Franklin called us back to his house a couple of days later. By us, I mean just me and Amanda. I still don't know how he was able to get her to come into the same room with me. It almost goes without saying that when I pressed him on how he did it he pled the fifth. 'You don't need to know my methods,' he said jokingly over the phone.

It was the same old drive I had to take from my hotel to his house. I always drove past my house on the way. I knew that there were other quicker ways to his house on the hill, but I couldn't help myself. I didn't dare to go in, not after I brought Jimmy home. I only made things worse. Maybe I was being selfish, but Tracey needed to know what her mother did. Maybe I was being whiny, but my wife was a whore. Sorry, I forgot, a slut.

This time we sat at the two chairs that were at opposite sides of the square coffee table. Franklin sat on the third side, only having to swivel his head forty-five degrees to look either of them in the eyes. That, of course, was only possible if the other person looked back. I hoped that I could. I don't know if she could. You know, look back at him.

"Now, I'mma say this 'cause the both of ya'll need to hear this," Franklin started, testily "I'm sick and tired of the bullshit. I am sick of the yelling. You," he pointed at me, Michael. "I'm am sick of your whining and your need to be pitied. Poor me, poor me! You do big things, you make big moves. You really don't need any help to make any decisions. You have done it and your good at it. You don't need any of this shit we're doing right now. You make choices bigger than this everyday, and now you're afraid, gimme a break. But then I thought about it and it all comes back to you wanting to be the center of attention, you wanting that pity-" Franklin put his accusatory finger down as he realized, he'd be interrupted. I'm not quite sure what my face did, but it felt contorted.

"That's right." Amanda spoke those two words mightily from where she sat. Her posture was straight and leaned forward by a few degrees. The look on her face was that of an executive in a corner office. The look on her face made me sick. It must have done something to the other man in the room too. Franklin gave the dirtiest glare I'd ever seen given someone in life to her, right then. She sat back quickly, gulped with nervousness, and shrunk in her spot. For a second, the word meek entered my head for her appearance.

"You don't talk until I tell you to talk. I'm tired of you too." His eyes remained fiercely interlocked with hers. She dare not look away from him lest he do… something she wouldn't like. I knew he wouldn't touch a hair on her head, but she didn't "You have some serious explaining to do. I have heard things about you from your children that are just fuckin' crazy. I heard about the any men that came in and out of that your room in that trailer. Now we know that you fucked up and got knocked up by someone who wasn't him." He pointed to Michael as the word 'him", but kept firm eye contact with her. "You had the kid, and don't get me wrong, I don't fault you for not having an abortion, but now you had a dirty little secret."

"You're right, I did," she said as she started to sob. She convulsed making her hair leap about clumsily atop her head.

"But," his voice was considerably lower though still stiff and commanding, "There was a problem with this little secret. IT was, IS a living, breathing human being, with feelings and importance, who, right now, this second, is probably doing something insane because of this lie that has been her life. You kept it from her and you kept it from Michael." Her convulsions and sobs subsided.

"I wanna know this Amanda, and you ain't gonna run away." I said, "Who is the father?"

"I don't know who the father is. I just know I cheated and that Tracey's not yours." I knew that look on her face. She was lying.

"Why are you lying? It doesn't matter now who it is, but we, Tracey and me, need to know."

"Alright, it's Brad. I had an affair with Brad." I looked into her eyes again.

"WHY are you STILL lying?"

"Fine, alright you want to know so badly. It was Matt Murkowski."

"You mean the man I chased out of town. The man who was beating you up, fucking you up every time he thought you had a contrary thought. I rescued you from that house. It was more like a shithole, but I got you outta there. How could you go back to that."

"I didn't go back to it." Her head dipped down low and I realized immediately that what she was about to say was a source of pain.

"Then what?" I asked, my voice having softened a bit.

"He raped me. Alright, are you happy to know? He raped me." Her head was now completely in her arms. Franklin got up to get some tissues. I heard him mumble something along the lines of 'that's fucked up."

"I'LL KILL HIM!" I see red. Yes, I saw it then, and I see it now. Why didn't she tell me? They'd've found him in pieces along the Yankton River.

"I already did."

"What?" I wasn't the one to say it. Franklin asked it. He'd only left a few seconds ago and I already forgotten his existence.

"Yes, Franklin I did," Her head had risen from the bend in her arm and perched itself on her neck. She sat straight up and spoke with an even voice, which, to me, sounded like a strange mixture of fondness with acute and all-encompassing pain. It was like a sick story. "It happened when I had been married to my asshole for three years. Matt Murkowski was my high school love. I met him when I was a freshman and he was sophomore. We met at second lunch because his class dropped that day.I remember that short haircut he had. I thought he was the cutest boy I'd ever seen and I asked him on a date." Then there was a bitter laugh that I'd never heard from my wife.

She continued, "We went out for three years and fell in love." I cringed violently at that. "He graduated and then I did. I couldn't afford college and I couldn't find a job, so he suggested that I move in with him and work at his uncle's strip club. The plan was that he'd go to school and I'd work to allow us to climb. So I started stripping to keep up my end of the deal. For several months he did his part too. He enrolled in community college went to his classes while I did what I did in the strip club. Then one day he came to me and told me that college wasn't for him and that he wasn't going to pursue it. I remember I said, 'Then what are we going to do? I have been working my ass off and now you want to quit on me?' He said that it was my job to pay my way in his house."

"You shitting me?" I was at a loss as to what to say.

"I'm not, Michael. Anyway after that, we had a big fight and I moved into this shitty apartment on the other side of town. I started performing at another place and it was uneventful for a few months 'til Matt came running back into my life with his blond charm and good looks. He lured me back to his house and we made some very passionate love." She was blushing.

"I moved in with him again, and I stayed with him for some months, but I didn't go back to his uncle's strip club. I stayed at the Western Corral where I met a young man named Michael Townley. I dated Matt and Mike, but I chose Mike after Matt started to put his hands on me."

"I know the rest of the story. You end up marrying me." I really didn't want to hear any more.

"No, you do not. He hit me and he hit some other girl. She called the cops and he got five years. We dated for two and we were married for three when he did what he did to me. He had just gotten out and he didn't know that I was married."

"That don't make it right." Even I knew I was stating the obvious.

She ignored me, "So when he got out he made it his mission to find me. By the time I had been out on the streets selling myself and stopped. He found me, and when I told him that I was a married woman, I even showed him the ring, he just said that he wanted me. And he took me."

"But—" I was interrupted. I looked over to Franklin whose mouth was hanging open with loathing and astonishment.

"SO, I, after he took advantage of me, found a way to get back at him, through a friend of Michael's."

"Lemme guess," Franklin said with his usual knowing look, "Trevor Phillips."

"But—" I was interrupted again.

"I didn't tell Trevor why I needed him gone. So, Trevor did it for me."

"Did you pay him?" The amount of things I didn't know could be a story.

"Of course not, he said, 'Anything for a lady.' I asked him not to tell you about it and evidently he didn't."

"So why didn't you tell me this? Any of this?" Franklin would later tell me that there were tears in my eyes. I didn't feel them.

"We were just married, and… and I didn't want to ruin anything. So I kept the baby and said it was yours. I never hated Tracey because what happened. It wasn't her fault."

"No, it wasn't, but now what do we do. Now that she knows that she's not my biological daughter."

"I don't know."

We both looked at Franklin. He sighed and shook his head.