And this was true. I’d heard it. Neither Aunt Wilona nor Aunt Dahlia had made even a vague attempt to hide these comments from Xenia, me, or Mom.

Even in the light of the bar I saw her face get pale, acknowledging this as truth before she said, “She may be a bit hard, Zara, but I promise, she’s good with Zander.”

At that, it was my turn to lean in. “If she was, then why has his aunt been livin’ a county away and he has no clue I exist?” I locked eyes with her. “And he doesn’t, does he, Mom? He has no idea his aunt has been as close as I am. Happy to spend time with him. Happy to tell him, when he was old enough to hear, which would be about now, how his Mom had a beautiful laugh. How everyone liked her. How she had a way with tellin’ a scary story and she knew a million jokes and she had a way of tellin’ those, too. How she had soft hair and shining eyes and she was lookin’ forward to bringin’ him into this world. And how tragic that the one thing in her life she looked forward to was the most important thing she ever had a shot at and she didn’t get it.”

“Please don’t,” Mom whispered. “You know all this is hard on me.”

Was she crazy?

“Hard on you?” I asked, my voice pitching higher and louder. “I lost my sister.”

“I lost my daughter,” she replied, her voice trembling, her eyes getting bright.

I leaned in farther.

“Well, I win because I lost my nephew, too,” I spat.

“Zara—”

“And something else I lost, not that I had much of it in the first place, was any minute amount of respect I still had for you. You knew the deal that was struck. You knew Xenia and I were close. You know what Dad’s like. You knew I wanted to be a part of my nephew’s life. You also knew he was livin’ not far away from me for the last nine years and you never told me.”

“Your father—” she began.

“Yeah,” I snapped. “My father would lose his mind if you went against his wishes and that might put you in a world of hurt.” I leaned back and threw out an arm, my tone turning sarcastic. “And we wouldn’t want that, would we? No way Amy Cinders would put anything on the line for her girls, or apparently her firstborn daughter’s son.”

Another flinch, this one I did not give one shit about, before she rallied with, “You knew how it was.”

“Yeah, I did. I knew exactly how it was for eighteen years because no one shielded me from any of that shit except my sister,” I shot back.

“Get out.”

Mom’s eyes flew over my shoulder and I turned to look, even though from that low, incensed rumble I knew what I would see and I was right. Ham was positioning himself close to my back but his infuriated eyes were locked on Mom.

“I got a right to refuse service,” he stated. “And I’m exerting that right. Get out.”

“Please, um… Mr. Reece?” Mom started and I looked back to her to see she’d slid off her stool and was looking beseechingly up at Ham. “I was trying to have a word with Zara and it’s good you’re here because you should know, too, that Xavier isn’t very happy about what you two might be—”

Ham interrupted her, repeating, “Get out.”

“Really, I need you to listen to me,” Mom begged.

“And, ma’am, I really need you to get the f**k out before I’m forced to eject you myself, and do not test me. I got enough years in bars, I won’t hurt you while I do it but that doesn’t mean you won’t be set out,” Ham returned.

Mom looked at Ham and then looked at me and saw she’d get no help from me so she reached for her purse.

Ham wasn’t done, however.

“Also, a warning, and you take this to your husband. Things are about to get ugly and I mean that legally. You do yourself no favors, and I’d share it with him, if you harass Zara anywhere, but especially at work. You do, we’ll be keepin’ track of that shit startin’ now and you might wanna think of what a judge will think of you keepin’ a boy from his aunt and then hasslin’ her when she decides she doesn’t like that much and does somethin’ about it.”

“So you are. You are gonna fight for Zander,” Mom breathed, eyes wide, face pale, terror written all over her features.

“Know the concept is foreign to you,” Ham replied cuttingly. “But yeah, we’re gonna fight for that boy. We’re gonna do everything we can to get him in a safe place where he’s got love that isn’t f**ked up and twisted.”

“Wilona does right by him,” Mom squeaked, terrified but weirdly holding her own.

“She did, she wouldn’t keep him from his aunt,” Ham said, much the same as me. “Now, you best be on your way, but one last nugget you get to share with that ass**le you live with. Had a word with Dr. Kreiger.”

Man, oh man. Ham was pissed if he was laying this particular nugget on Mom now.

And she knew what that nugget meant because her eyes went so huge, they had to hurt.

Ham didn’t even take a breath before he kept going.

“He still works at County Hospital. He remembers Xenia. He remembers standin’ right there with me, you, that ass**le, and Zara when your husband agreed to put the baby up for adoption. He also remembers bein’ surprised when he approached your man about seein’ to that and your man reneged on that deal. He’s pretty pissed to learn that your man lied to him at the time, sayin’ Zara knew all about the change. And last, he’s all fired up to tell a judge about this, seein’ as he also thought that was a f**kwit move. So another piece of info you can suck up enough courage to tell him that might be useful is, what comes around goes around and I’m gonna make certain he gets his. Now, you got all that?”

This was all true.

Ham wasted no time the day after the funeral in finding Dr. Kreiger, who was the only witness to the deal I made with Dad. Ham didn’t let me come, worried about my state of mind, seeing as my sister had just passed. However, he did fill me in when he got back from the hospital.

And during our meeting with Nina the day before that we had to officially get the ball rolling, Nina filled us in on the fact that Dr. Kreiger wasted no time e-mailing her a scanned letter to the effect that he had, indeed, witnessed the discussion, detailed all that came after, and he was willing to do whatever was necessary to help.

Mom nodded to Ham’s words even as she whispered, “Please don’t do this.”