Page 92 of Thicker Than Water
In another situation, that might be reason enough for me to keep quiet.
But if I do, then it’s Jason who takes the fall. And despite how disturbed I am that he did nothing, did nothing, and then did too much—terrifying Maeve with questions, probing her for information she had no obligation to give—I’m still at the place I started last week, unable to let my brother go down for a murder he didn’t commit.
Maeve’s right, though. If Jason had acted earlier, none of this would have happened at all.
Indecision wrestles inside me. There’s no perfect answer. Blame and guilt are so tangled here that it’s hard to see which strand of it belongs to whom. And suddenly, I feel so weary. For too many years, I’ve housed a well of rage in my body, and I’ve never let it run dry, not when it boiled over, boiled me up, not when it left me sizzling and scarred. I believed my anger was the same as action, as if I could redirect the course of justice with the strength of my rage alone.
I obsessed over Clive, furious he took my parents from me andnow is one himself. But what do I want? For his daughter—who squeals as he tickles her in videos, who laughs as he tosses her in the air, who’s innocent in everything Clive did—to lose her parent, too? See him locked away in prison, the way I’ve always wished?
I punished Wyatt—with distance, with mixed messages, because I couldn’t bear to believe that someone good could do something bad, that he could fuck up a love that had felt infallible and still be a kindhearted man.
But people do that, I guess. They fuck up. They do bad things they can’t take back. Maybe what really matters is whether or not they wish they could.
I look at Julia, the person who sees me clearest, who’s always recognized my clenched fists as the lit matches they are. That’s why she made me a mantra; she knew that, otherwise, I’d let my fire consume me, let myself burn away to ash.
What was it she said this morning?You have to stop doing this, picking one view of a person and acting like it’s set in stone.I balked at it then, but she was right. And now nothing feels set; everything is shifting. Everything is so many things at once.
My eyelids droop, my hand still stinging with the wound I inflicted on myself. I’ve been so righteous, so angry, for so long now, and I didn’t realize until just this moment how much energy that’s taken from me.
It’s wrung me out, wanting black-and-white justice in a world so full of gray.
Maeve clocks my hesitation. “The truth hurts Jason, too!” she says, desperately repeating a previous point, the one she thinks will spear me most. “But if you tell the cops about me, it would beyou, his own sister, giving them reason to convict him.”
Once again, I look to Julia, who nods at me gently. The tiniest nudge. It’s been minutes since she’s spoken, but she isn’t silencingherself. She’s been giving me space to make this choice—a clear choice, the only choice—because she knows I needed this moment to waver, knows it’s about more than the guilt or innocence of Jason and Maeve.
“It’s not up to me,” I say, unlocking my phone, “to decide what happens to you, Maeve. Or what doesn’t.” I bring up the number for the Hillstead PD. “But the truth still matters.”
As I connect the call, Julia nods again, gaze shining with tears I feel in my own eyes.
“Even if it implicates my brother.”
Chapter Twenty-FiveJULIA
When I finally make it home again, stars stipple the darkness, reminding me too much of pinpricks, needle pricks, as if the night is a gaping hole someone’s tried to sew shut.
I smell like the police station—coffee and stale rooms. Sienna and I were interviewed separately, Lou Ackerman ferrying back and forth between us, Detective Beck shuffling papers, slurping from Styrofoam cups, clearing his throat into his fist. The whole time, Beck seemed unhurried, uncomfortable, like he was hoping we might reroute the narrative to the one he preferred.
Now, entering our family room, I find Aiden on the couch, loosely strumming his guitar. He sets it aside, then scooches over, wordlessly inviting me onto the space beside him.
“What happened?” he asks. I texted him from the station, warning him it would be a while before I’d be back, but I’d kept the message light on details.
I settle onto the couch, which is so much softer, more forgiving, than the hard-backed chairs in the interview room.
“Dad’s doing okay,” I start. “We were able to talk with him a bit, and… Auntsy and I learned so much today, Aid. But the most important thing is—” I take a second to savor the news I get to share: “Dad didn’t kill Gavin Reed.”
Aiden twists toward me, his knee jabbing my leg. “Wait, are you serious? Even with the— He’s actually innocent?”
The hope on his face deflates me. Because no, Jason isn’t innocent, even if he isn’t guilty in the way we thought. I wish I didn’t have to explain it, all the nuance and new details. I wish we could curl up on this couch together, blanket ourselves until morning, and not say anything at all. There’s something so safe in that—in simply not speaking—and it’s why, despite everything, I understand my husband, the man who stood silent at parties, silent with men in meetings.
But silence can be harmful, too, and I know, without any lingering doubt, that telling Aiden everything is the right thing to do.
I don’t leave anything out. I mention the money Jason stole from our account, the truth of the argument Aiden overheard in December. I even tell him about the party, years ago, where Jason watched a senior boy lead Sienna upstairs—because, in so many ways, that moment was the trigger to everything else Jason did.
As he listens to it all—Jason’s obsession with Gavin, his hounding of Maeve, the ways Jason failed the woman he called his friend—Aiden’s jaw shifts up and down, like he’s chewing his own tongue.
“And I talked to our lawyer,” I say at the end. “It’s very likely that, even if Maeve confesses, Dad will still face charges.”
When Lou named them at the station, I should have felt relieved—anything’s better than a murder charge. But mostly, I felt removed, like I was watching a show on TV.
