Chapter 3: Four Words
"I can't do this."
That was what he said.
Four words, barely above a whisper, but the way he said them — flat, exhausted, final — made something tighten in my chest.
I kept my hand near my radio but didn't reach for it yet.
"Can't do what, Radley?" I asked.
He pushed the door open the rest of the way and leaned against the frame.
Up close he looked worse than I'd first thought.
His shirt was clean but too loose on his shoulders.
There were shadows under his eyes that came from more than one bad night.
"Any of it," he said.
"Keep going.
Keep pretending."
Brenna moved to his side and took his hand.
She didn't say anything.
She just held it.
That single gesture told me more than anything either of them had said.
"How long have you two been living like this?" I asked.
Radley looked at the bare walls of the hallway.
"Brenna's whole life.
Longer for me."
"And before Brenna's mother — where is she?"
Something shifted in his face.
Not grief exactly.
Something older than grief.
"Gone," he said.
"Three years ago.
She didn't leave — she just stopped coming back."
I let that sit for a moment.
"Did you report her missing?"
"I did." He almost smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"They found her in Tacoma.
She didn't want to be found.
She didn't want to come back.
That was the end of it."
Brenna was still holding his hand.
She wasn't looking at him.
She was looking at me.
"He stopped eating again," she said quietly.
"Three days.
I counted."
Radley closed his eyes.
"Brenna—"
"You told me to tell the truth," she said.
"That's the truth."
I looked at the kitchen again.
The single pot.
The near-empty refrigerator.
The folding table with two chairs that looked like they'd come from a church donation bin.
"Radley, I need you to be straight with me," I said.
"Last night — what did you tell her you were going to do?"
He was quiet for a long moment.
Long enough that Brenna's grip on his hand tightened.
"I told her I didn't know how much longer I could hold on," he said.
"I didn't mean — I wasn't saying I was going to do something.
I just meant I was tired.
I'm so tired."
"Tired of what?"
He looked at Brenna.
Then back at me.
"Of failing her," he said.
"Every single day.
I look at her and I see everything I haven't been able to give her.
Decent shoes.
A real bed.
Food that isn't whatever was marked down at the corner store.
She deserves better than this.
She deserves better than me."
Brenna let go of his hand.
She turned to face him directly.
"Stop saying that," she said.
Her voice was small but it was firm.
"You're the only one who stayed.
You're the only one who always stayed."
Radley pressed his lips together.
His eyes went wet.
I took a slow breath and made a decision.
"I'm not here to take anyone away," I said.
"I'm not here to file a report that makes your life harder.
I'm here because Brenna asked me to come, and she was right to ask.
But I need to understand what's happening before I can help."
Radley looked at me for a long moment.
Then he stepped back from the doorway.
"You'd better come in," he said.
The room behind the door was small.
A single bed — a real one, the only real piece of furniture I'd seen in the house.
Neatly made.
A milk crate beside it holding a lamp, a library book, and a photograph face-down on top of the stack.
I didn't touch the photograph.
But I noticed it.
"Sit down," Radley said.
He pulled the room's only chair toward me and sat on the edge of the bed.
Brenna stood in the doorway.
"How did you end up here?" I asked.
"In this house.
In this situation."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"That's a long answer."
"I've got time."
He looked at his daughter.
She gave him a small nod.
And then Radley began to talk.
And what he told me in the next twenty minutes made me understand why Brenna had been so careful to say: *if you see it for yourself, they won't be able to pretend it isn't happening anymore.*
May you like
Because someone had been pretending for a very long time.
And that someone was not Radley.
