Chapter 31 Austin
THIRTY-ONE
AUSTIN
The smell of spackle and drywall dust clung to my hoodie. I’d been smoothing and sanding all morning, and by the time I climbed into my SUV, my hands were raw and my shoulders were stiff. I cracked the window, letting in a wash of cold air that smelled like woodsmoke and October.
My phone buzzed against the dash. I glanced at the screen, thumb already mid-reach to decline whatever spam was trying to get my vote or my soul or my subscription—but it wasn’t spam.
It was Brody.
That alone made me pause. He didn’t call. We texted. Short things. Things with no weight. Memes about him being an old man or sarcastic remarks about small-town life, the kind of conversations that didn’t ask for anything and didn’t offer much either.
I swiped to answer.
“Hey,” I said, adjusting the volume with my knuckle.
There was a brief delay, just long enough to make me think he might’ve pocket-dialed me.
Then his voice came through—low, like he was already regretting whatever he was about to say. “Hey. I know you’ve been stretched thin. You good?”
I blinked. “Uh . . . yeah.”
It came out slower than I meant it to. Not because it wasn’t true—just because he’d asked.
Brody didn’t always ask about things. Not in that tone, anyway.
He cleared his throat. I heard the faint creak of a chair, a metallic shuffle. Somewhere behind him, a muffled voice over a radio squawked in and out.
“Are you around?” he asked. “I found something I wanted to show you.” There was a beat. And then he said, “It’s not a trap, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I let out a short breath, halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “Didn’t cross my mind.”
“Liar,” he joked.
I smiled despite myself.
He gave me the address to the back entrance of the police station near Main Street, and I told him I’d swing by. Just for a bit.
The kindergarten concert wasn’t for a few hours, and Selene had the day off.
I had plenty of time.
The precinct smelled like old paper and cheap floor cleaner, the kind that lingered in your throat long after you left. The linoleum curled at the corners and the hallway buzzed with lights that looked like they hadn’t been replaced since the place was built.
Brody met me at the back door and nodded like we’d just run into each other at the grocery store instead of planning it.
“I appreciate you coming,” he said.
“Wasn’t doing anything important,” I lied, following him through the maze of hallways.
We passed two officers I didn’t recognize and a bulletin board littered with faded flyers. One still advertised the holiday potluck from last year.
Brody led me to a room I didn’t know existed. It had no windows, just four gray walls and a table covered in file boxes. He flicked on the light and crossed to the corner where a single frame leaned against a stack of evidence folders.
“I found this last night,” he said, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “We were clearing out a storage closet. This box probably hasn’t been touched since the nineties.”
He picked up the frame and turned it toward me.
It was an old photo, slightly yellowed at the edges. Five men stood in front of a police cruiser, arms crossed, smiles crooked with youth and pride.
I knew which one was ours instantly.
Same build. Same eyes, but softer and smiling.
“He couldn’t have been older than twenty-two,” I murmured.
“Twenty-one,” Brody said. “Fresh out of the academy. My mom wrote the year on the back.”
I took the frame. It was lighter than I expected, but the weight of it still pulled at my hands.
“I thought about tossing it,” he said after a second. “I didn’t want it. I guess I don’t need it, but I figured . . . maybe you would.”
I didn’t say anything. Just stared at the photo of our father like it would answer questions I wasn’t brave enough to ask.
Brody sat down with a groan, as if his body remembered years that weren’t his to carry. “You know, I used to wonder what it’d be like if we’d grown up together.”
I looked up.
“I didn’t even know the truth about you until I was fifteen,” he said. “Then when I found out, I was pissed. Not at you—just at him. For keeping it quiet. For acting like it wasn’t real.”
He shrugged. “But I think what pisses me off more now is that I didn’t do anything with it once I did know. You were out there and I didn’t reach out.”
There was no emotion in his voice. No edge. Just the kind of quiet honesty that made the room feel too small.
“You were a kid,” I said. “And it wasn’t exactly advertised.”
He shook his head. “Still. I could’ve done better.”
I set the photo down and sat across from him, my boots scraping against the tile. “Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
The room didn’t have a clock. Or maybe it did, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to see it.
Time stretched differently in spaces like that—stale air, low ceilings, walls that hadn’t been painted in a decade.
The hum of fluorescent lights softened everything around the edges, like the day was underwater.
Brody slid a folder toward me. Not with ceremony, just an offhand flick of his wrist like it wasn’t something that had been sitting in a box collecting dust since before I was born.
“He kept everything,” he said. “Weird, right?”
I opened the flap.
Inside were old notes, clipped articles. A few faded printouts from training sessions. A ticket stub from a Tigers game from decades ago. My chest pulled tight around a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Seemed like he had a good life,” I said quietly, thumbing a photo of three uniforms standing arm in arm in front of the old station. “People respected him.”
Brody nodded. “Yeah. That was the thing. Out there, in the public eye, he was different.”
I glanced at him.
Brody leaned back in the chair, ankle hooked over his knee, elbow resting on the edge of the table like we were just shooting the shit after a shift, but his jaw had gone tight.
“I mean,” he went on, voice measured, “he could be a hard-ass. He was rigid. Ran his precinct like it was the damn Marines. But the guys here? They looked up to him. They called him honorable.”
I swallowed. “That’s not the word I’d use.”
He huffed a sound that might’ve been agreement. Or regret. Maybe both.
“I keep trying to reconcile it,” he said. “This version of him and the one you got.”
I nodded, slow. “Me too.”
Silence settled. Not awkward—just impossibly heavy.
I looked down at the folder again. Nestled between two sheets was a picture I hadn’t noticed before. It was folded in half, like someone had carried it in a wallet too long.
I opened it carefully.
A boy. Maybe six or seven. In a Halloween costume—some kind of superhero getup with a crooked mask. He was standing in a front yard I didn’t recognize, holding up a plastic pumpkin like he’d just pulled off the heist of the century.
“Is that you?” Brody asked.
I nodded, my mouth tipping in a wry smile. “First grade. My mom sewed that cape herself. She said if I wanted to save the world, I needed to look the part.”
I held the photo a second longer, then set it gently back in the folder, still confused as to why my dad had held on to it at all.
Somewhere in the distance, a phone rang. A door opened and closed. A printer choked out a few pages and fell silent again.
I rubbed the back of my neck and stood, stretching out a cramp in my shoulder.
“I should probably get going,” I said, not quite checking the time.
Brody nodded but didn’t move.
“I know it doesn’t change anything,” he said quietly, “but for what it’s worth . . . I’m glad I know you now.”
That one caught me right between the ribs.
“I’m glad too,” I said, meaning it more than I expected.
He stood and clapped a hand on my shoulder, firm and brief—like any more than that would tip the moment into something we wouldn’t know how to carry.
I walked back out into the chill of late afternoon with the folder tucked under my arm and a strange ache behind my sternum.
The sky was softening, low and gray at the edges. My phone buzzed in my pocket, a calendar alert flashing across the screen.
Winnie’s performance—6:30 p.m.
I cursed under my breath and glanced at the time.
6:01.
Shit.
I sent a quick text to Selene.
Me
Almost there.
Then I threw the car into gear and peeled out of the lot like I still had a chance.
The first stoplight took too long.
Some minivan stalled in the intersection, the driver waving cars around like she was directing traffic instead of causing it. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, every tick of the turn signal syncing with the pulse in my neck.
6:07.
It was fine. The elementary school was close.
Close enough that if everything else went smoothly, I’d slide in with a minute to spare.
Maybe two. Just enough time to sneak into the gym, find the seat Selene had probably saved for me, and catch Winnie’s crooked ponytail and wide, determined eyes right before the music started.
The light changed. I took the turn too fast, tires squealing a little as I veered around a van and gunned it.
Almost there. Come on.
But then there was the construction.
Orange cones lined the two-lane road like a fucking obstacle course. Flashing arrows pushed traffic into one narrow lane, crawling past a backhoe and a guy in a neon vest who didn’t look like he gave a shit that the clock was chasing me down.
“Come on,” I muttered, inching forward behind a dump truck hauling gravel and regret.
I tried not to picture it. I tried not to imagine the gym packed shoulder to shoulder, folding chairs squealing across the tile, parents fanning themselves with paper programs and checking their watches.
I tried not to see Selene scanning the crowd or her holding a spot beside her that stayed empty.
I tried not to picture Winnie stepping onto the risers, eyes flicking toward the back of the room with that quiet, hopeful expectation.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, trying to stay focused. The car finally crawled past the last cone and I gunned it, tearing through a yellow light, letting the curse catch in my throat.
I turned onto school grounds at 6:40, the tires crunching across the gravel shoulder as I pulled into the overflow lot.
I didn’t even park straight. I threw it into park, slammed the door, and sprinted.
My boots hit pavement hard, lungs burning as I jogged up the sidewalk. The front entrance buzzed with late arrivals, but the gym doors were already closed.
A woman stood outside with a clipboard. She smiled politely as I approached, chest heaving.
“The first group just finished,” she said gently, stepping aside to let someone out. “You can head in, though. Grade one is performing next.”
I was frozen.
I stood there, one hand on the frame of the open door, as the sound of applause swelled inside—loud and proud and final.
My heart dropped like a stone in my chest.
I stepped through the door.
The gym was exactly how I pictured it—humid with body heat, the scent of popcorn and old wax clinging to the air. Metal chairs clattered as parents shifted and clapped. A row of kids in their Sunday best filed off the risers, faces glowing, some waving frantically at the crowd.
Winnie was in the middle.
Her wild hair poking in all directions, cheeks flushed pink, eyes scanning the audience.
She was smiling. Proud. Brave.
But there was that little flicker—so quick most people wouldn’t have caught it. That quick drop of her smile as she looked to the spot next to her mother.
Where I should’ve been.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
Then she spotted me, just as she stepped off the riser. Her face didn’t crumple. Winnie was tougher than that, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes this time. Not quite.
When she looked away, it wasn’t sulking or pouting. It was worse. It was quiet disappointment. The kind that sat still and waited, hoping no one noticed the ache blooming in her chest.
Across the room, just past a cluster of parents, I saw Selene.
Her back was ramrod straight, her fingers laced in her lap. Her coat was draped over the back of the folding chair beside her—the one she’d saved.
The one I never made it to.
Her expression shifted when she saw me. Something in her shoulders flinched, then softened, like she didn’t know which reaction would hurt less.
She didn’t frown or scowl, but she didn’t smile, either, and for the first time in weeks, I didn’t know what came next.
I missed it.
I missed the song. Her solo. The way Winnie’s excited eyes searched the crowd for her people. The chance to prove—for once—that the people who loved her would show up when it mattered.
I didn’t have an excuse. At least not one that was enough.
Sure, I had finally got what I wanted—a connection with my brother, a piece of my dad’s past, something that felt like belonging.
But it still wasn’t enough.
Not when the thing that mattered most was walking off the stage, wondering why I hadn’t been there to see her shine.