Chapter 32 #2
“Fucked up?” She reaches for my hand. “I’ve had months to come to terms with this. You’re just finding out. Don’t apologize, Holden, and don’t you dare walk on eggshells around me.”
Nausea churns in my stomach. I press my foot into the floor like a drunk teenager, trying to keep the room from spinning.
It was Cara who taught me that trick.
I take in how bony her fingers look, how frail. “Who else knows?”
“Your dad, Lois, and Cade.”
“You told Dad?”
And not me?
“Like he doesn’t track my every move,” she says, pulling her hand into her lap. “Every penny I spend. And I had to tell Lois. She stays over on the nights I have Hannah.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since February.”
Three months. Motherfucker.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve had Cade to talk to, at least.” It comes out sharper than I mean, but Cara’s always confided in me, even when I was sixteen and she was still with my dad. Back when it felt a little too personal. A little misplaced.
“I wouldn’t say we’re talking, exactly. I just needed to prepare him. For Hannah.”
I frown. Prepare him for what?
“What do you mean, for Hannah?”
Cara’s eyes well up, and my chest tightens. She’s dying. What else could there possibly be?
“Holden…” she says thinly, and I brace myself. “Reinhold’s not Hannah’s father.”
It takes a second to process. “What are you saying?”
“This doesn’t change anything.” She reaches for me, but I pull back. “She’s still your sister. In all the ways that matter.”
I grip the armrests until my knuckles go white.
The beeping machines, that damn ringing… It all fades behind the static in my head.
Cara’s dying.
Hannah isn’t yours.
The chair scrapes the linoleum as I push out of it. “How long?”
“I’ll be lucky to make it through the summer.”
Her words hang there, heavy and final.
She has months. If she’s lucky.
“Goddammit.” The curse slips out, low and gravelly. My throat closes, and my fist tightens around my phone—and then it’s flying, crashing against the concrete wall, shattering on impact.
“Well that’s just fucking great,” I mutter, like I wasn’t the one who threw it.
“I recommend plates,” Cara says, completely unruffled. “Easier to replace.”
“There has to be something.” I start pacing again. “What about a transplant? You have a twin, for Christ’s sake.”
“Holden, honey, it’s too late.”
We stare at each other’s reflections in the floor-to-ceiling windows. Somewhere down the hall, a voice pages a doctor, like the rest of the world hasn’t stopped.
“If she’s not Dad’s,” I say, “leave her to me. Give me custody. Hell, give Cade custody.”
“She’s never even met him,” Cara says, then offers a small, somber smile. “Besides, it’s not that simple. Reinhold’s on the birth certificate. He’s raised her for eleven years—nine of them knowing she wasn’t his.”
“He knows?”
“I’m not sure how much you remember from when your dad and I split.
You were so young. Always off chasing some adventure.
Weekends in Ibiza or Aspen…” She lets out a brittle laugh that turns into a cough.
“Remember when you flew that girl to Cabo for dinner on your dad’s Learjet? Up and back like it was nothing.”
“What’s your point?”
“After I OD’d, your dad kicked me out and threatened to take Hannah, and he would have.
Even on my best day, I didn’t stand a chance against your father.
” She pauses. “I was desperate. And I knew how humiliated he’d be if it got out that he’d been raising his addict wife’s lovechild without knowing it.
So we made a deal. I told him the truth,” she says slowly, “because it gave me leverage.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with me getting custody. If he’s not her father—”
“According to California law, he is.”
I rub my tired eyes. “So that’s it? There’s nothing we can do? You die, and Hannah’s stuck with him? He’ll never let me see her.”
Cara doesn’t flinch. “You won’t get custody, but if you’re serious—and I mean really serious—you could raise her.”
I spin around to face her. “Like he’d ever say yes to that.”
“He would if you had something on him. Something worse than his wife’s infidelity.
” She reaches beneath the collar of her gown and pulls out a chain with a small key.
“This opens a safety deposit box at City National. Everything you need to silence your dad is inside. But Holden…” Her eyes find mine.
“Think long and hard before you use it. Raising a child is a huge commitment, especially a grieving one. You can’t just take off for Ibiza. ”
“I literally did that…”
The words die on my lips, and everything goes still.
You can’t just take off for Texas.
“No more on-location films. You’d have to stay in LA. Work in LA.” She slips off the chain and holds it out to me. “Lois is great, but Hannah will need stability. She’ll need you.”
I’ll be tied to LA—tethered—by someone I love.
I drop into the chair, my head pounding.
Cara’s dying.
Hannah isn’t yours.
Maggie never will be.
Something inside me folds up neatly and locks itself away.
“Of course I’m serious. What’s the alternative? I let him torture her for seven more years?” I take the key and hang it around my neck. “What will I find in the box?”