Rose turned toward him.
“Let them finish.”
I looked directly at Dad.
“How many kids did you make feel fatherless while pretending to be holy?”
For once, he had no sermon.
By the end of the evening, Dad had been removed from the pulpit, the elder was suspended, and Mom gave a statement regarding the checks and the missing-person case. The deputy reminded her that protecting Hannah did not erase an entire year of withheld truth.
Dad left through the side entrance alone.
That night, Hannah and I sat on Aunt Marlene’s back porch while Mom gave another statement inside.
Hannah looked through the kitchen window.
“Do you hate her?”
“No,” I said. “But I don’t trust her yet.”
“Me neither.”
I rubbed the scar on my arm.
“I thought this kept me from saving you.”
Hannah touched my sleeve.
“Hayden, you were a kid with a broken arm.”
“So were you.”
“I don’t know what happens now,” she said.
“We stop letting them decide what family means.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“And Eli?”
“If he wants us, we start there too.”
Hannah leaned her shoulder against mine.
For the first time in a year, silence no longer felt like a grave.
I lost my sister because the adults were afraid of the truth.
I found her when I stopped asking permission to speak it.
