Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Do you worry about what’ll happen? If things progress, I mean?” I asked, trying to ignore how Hadrian’s body radiated heat.
Darkness had nearly fallen, leaving us with lightening bugs drifting in and out of the tree line.
Emma had ventured back inside to retrieve another bag of marshmallows, to which I’d said I was good.
Sayer said something about using the bathroom, but I wondered if they wanted to leave Hadrian and I alone for a minute.
Hadrian eyed the last of my s’mores. I offered it to him. I’d ended up in the chair with him. A thin layer of sweat dotted his neck and chest, with one arm looped around my back. He brushed his fingers over my arm.
“You don’t want it?”
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
I was trying. But trying didn’t mean the roadblock was gone.
He gave my arm a squeeze. “Are you sure? You are all right?”
I nodded. Without words, I knew that he knew. Of course he knew.
He polished off the last of mine, licked his fingers. I watched. Then he pulled me into his side and whispered, “I’m proud of you, you know.”
“For what?”
A half shrug. His hand went back to making idle trails along my arm. “For being you.” Then, after a second, “For trying.”
I suppressed the sudden knot in my throat. My only answer was a nod.
And that, somehow, meant more than any string of words could have ever meant.
I’m proud of you for trying.
An old wound itched at his words. “You don’t think I’m too—”
Skinny.
“Do not finish that sentence.” His voice went hard. “You are not too much of anything, Landry.”
I frowned at him. The seriousness in his expression made the tears well up—stupid, persistent tears. “Why did you say that?” I asked with a wet chuckle. This was so embarrassing.
“Say what?”
“Something—so—” I used my shirt’s neckline to dab the tears. “You’re making me cry. Stop it.”
“I hope I’ve never made you do anything.” He gave a soft smile. “It’s all those years of experience you teased me about before.”
Inside the house, Marion Blanchet started playing again. Above, a single bat swooped down from the treetops before twirling back up after a bug.
“For what it’s worth,” I said, taking his free hand and tracing the lines of his palm, “I’m glad that Bunny locked you in that room.”
His expression turned thoughtful. Mouth softened. “I thank her every day for giving me the chance to meet you.”
I clutched his hand with both of mine. “So.”
“Mm?”
“You never answered my question.”
“Ah, you’re trying to ruin the moment. I see.”
I wiggled his hand until his fingers laced with mine. “I’m serious.”
He sucked on his bottom lip, nodded, expression faltering. “It might change. With time. We will have to see. I feel like the house—the energy, I suppose—is changing with me. Or maybe I’m changing it. And eventually, maybe …” He didn’t finish.
Maybe I’ll vanish, is what he didn’t say.
“Until then, I’m okay with lurking in your corners.” He brought our knotted hands to his mouth and placed a gentle kiss on the back of my hand. “One day at a time. Who knows. It worked for your aunt for a while. If we stick our heads in the sand, perhaps we will have years.”
Sadness threatened to weigh the corners of my smile down.
I saw the moment he noticed: He made a noise in the back of his throat and drew me in until my face tucked in the crook of his neck.
He rocked, gentle, from side to side in the chair, the soft sounds from the woods behind us.
A perfect, quiet infinity, just as I’d had once before.
And like fate, it couldn’t last.
Ever so faint, I heard a voice from the house. No—a shout.
“Get out!” a voice screamed. “I said get out!”
I pulled back. Glanced up to the kitchen window. It had been too loud to come from inside, anyway. No, the voices came from the front lawn.
“What was that?” I started to untangle myself.
“They are not in the house anymore. In the front.” His neck strained—I’d forgotten that he said he was able to hear everything. His jaw set. “Someone’s here.”
Hadrian steadied me as I started for the sunroom door, but then I thought better of it and rounded the back of the house to come out in the front.
I felt the whisper of Hadrian’s presence as he followed.
The front lawn was highlighted in the remains of nightfall, the only light coming from the front porch.
The back of Sayer’s head was the first thing I saw. My legs burned as I walked faster.
“You don’t live here, Carla,” Sayer said. His voice steady.
My mother held a key in her hand, the butter yellow of the porch light making her hair look honeyed instead of fiery. Her car sat parked, crooked, in the middle of the lawn instead of the driveway.
“I should!” She stalked closer, a single finger in Sayer’s face. “I should be here! You two didn’t so much as say hello to Cadence when she was still alive. But here you are.”
Not right now—this couldn’t be happening right now.
“Mom,” I started. But no one so much as blinked.
I hurried to wedge myself between my mom and Sayer. His glasses dangled, pinched, in his hand. Emma barged out the front door, phone in hand.
“I will call the police, Carla,” Emma said, stern.
“You poor thing,” Mom crooned. She only squinted one eye, expression foggy, when she pointed at Emma next. “You’re mad your momma found out what it’s really like to be with Vince, aren’t you? Welcome to the club.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. Hadrian’s steps halted in the house’s shadow.
“I see how it is.” Mom turned to me now, her mouth pulled in a sunken frown. “You bring all your little friends, gloat about what you have all day, and then leave me out on the street, huh?”
Heat flooded my skin. Hadrian’s presence suddenly felt overwhelmingly wide and cavernous behind me. Was this how he felt when I’d gone up the steps and seen the memory of his father? Ashamed? Embarrassed?
I held my tongue. “Mom, I paid for you to have a room for days.”
She scoffed. Started to make her way back to her old Neon. She popped the passenger side and started rummaging through it.
“Why aren’t you there?” I dared a single step closer. The inside of her car was ravaged with trash, used Styrofoam cups and piles of dirty—assumed—laundry. Between the back windshield and upholstered speaker set, a sliver of silver glinted.
My tongue went dry.
The spoon’s bottom was burnt in the middle. She wasn’t just drinking. She was using.
“I’m your mother, Landry. That’s not how this works.” Her voice was muffled.
I caught Emma’s eye and mouthed, Call the police.
She nodded and slipped back inside. Her shadow remained in the foyer, her eyes peeking every few seconds through the stained-glass overhangs.
Hadrian’s hand landed on my shoulder. “Do you need me to—”
“—serves them right, ungrateful sons of—” Mom snarled under her breath. She hauled a red canister from the passenger seat. Liquid sloshed out the bent, dingy spout.
“Hey!” Sayer pushed Hadrian and I aside. “Drop that!”
Like she was a disobedient dog. She only huffed.
“Mom, no. Stop.” I wrenched away from Hadrian, but he grabbed my arm at the last second. Sayer tried to take the can from her, but the spout was already unplugged. She swung it at him. Gasoline sprayed him from shirt to shoes—and the porch.
“Mom!” I shrieked. “Stop! Emma’s calling the police—you can’t—”
“Shoulda done it while you were at that stupid funeral!” she howled.
Her eyes were blotchy, her skin peppered with red marks.
Sayer grabbed the can just as she yanked the nozzle out of the top completely.
Gasoline poured over the porch, the bushes, both my mother and Sayer.
He ripped the can away and tossed it in my direction.
Before I reached it, Hadrian scooped the canister up and tossed it far on the other side of the driveway.
“Nothing but a bunch of spoiled brats!” she shrieked as Sayer caught her by the waist. He hauled her up the front porch, careful to keep her away from the puddle of gasoline.
“Mom, stop it,” I bit. My teeth ground together until dust was sure to fall out of my mouth. The fight, ever so little, seeped from my body. Until I stood at the foot of the steps and she struggled against Sayer, her hair sticking up at all angles.
I looked at the tracks over her forearm. The blown veins that looked like little spiderwebs under the skin. Again. Just like Dad had said.
She has to want to help herself.
“Get inside, please,” Hadrian whispered against my hair. “I can help Sayer with her.”
I shook my head. His words bounced off my skin, fell onto the ground, melded with the gasoline. One wrong light, and we’d all go up in flames.
“I talked to Dad,” I said, broken. I tried to grab her hands, but she swung at me.
“Of course you did,” she spat, all venom. “He called me. You wanna know what he told me about his little girl?”
I braced myself.
“He said to leave you alone, that I doing nothing but ruining your chances. You poor, deprived little thing.” She stopped struggling for a moment.
“You get it all. He threatened me with lawyers, he threatened me with money, with a treatment program—all of it! Are you happy now? You got my sister, my husband, the house! Did you get everything you wanted? Can’t have just Vince keeping tabs on you through Cadence.
You’ve gotta have him wrapped around every finger you’ve got! ”
I reeled at her words. Dad had been keeping tabs on me through Aunt Cadence? Since when? For how long?
A hole, bottomless and gaping, yawned open at the center of my heart. Not an ounce of fight reared inside of me. I was done fighting with her. I couldn’t do this anymore. The only person it was hurting, at the end of the day, was myself.
“No, Mom,” I whispered. “Because the only thing I wanted as a child was you. And I accepted I’ll never get that a long, long time ago.”
She stilled. Stared at me. Her watering eyes trembled; for a split second, I thought she might speak. As if Sayer felt her relax, he relaxed, too—and then she lunged.