Chapter 42

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Worry over my sweaty neck and shoulder and a lack of freshness under my arms vied for King of the Hill with the other anxieties on the playground in my mind as I loosely draped my arm across Archie’s back.

“I didn’t mean to hurt Aunt Faye, Justice.”

“I know.”

“She never liked me.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes,” Archie said right away. “But she didn’t really like anybody, only stuff.”

“Oh.”

“I came back to take care of her after I left for that little while. You know when.”

“Yeah.”

“But she didn’t like me being here. She didn’t like it when I was a kid, either. She never hugged me.”

“Never?”

“Not once. Ever.”

I pulled Archie closer. “In all the conversations we’ve had over the past twenty-seven years, you never told me that before.”