Like Lance Gamble, she’d died officially married.

I hadn’t heard those names in years.

And finally, there was the kicker.

A further three million dollars was bequeathed. Money that would be held in trust with Adeline June Forrester Aubrey as executor and given to Brooklyn True Flynn on his twenty-fifth birthday.

My hands were spasming in both Toby’s and Izzy’s.

Toby held strong.

Izzy’s was rippling right back.

“And that’s it,” Barry declared, dropping the papers and taking off his glasses to look side to side. “Our firm, as executor, will make all arrangements. This should be concluded by the end of next week.”

He stood but did it with his eyes Izzy and my way.

“June asked me, with respect, to request of you, also with respect, to allow your father a moment of your time. It was June’s wish, and obviously mine that you know if this is something you feel you cannot do, you may leave at your convenience. Also, if you’d like to stay, Jason can take the necessary information from you now so that we can arrange for the transfers and finalize setting up the trust for Brooklyn. If you need to be on your way, we’ll phone you. Now,” he shoved his chin in his throat, glanced at the man who had been sitting next to him, and finished on a mutter, “we’ll take our leave.”

With that, the other guy got up and they started taking their leave.

Apparently, we were going to take our leave too, because Toby pulling me from my chair and Johnny pulling Iz from hers tore our hands apart.

“Please don’t.”

A woman’s voice. Soft. Imploring.

The wife.

God, God, God.

“Those were my words,” Johnny returned.

“Honey,” Iz said softly.

“Let them go, Fonda.”

Our dad.

God, God, God.

His voice.

Even speaking, it was like a song.

I’d always so totally got how Mom fell and did it hard.

Totally.

Toby started tugging me to the door.

“We have no children,” the woman called urgently. “He’s arranged to leave you everything too.”

My head turned to look at her.

“Except for, um . . . what he’s leaving to me,” she finished.

God, God, shit.

Johnny was out the door, dragging Iz behind him. My sister was almost through it, and we were on their heels.

“I’m sorry.”

I stopped dead, Toby’s arm reaching both our arms long because he didn’t until he couldn’t keep going because I was dug in.

Izzy was dug in too.

I looked to him.

My father.

The man I once called Daddy, and sometimes when he was in the mood to deserve it, did it happily.

“It haunted me, tortured me, what I did to my Daphne.” He shook his head. “You don’t care. You shouldn’t care. I got help. You don’t care about that either. And you shouldn’t. I left you alone. I was in no state to be with you girls and I thought you were better off without me. Daphne would take care of you. Daphne lived for you girls. I learned later, when I went looking for her, I learned I shouldn’t have. She was . . .” he swallowed.

“When she passed, it tore him apart,” the woman put in.

“Adeline,” Toby growled, pulling on my hand.

“I know you can’t forgive me, I’m not going to ask. I can’t ask her—” His voice got lost in being choked. “I no longer can ask her to forgive me,” he forced out. Then anguish filled his face. “Jesus Christ, you both look just like her. Just like her. She was so . . . I’m just glad for Daphne you look just like her and got nothing from me.”

“Adeline,” Toby snarled, and an equally scary warning noise was coming from Johnny.

The woman, Fonda, held up her hand our way.

“Thank you,” she said. She put that hand to her belly. “Thank you for letting him say those things.”

With that, I was pulled out of the room.

 

“He apologized,” Toby barked into the cab.

“Oh my,” Margot said through the dash.

I did not call Margot when we were on the road.

Toby did.

Through his truck.

“Said he got help,” Toby went on.

“This sounds . . . not bad,” Dave, since Margot was on speakerphone so he could listen in, shared carefully.

“Got balls to even look at ’em,” Toby ground out.

“Tobias—” Margot started to chide.

“Yeah, sorry I beat the shit outta your mom. Sorry you saw her all fucked up. Sorry your sister actually saw me do that shit. Sorry you lived without or made do for, I don’t know, basically you’re whole fuckin’ life. I got help. All good now. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to forgive me. My mom just left you money and I’m gonna do that too, so I’ll feel better even though I can’t erase warmed up soup and bullies bein’ assholes at school and all the other shit you had to eat because of me,” Toby said sarcastically ending on a very not sarcastic, “The manipulative fuck.”

No one said anything.

Until Dave did.

“Son, maybe best you come right to us when you get back to Matlock.”

“I’ll get that, David,” Margot could be heard murmuring as well as a phone ringing in the background, “Probably Eliza. Or Johnathon.”

“Tobe,” David called. “Did you hear me?”

“We gotta get Brooklyn from Deanna and Charlie,” Toby reminded him.

“If Deanna and Charlie want to come over too, they’re welcome, as always,” Dave replied.

“Right.”

“See you in coupla hours, son.”

“Later, Dave,” Toby said.

“’Bye, Dave,” I said.

“Goodbye, child.”

Toby disconnected us.

I gave him time.

Then I urged, “Talk to me.”

“I don’t want that fuck anywhere near Brooklyn,” he declared.

I stared out the windshield.

That was the first father demand he’d ever made.

Although I was uncertain about how I felt about what just happened, I wasn’t uncertain about that.

I loved it.

“You’re an adult, you can choose,” he continued. “I’m at your side, your back, there to listen to you, whatever, you accept that olive branch him and his woman were trying to shove in your face. But you give that bastard a shot, there’s gonna be a long fuckin’ discussion before he gets near Brooklyn, and he does not see you without me. Neither does she.”

“At this point, Brooks has no grandparents, but he does have three million dollars,” I stated cautiously.

“Then who the fuck are Margot and Dave?” Toby demanded.

Shit.

“I mean of blood, not of the heart,” I amended quickly.

Toby said nothing.

I gave him more time.

Then I said, “People change.”

Toby made no reply.

“He didn’t start it, she did,” I reminded him. “He didn’t try to waylay us. He just . . .”

I pressed my lips together thinking about what “he just . . .”

Daphne would forgive.

If the apology is true, my beautiful queens, a genuinely kind heart is an open heart you never close against anybody.