‌“Tripp!” The voice coming from our kitchen startles me when I get home from school Wednesday afternoon, because I’m used to silence when I open the front door. “You want to get your ass in here and explain this?”‌

Probably not. I don’t know why my father is awake or what he’s yelling about, but that’s never a good lead-in.

“What’s up?” I ask, dropping my backpack onto the floor and leaning against the kitchen doorframe. Then I freeze, because I can barely see my father behind all the empty liquor bottles he has lined up in front of him at the kitchen table—the ones I drained last week and shoved back into the cabinet under the sink, with the hazy thought that I’d replace them one of these days. I left the beer he keeps in the fridge alone, so I didn’t think he’d notice anything else.

“What’s up is that I went looking for drain cleaner when I got home this morning and found these,” he says. “None of which were drunk by me.”

“Ahh. Yeah,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly. Beyond that, words fail me, because my father looks ready to explode, and that’s

never good.

“Yeah?” he echoes. “You’re raiding my liquor cabinet now?” When I don’t reply, his scowl deepens. “What the hell is going on with you, Tripp? These were full last week. Did you have a party or something, or did you…” He trails off, understanding dawning in his eyes. “Or did you drink all these on your own? You were on the couch every damn day last week. Were you even sick?”

I’ve put it off as long as I could, but I guess we’re doing this.

“I wasn’t sick,” I admit, dropping into a chair across from him. “And yeah, I drank them all on my own.”

“Jesus, Tripp.” He still looks angry, but now it’s mingled with concern. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“Things haven’t been going great,” I say.

He snorts out a harsh laugh, scraping one hand over his jaw. “Sounds like that’s an understatement. I didn’t know…” He picks up one of the bottles and turns it around in his hand, gazing at the label like it holds some kind of answer. “What didn’t I know?”

I swallow hard. “You remember when Mr. Larkin died?”

Dad blinks. Whatever he might’ve been expecting me to say, it wasn’t that. “Of course I remember.”

“Well, there’s been a lot of stuff happening around that lately. Memorial projects at school, and a couple of TV programs looking into it

—”

“Wait, what? Really?”

That’s a whole other conversation, but we need to have this one first. “Yeah, really. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened back then, and the thing is, Dad…” I look into his weary, puzzled eyes. We’re doing this. “I know about the class-trip money.”

He tilts his head, bemused. “The class-trip…” A flash of understanding crosses his face, along with an emotion I can’t decipher. “Right. The stolen money,” he finishes.

“Yeah. I, um, I found it here. Under your workbench.” I can’t look at him for this part, so I stare at the cracked linoleum. “And I tried to bring it

back to school, but I got nervous and dumped it into Charlotte’s locker, so that’s where Grizz found it.”

“Ahh,” Dad says, his voice heavy with regret. “I wondered if you were the one who brought it back to Saint Ambrose, but you never said anything, so I hoped it was…Well. That would’ve been too much to expect, I guess.” I finally raise my eyes, because I don’t understand his reaction, and he adds, “But why did that upset you so much, after all this time?”

“Everything with Mr. Solomon happened, and—”

“Oh God, of course.” My dad flushes, and for the first time since we started talking, he looks ashamed. “Of course. Jesus, you saw the poor guy lying dead in his living room, and I just let you fend for yourself afterward, didn’t I?” His voice gets rough. “I’m sorry, Tripp. I’ve gotten way too used to how good you are at looking out for yourself. I would’ve drunk a whole cabinet worth of liquor too.”

There’s a brief moment when I think, Actually—when I’m on the brink of telling him what the real problem was, and what I believed about him for almost four years. Then I let the moment pass, because I can’t imagine any scenario where he’s not gutted by that information. Instead I say, “I just want to understand why, Dad. Why’d you take the money? I mean, I know we could always use it, but we’re not—”

“Tripp,” Dad interrupts. “I didn’t take it.”

I blink at him, confused. “But you just said…”

Except he didn’t say he’d taken it. He said, I wondered if you were the one who brought it back to Saint Ambrose, but you never said anything, so I hoped it was…Well. That would’ve been too much to expect, I guess.

Of course. Of course.

“Lisa Marie?” I ask.

He nods. “She grabbed it at your spring concert. I didn’t know that at the time, of course. She was supposed to leave the next day, but she didn’t. Kept hanging on at Valerie’s.” His jaw twitches. “I ran into her in the supermarket a week later, which pissed me off, because she’d barely spent any time with you while she was here. I went by Valerie’s to give her a piece of my mind, and she had the damn envelope sticking out of her bag.

Didn’t try to hide it, even though every parent at school knew it was missing by then.”

I stare at him, wordless, as he continues, “So I brought it home. I was trying to figure out the best way to give the money back, when it disappeared and turned up at school. I told myself your mom must’ve had a change of heart, that she stopped by to apologize when I wasn’t home, and she took the money and returned it.”

Dad huffs out a mirthless laugh at whatever expression is on my face. “Yeah, I know. That’s about as likely as pigs learning to fly, but I wanted to believe it. Mostly because the only other option was that you’d found it, and I didn’t want to have that conversation with you. I’m sorry, Tripp.” He exhales in a gust. “I’ve avoided a lot of hard conversations with you over the years.”

“But…” I’m sifting through my memories, trying to make sense of them. “Mr. Larkin…he was looking into the theft, and he…” No. I can’t tell Dad I overheard that argument; it’ll bring us way too close to the truth of what I was willing to believe.

Dad picks up without me having to finish, though. “He knew it was your mom. A kid saw her and came forward. I tried to convince Will to keep quiet. Not just because it’d be rough for you at school if people found out your mom took the money, but also…all I could think was how hurt you’d be if you knew she was around that whole time and never stopped by to see you. Will wouldn’t budge, though. I was furious with him at the time, but in retrospect, of course he was right.” Dad heaves a sigh. “Then he died before he could say anything, and I took the coward’s way out and kept quiet.”

He kept quiet. That’s my father’s gravest sin. Not murder, not even theft. Keeping quiet because he didn’t want me to know how little my mother cared. Which doesn’t even make it onto my mental checklist of Reasons Why My Life Sucks, because last week she showed me herself. The only surprise is that she wasn’t lying at Shooters when she said she’d been in town when Mr. Larkin died.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have thought it was you.”

“Why not?” Dad asks. “It’s not like I ever told you what was going on. What were you supposed to think when you found that money in our house? The thing is, Tripp—I haven’t known what to say about your mom for a long time. I don’t understand her. I could never explain why she acts the way she does, so I stopped trying. And that not-trying spilled over to almost everything else between you and me, and…here we are.” He taps one of the empty bottles with his knuckles. “You skip a week of school, drain an entire cabinet full of hard liquor, and I don’t notice. You don’t have to be sorry for anything, but I do. I am.”

“I kind of do, actually.”

Actually. Here’s that moment again. Actually, Dad, I thought you did a lot worse than theft, and that’s why I’ve basically ignored you for four years and spent every waking moment trying to leave Sturgis and get as far away from you as possible.

“No, you don’t,” he says emphatically, with more of a spark in his eyes than I’ve seen in a long time. “I’m not letting you feel bad about any of this, Tripp. I’m the adult in this situation, and you get to be the kid. At least one of your parents should let you be the kid. Better late than never, right?”

I haven’t felt like a kid since that day in the woods, and it doesn’t seem like something you can get back. Still, I meet his gaze, swallow hard, and say, “Right.”

“Okay,” Dad says. He gets to his feet and gathers all the empty bottles in his arms. “How about I recycle these and we order some Golden Palace for dinner?”

He gives me a tired, tentative smile that I mirror back. “Sounds great,” I say.

The moment passes again. Maybe this time for good.