And he was married once before. He was married to a woman whose father defended bad men—even if he thought it was a little simplistic to call them bad men, even if he thought it was incomplete. He accepted his father-in-law’s work because he was married to this man’s daughter and that’s who Owen was. Owen accepted his father-in-law out of need, out of love, and maybe out of fear. Though he wouldn’t have named it as fear. He would have named it, incorrectly, as loyalty.
Here’s what else I know. When Owen lost his wife, it all changed. Every single thing changed.
Something broke open in him. And he became angry. He became angry with his wife’s family, with her father, with himself. He was angry about what he’d allowed himself to turn a blind eye to—in the name of love, in the name of loyalty. Which is part of the reason why he left.
The other reason is that he needed to get Bailey away from that life. It was primal and it was urgent. Keeping Bailey anywhere near his wife’s family felt like the greatest risk of all.
Knowing all that, here’s what I may never know. If he’ll forgive me for what I feel like I have to risk now.
The Never Dry, Part Two
The Never Dry is open now.
There is a mix of the after-work crowd, a few graduate students, and a couple on a date—spiky green hair for him, tattoo sleeve for her—completely focused on each other.
A young, sexy bartender in a vest and a tie holds court behind the bar, pouring the couple matching manhattans. A woman in a jumpsuit eyes him, tries to get his attention for another drink. She tries, simply, to get his attention.
And then there’s Charlie. He sits alone in his grandfather’s booth, drinking a glass of whisky, the bottle resting beside it.
He runs his finger along the glass, looking lost in thought. Maybe he’s playing it back in his head, what happened between us earlier, what he could have done differently when he met this woman he didn’t know and his sister’s daughter whom he only wanted to know again.
I walk up to his table. He doesn’t notice me standing there, at first. When he does, instead of looking at me with anger, he looks at me in disbelief.
“What are you doing here?” he says.
“I need to talk to him,” I say.
“Who?” he says.
I don’t say anything else, because he doesn’t need me to clarify. He knows exactly who I’m talking about. He knows who I’m angling to see.
“Come with me,” he says.
Then he stands up and steers me down a dark hallway, past the restrooms and the electrical closet, to the kitchen.
Charlie pulls me into the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind us.
“Do you know how many cops have come in here tonight? They’re not asking me anything yet, but they’re coming in so I can see them. So I’ll know they’re here. They’re all over the place.”
“I don’t think they’re cops,” I say. “I think they’re U.S. marshals.”
“Do you think this is funny?” he says.
“None of it,” I say.
Then I meet his eyes.
“You had to tell him we were here, Charlie,” I say. “He’s your father. She’s your niece. You’ve both been looking for her since the day he took her away. You couldn’t keep that to yourself, even if you wanted to.”
Charlie pushes open the emergency door, which leads to a back staircase and the alley below.
“You need to leave,” he says.
“I can’t do that,” I say.
“Why not?”
I shrug. “I have nowhere else to go.”
It’s true. In a way I’m uncomfortable acknowledging to myself—let alone to him—Charlie is the only shot I have left to make this okay again.
Maybe he senses that because he pauses, and I see him falter in his resolve. He lets the emergency door close.
“I need to talk to your father,” I say. “And I’m asking my husband’s friend to help make that happen.”
“I’m not his friend.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I say. “I had my friend Jules find Ethan’s will for me.” Ethan, using that name. “His real will. And he put you in it. He put you in it as a guardian for Bailey, along with me. He wanted her to have you if anything ever happened to him. He wanted her to have me and he wanted her to have you.”
He nods slowly, taking this in, and for a second I think he is going to start crying. His eyes water, his hands move to his forehead, pulling on his eyebrows, as if trying to stop the tears. These tears of relief that there is a window open to his seeing his niece again—and tears of utter sadness that seeing her for the last decade has been an impossibility.
“And what about my father?” he says.
“I don’t think he wants her to have anything to do with Nicholas,” I say. “But the fact that Ethan put you in there lets me know that my husband trusted you, even if you seem pretty conflicted about that.”
He shakes his head, like he can’t believe this is his reality. It’s a feeling I can relate to.
“This is an old battle,” he says. “And Ethan isn’t innocent. You think he is. But you don’t know the whole story.”
“I know I don’t.”
“So what do you think? That you’re going to talk to my father and broker some peace between him and Ethan? It doesn’t matter, nothing you say matters. Ethan betrayed my father. He destroyed his life and ended my mother’s life in the process. And if there’s nothing I can do to mend this, then there’s nothing you can do either.”
Charlie is struggling. I see it. I see him struggling with what to tell me about his father, what to tell me about Owen. If he offers up too little, I won’t walk away from him. Maybe I won’t walk away if
