Cassidy didn't have a response to that.
Harlow leaned her head against Cassidy's shoulder.
"I miss Papa."
The words left Cassidy's mouth before she could stop them.
Harlow's arm slid around her waist.
"Me too."
"Every day." Vivienne's voice cracked on the second word. "I think about him every single day."
"He would have known what to say," Sabrina murmured. "He always knew."
Cassidy felt something break inside her. Some wall she'd been building for two years, brick by brick, higher and higher to keep everything out.
"I was in detention when he died."
The confession hung in the evening air.
"I was serving detention for calling Mr. Harrison a pretentious windbag, and Papa was dying in a hospital bed, and I wasn't there."
"Cass..." Harlow's arm tightened.
"Vivi was at a photoshoot. She didn't know. That's different. But I was just... I was in stupid detention for a stupid comment about a stupid teacher, and I should have been there."
"You couldn't have known."
