ruined your family, and I ruined your life.
I did try. I promise I tried so hard not to end up like Dad, like Stuart, but I just couldn’t stop it. I tried, Mom. I tried.”
She can’t even look at me.
“But it’s not about me. I know that.” I take a breath. “I’m not the victim here. I know that. I’m going to… I’ll fix it. I’ll make it right. I’ll go to jail. I’ll lock myself back up. I never should have been freed. You and Frank should have just left me down there.”
My mom looks so sad. Bereft.
I hate that I did that to her. Hate that I hurt her, that I just hurt her every day.
“I deserved to be left down there…” I trail off.
My mom turns away from me slowly and heads back into the house.
“I know it doesn’t make it different. It doesn’t change anything,” I call after her. Apologies are meaningless. That’s what her parents said after the trial. That much I remember.
My mom doesn’t say anything—just reaches for the door and slowly shuts it.
I turn back to my car.
Sit in it.
The car I kidnapped Dani in.
I should burn it.
I try to decide if I should just head up to the mountain house. Lexi’s been sending me photos. The place looks like a dump.
Or should I go to my penthouse first and pack? I don’t know if I trust Spencer to pack up what I need.
I’m exhausted. I want to sleep. I want Dani.
I close my eyes.
“She took the money,” I repeat to myself. “She’s going to be okay. She’s going to have a wonderful life.”
Without you in it.
Mom knocks on my window.
I start, shocked. “Mom?” I roll down the window.
She’s changed and put her hair in a ponytail.
“Scoot over. Let’s go for a drive.”
I clamber over the center console.
“You got gas in this thing?”
“What are you—”
She turns on the radio. “God, your taste in music. I tried to steer you right, kid. I really did.” She gives me a shaky smile as we head away from the house.
She plugs in her phone, one hand on the wheel.
“Mom, let me do that—you’re going to crash the car.”
“I got it!”
Seventies music blares out of the stereo as the car roars down the highway.
Mom taps along with the beat.
“Can you believe people think Fleetwood Mac is overrated? Best album of the decade,” she says as she pulls onto a gravel road. “Hands down.”
“Where are we going?” My heart thuds in my chest as Stevie Nicks wails on the radio.
Mom parks the car in front of a run-down farmhouse. The paint’s peeling. The porch looks like it’ll cave in in a couple of years.
Mom parks the car and hops out.
I sit there and stare at the house.
Mom opens my door. “Come on, kid.”
I follow her like a puppy as we walk slowly through the tall grass. It’s dead and breaks under our feet. It snowed recently, and we kick through the pristine white powder.
I balk before my mom can lead me up onto the porch.
“Have you ever come back here?” she asks after a moment.
“No, of course not! You were locked in a basement here. They should have burned it down, bulldozed it, filled in the cellar.” My voice sounds too forceful in the silence.
“Doing that wouldn’t have made it not happen.” Mom shrugs.
“Have you been back here?” I ask cautiously.
“Yeah, a few times.”
“Why?”
“You have to face your demons, kid. Can’t run from them.” She looks up at me.
“I did it for you. I thought it would make me a better mother if I, you know, faced my trauma and all that. I wanted to do right by you—tried not to punish you for the sins of the father.”
“Sorry you wasted your effort.” The words taste bitter in my mouth. “You definitely should have just left me here.”
We stand in the overgrown grass and stare at the house.
“You know, Dani came to talk to me.”
“Dani? Is she… Is she okay?”
Mom shakes her head. “You know, honestly, I don’t know what to believe, kid.” There are tears in her eyes.
I force myself to look at her.
“I don’t know.” She sighs.
“I was so worried about you becoming like him that I was worried… I just made you into some sort of success robot.” She makes the robot arm motions. “It never really felt like you wanted to be part of the family.” She turns to me. “And I’m sorry for that.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” I tell her.
“I think—no, I know—that I let Frank mistreat you.”
“He was doing what he had to do,” I argue.
“I didn’t stand up for you, and you never wanted to be around us,” she continues.
“I didn’t belong there. Obviously.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” She smiles at me sadly. “But it was nice to have you around these last few weeks. To finally hang out with my son, to see you and your siblings bonding. Dani brought out a side of you that I didn’t think existed.”
“Yeah. The monster.”
“No, Graham.” She grabs my hands. “Just like a normal person. Without the suit and the blank expression, hiding behind your money, buying things for your siblings, for me, as a way to push us away.”
Her hands squeeze mine.
“You were always so concerned with doing the right thing—you never did anything exciting when you were a kid. You just went to school and did sports. You didn’t even go celebrate with your team after you guys won your hockey games.
You just came home and did homework and sat in your room.
You never had fun. You know, when we got rescued, I was like, ‘Finally, my kid can actually enjoy life. He can see the big wide world and see how amazing it is—cherish this short time that we have.’ But you just didn’t.
It was like you just got dropped into another prison. ”
“It was safer for everyone.”
“Look, kid, anything can happen. Your life can change in an instant.” She snaps her fingers. “Just like that. You think you’re going one way, then the universe is like, ‘Nope. Fuck you.’”
“I’m sorry my father kidnapped you, and I’m sorry I was born.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel.” She sticks her tongue out at me—my beautiful, funny mother.
She deserves better.
I never should have come.
“You know, Dani seems to think highly of you.”
I bark out a laugh.
“Well, not the kidnapping part.” She gives me a small smile.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, she says you sucked at it. You let her keep her phone?”
“She ordered food, and that’s when I realized I was in trouble.” I look down at the snow. “When the pizza boy showed up. I completely screwed up. God.” I shake my head. I can’t help but smile at the memory. “I really messed that up.”
“I don’t know about that. Dani came in swinging, trying to defend your honor.”
“She’s too loyal to people,” I tell Mom. “You should see her with her so-called friend that she’s an unpaid wedding planner for. That girl just yanks her chain, and I looked at her Instagram—I just did it so I could block her—and she’s still helping her with her wedding after everything!”
My mom’s eyes sparkle.
“Is this the bachelorette party where she took a dildo to the face?”
“Wait, what?”
Mom points to her eyes. “That’s what gave her the shiner.”
I collapse down into the snow. “I thought… I thought I did that.” I look up at my mom helplessly.
Her eyes are shimmering again. She kneels down.
“Don’t get your clothes dirty.”
She ignores me and pulls me to her chest.
Kisses the top of my head.
“I thought I hit her accidentally, and oh God—”
“You love her, don’t you?” Mom says.
“I’m not capable of love.”
“Dani thinks you are. And I think you are too.” She stands up and dusts off her pants, then she offers me a hand. “You can’t just live out here, kid.”
I grab her hand, and she pulls me up with both hands.
“Come on.” She wraps an arm around my waist. “I know exactly what you need.”
“What?”
“A tattoo.”