What Happened to the McCrays?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

Casey woke up extra early that morning. She didn’t want to miss Kyle. Not that she planned to talk to him, it would be unfair to walk over there and say another goodbye. He’d stayed away because she said that’s what she wanted, but she had to lay eyes on him once more before she left. So she waited in the living room with her coffee and watched through the window as he carried his thermos and a clipboard out to his truck. Then she watched his shoulders sag at the thick layer of frost on his windshield before he dug out a scraper and went at it. He moved like he was in a hurry, until the train horn blasted.

Perhaps for the first time ever Casey was relieved to see it was a slow train. It gave her a few more minutes with him, even if it was just her staring at the back of his head. She wondered if he’d seen the good news in the local paper that morning: Robar’s lawsuit to protect his rights had worked. The city had settled for an undisclosed amount and the toilets could stay. Kyle had gone after those college kids that night because, in his mind, they were belittling the place that had always been home to everyone he cared about. Charlie had believed Robar’s garden was part of the fabric of his hometown. They’d both be happy to know it wasn’t going anywhere.

The longer Kyle sat at the crossing the more she found herself willing him to look back or turn around. But he didn’t. She swallowed the ache in her throat as the last boxcar passed and said a silent goodbye when he drove away.

Next she went to work on breakfast. She had prepared Overnight French Toast, one of her mom’s old recipes that had always been a favorite of Wyatt’s. For the last eight hours thick slices of brioche had been soaking in eggs, cream, and vanilla. She placed it in the oven, then squeezed fresh orange juice.

It was vitally important to her that this breakfast with Wyatt go well. For the last ten days he’d given her the cold shoulder. The news about her moving away had sent him over the edge— Utica? You GOTTA be kidding me. Especially when he found out she was moving there to live in a small efficiency apartment and work as a long-term sub in an alternative high school. Let me get this straight. You’re moving to a town that’s surrounded by prisons, so you can live in a shitty apartment and be a substitute teacher for juvenile delinquents. When she started to make her case for a fresh start helping vulnerable kids, he’d held up a hand, about-faced his chair, and left the house.

She thought he’d come around, especially as her departure date loomed larger, but nothing had changed. He did everything she asked—went through the list of household bills, made a plan for maintenance—but he’d done it all with barely concealed anger and sarcastic remarks designed to bait her into an argument: Did you know the crime rate in Utica is like sixty percent higher than the rest of the U.S.? But their high school graduation rate is—wait for it—almost seventy percent now, so there’s that. And he’d hardly participated in the going-away party Angie threw for Casey last night. Granted, it was pretty subdued, everyone scrambling for kind and hopeful things to say about her new home and job. Truthfully her send-off had felt more like a funeral than a party.

But all the wheels were in motion. She had a start date for her new position, she’d signed a lease, she’d packed her things, including Charlie’s box and all his favorite items from his room to take with her. Sure, she had doubts. That was bound to happen after living in the same place for forty years—since birth. There was a lot of need in Utica, in the schools and in the community, and she could be useful there.

Wyatt came in while she was setting the table. He swung the back door shut and did a double take when the harp didn’t sound.

“I packed it,” Casey said. “I want to take it with me. If that’s okay.”

He shrugged and headed for the coffeemaker. “At least it’ll warn you when escaped inmates or your students try to break into your apartment.”

She rolled her eyes but said nothing. Other than the harp, her clothes, Charlie’s things, and Star, she wasn’t taking much from the house. The pet-friendly apartment she’d rented was furnished, and she and Wyatt had no plans to do anything with the house in the near future. It was paid off and the real estate taxes were cheap. They had time to make that decision.

While Wyatt fixed his coffee and took his place at the table, Casey pulled the French toast from the oven, relieved to see it was baked to golden and puffy perfection. She set it down before Wyatt, and when he just stared at it with the same rigid expression he’d worn for the last week and a half a sense of desperation began to build. She didn’t want to leave today without fixing things with Wyatt.

“Is there anything else you need before I go?” she asked, taking her seat across from him. “We can make a run to town if you want more food or—”

“I’m good.”

She nodded. “Are you sure you don’t want Star to stay here until you move? She likes keeping you company all day.”

“No. You’re going to need a good watchdog.”

She didn’t know if that was just another dig, or if, even while he was angry, he still worried about her. Either way she felt herself deflate, along with her hope that he’d warm up this morning. They’d had plenty of arguments over the years, but they got over them quickly. This was different. He seemed prepared to let her go without resolving this.

But she couldn’t let that happen. She sliced into the French toast and served him a piece.

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

“Come on, Wyatt. It’s Mom’s old recipe.”

“Sorry, I don’t want any. You have some.” He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. He held her gaze though, and arched his eyebrows, daring her to challenge him. Same thing he’d been doing all week.

Her determination to not let him press her buttons was slipping away. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I leave this morning.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“You’re being cruel,” she said, tossing the serving spoon on the table.

“Am I? Because I won’t lie to you, like everyone else at that party ”—air quotes—“last night? Because I won’t tell you you’re doing the right thing by going to Utica?” He shook his head. “I’ve never been dishonest with you, Casey. I’m not going to start now.”

That’s what was so disturbing. She’d always been able to count on two things with Wyatt: he had her best interest at heart, and he would be truthful with her. Which made it so much harder to leave without his blessing. Or, at the least, his understanding. So she decided not to drop it. “What gives you the right? You’re leaving. Why is it so bad that I’m leaving?”

“You’re leaving for the wrong reasons.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“Because I know you. God, give me a little credit. I’ve lived with you my whole life, and here’s what I know.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, ready to get into it. “I know what you do every morning.”

She felt herself flinch.

He nodded, his eyes digging into hers. “I know you blame yourself for what happened to Charlie, and you sit up there in his room every day”—he pointed to the ceiling—“torturing yourself with pictures and videos, running all kinds of shit on yourself about how it was your fault, and now you don’t deserve a shred of happiness. I know that’s why you sent Kyle away. You think you have to choose the pain. It’s why you’re moving to a place where no one knows you, so you can wallow in it.”

She shook her head, but not in denial. She just couldn’t think of one argument to make. All this time she’d had no idea he was paying such close attention.

He raked both hands through his hair, then let them drop to the table. “I’ve watched you punish yourself for four years, Casey. And that’s not living. It’s just waiting to die.” His voice broke on that last word, and she knew he was thinking about finding her in the bathroom that terrible night.

She looked down at her scar, ran her thumb over it. That’s what he was afraid of, that going to Utica was just another way of removing herself from his life, from everyone’s life. She supposed he was right. She might have told herself it was to stop being a burden to everyone, especially him and Kyle, but the ugly truth was she wanted to be left alone with her pain.

“Maybe I’m selfish,” Wyatt said. “But I want more than that for you. And you know what? So would Charlie.”

She pulled back in her seat, stunned he would use Charlie against her.

But then a much bigger thought struck her. She had never, not one time, thought about what Charlie would have wanted for her.

He softened his tone. “Casey, you can’t let the grief consume all the good—what you and Kyle gave him, what you all had together. The rest of your life shouldn’t be about how Charlie died. It should be about how he lived .”

She drew in the sharpest breath. Is that what she’d been doing? Was she so focused on Charlie’s death she was forgetting how he lived, forgetting all the good? A blinding panic flooded her mind as she considered what her ritual might have cost her…

When she gasped for more air, overfilling her lungs, Wyatt’s brow furrowed, and he said her name, but it barely registered.

She had thought the best way to keep Charlie alive was to punish herself, relive all the mistakes she’d made, dive so deep into the pain she couldn’t see beyond it. But maybe that’s why she sometimes felt like she was losing the exact tenor of his voice, the pitch of his laugh, the light in his eyes… She pushed back from the table and gripped the edge of it, struggling to get enough air.

Wyatt called her name again.

My God, had she forgotten important details about Charlie, about all the good times they had together…

She was aware of Wyatt wheeling his chair around the table, moving next to her, telling her to calm down. But she was dizzy, and she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t understand what was happening to her.

“CASEY.”

She turned to him, and even that small motion made her feel like she could slip out of her seat and pass out on the floor.

“Slow down,” he said. “Watch me, do what I do.” He cupped his hands over his mouth and took deep breaths.

She focused on his face. It felt like her hands were encased in cement when she tried to lift them, so he helped her. She cupped them and imitated him. Then she remembered this was something their mom had shown them forever ago in case they ever needed to help someone who was hyperventilating.

He nodded. “That’s good, keep doing it.”

She did. She watched Wyatt and breathed into her hands and she thought about Charlie. She remembered the first ABC book she read him a million times. She remembered building forts with him out of cardboard boxes, and playing hide-and-seek for hours. She remembered the Nerf gun wars—she and Charlie versus Kyle. The three of them piled on the couch, watching movies on Friday nights. The camping trips, the ski days, the hockey games… All the laughs and hugs and I love yous . The memories were tinged with sadness, but they were also so happy, and she realized something, or remembered a truth she must have forgotten a long time ago. Pain and happiness weren’t mutually exclusive, they could coexist in the same moment, in the same memory. Charlie wasn’t just with her when she was suffering, he was with her when she was smiling too.

Eventually her breathing slowed, and she felt more solid in her seat.

“You okay?” Wyatt asked.

She nodded, dropping her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry, Wyatt.”

“Good thing Mom was a nurse,” he said. They were quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “You know, I think that’s how grief works. You have to feel it so you can heal it, not bury yourself in it. You get through it, and each time it’s a little less. That’s how it was for me when we lost Dad and Mom. It’s how it’s been for me since we lost Charlie.”

Her eyes filled. It was easy to forget sometimes that she and Kyle weren’t the only people who lost Charlie. She had flashes of Wyatt giving Charlie rides in his chair, presenting him with his first set of wooden tools, spending hours figuring out how to navigate the ice so he could play hockey with him. “He loved you so much,” she said.

“Yeah, I miss him like hell. But I was his uncle, I wasn’t his parent. There’s only one person who knows what you go through every day.”

Kyle. It was true. Kyle was the only person who truly shared her pain. Not just the pain of Charlie’s loss, but also the shattering What If questions. They’d been able to alleviate some of it for each other that night after the dance. He could help her heal, if she let him. And she could do that for him.

But she’d sent him away. Twice. She felt the panic start to bubble up again. “I hurt him, Wyatt. So much.”

“It’s not too late,” he said.

But he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know how many times Kyle had reached out to her, put his heart on the line, two and a half years ago and in the last two months, and how many times she’d rejected him. Wyatt hadn’t seen Kyle’s reaction that morning last week when she sent him away. A firmness, maybe a finality, had moved into his face and his words when he told her he would leave her alone. Like he’d given up on her.

“Just go talk to him,” Wyatt said. “Now. Don’t waste any more time.”

She did want to talk to Kyle, tell him what she’d finally realized today. Apologize for… God, so many things. Even if he no longer trusted her or wanted to hear it—she wouldn’t blame him for that—she needed to say it. But she had to think about how to say it first, how to make him understand, begin to restore his faith in her…

“I will,” she told Wyatt. “But I need to do something first.”

Almost four hours later Casey walked into the middle school and headed for the gym. She brought Star with her, which was against the rules, but the only people in the building today would be Kyle and the team.

She wished she’d had time to stop back home and change her clothes. She was still wearing joggers and the tall rubber boots she’d thrown on before running out of the house earlier. But her sense of urgency had grown throughout the morning while she ran the errand she felt was critical for this talk with Kyle. She almost hadn’t been able to pull it off. It had taken some serious begging and a huge tip, since it was last-minute. The whole thing took longer than she thought it would. Her first stop after that had been the garage. When she rushed in there looking for Kyle, Mateo told her he had this meeting at the school.

She heard their voices before she got to the gym and held on to Star’s collar while she listened.

Rosie’s voice rose above the rest. “Where’d you even get that email list, Coach?”

“Our mom was pretty pissed off.” That was Rory.

“Yeah,” Soren said. “You emailed our dad and stepmom but not her.”

Casey peeked around the corner. Kyle’s back was to her. He was on the far side of the room, facing the bleachers where all the kids sat. He pulled his cap off and scratched his head.

“And we can’t have practice that early on Mondays,” Logan said. “I have tutoring after school, and my mom says I can’t miss it.”

“Coach,” Ben said. “You’re bad at this.”

“All right, that’s it,” Kyle said, jamming his cap on backward. “One more remark, Landy, and I’m making you manager.”

Ben held up his hands in surrender.

“Look,” Kyle said, raising a clipboard. “I’m going to send this around, and I need you to write down your parents’ correct email addresses.”

Casey shook her head. As if these kids would all know their parents’ email addresses.

“I don’t know my parents’ email addresses,” Will said.

“Me either,” Logan said.

Ben raised a hand. “Ditto.”

It was probably anxiety but Casey couldn’t stop herself from laughing. She pulled back around the corner so she wasn’t noticed, but her grip on Star’s collar loosened.

Star took advantage and pulled out of her grasp.

“ Star ,” Casey whispered.

But Star never looked back.

Kyle sighed and let the clipboard fall against his leg in defeat. “Okay, so much for that. Can we at least talk schedules? Start there?”

None of the kids answered because they’d noticed Star trotting toward them.

Casey figured she had to come out of hiding now. She took a deep breath and started across the gym.

“Hey,” Kyle said to the team. “Are you guys even listening to me?” Then he turned to see what had captured their attention.

It felt like all their eyes landed on her at the same time, Kyle’s and the kids’. Which is when she began to question her plan here, even while she made her way toward them.

When Kyle called out to her he sounded a little dazed. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”

She didn’t respond, just kept walking and considered her next move. All the kids were watching her, and she wondered if she was prepared to do this in front of them. Maybe she should excuse herself, grab Star—or leave her, since she was moving toward the kids’ eager, outstretched hands—and wait for their meeting to end…

Kyle gestured to the team. “Did you come to say goodbye?”

She stopped next to him, looked at the kids, who meant so much to her, and couldn’t believe she’d planned to leave without a goodbye. There’d been a lot of moments lately when she’d been somewhat shocked at her own behavior. But she reminded herself that it had all helped her get here. So had these kids. That’s when she decided yes, she was going to do this in front of them, and she was going to jump right in.

She turned to face Kyle. “I tracked you with Find My iPhone while you were gone.”

His brows ticked together. “What?”

“That’s why I never separated the cell phone bills. I used the app to locate you. All the time. Every day.”

“Whoa,” Logan said. “Stalker.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “That’s creepy AF.”

Casey glanced over in time to see Will elbowing Ben to be quiet. “I know that’s weird and wrong and I’m sorry,” she said to Kyle. “It just helped to find that blue dot, see where you were. Know that you were okay. And I’m so sorry about the morning after the dance, Kyle. That night was not a mistake, not at all.”

His gaze drifted toward the kids, who were giving each other smirks and raised eyebrows.

Casey kept going. “It’s just, when I woke up, I got scared. For so long I’ve been afraid to let go of the pain and create new memories. I didn’t want to forget…” She trailed off, wondering exactly how to explain it all.

But Kyle nodded. “I know.”

And that was the point. “I know you know.”

He blinked, and she could see it. For the first time he was wondering if she was here for some other reason than to say goodbye.

She stepped closer to him. “I get that I’m a mess, and I can’t even begin to imagine how to make up for how much I’ve hurt you. But I’d like to try. If you’ll let me.”

A wariness moved into his expression, and he angled his head. “What does that mean, Casey?”

“It means I want to stay here. With you. Or leave with you. It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged. “You’re my home, Kyle. And I’d really like to come home.”

He didn’t respond right away, just studied her in the dead silence of the gym while Star and the whole team looked on. When he dropped his head, all her hopes took a nosedive.

She tried to think of what else to say, but, really, she’d said it all. Maybe it was just too late, or she’d pushed him too far away… That almost brought her to her knees, the thought that she’d lost him forever.

When he finally raised his eyes to hers, they were full of doubt. He opened his mouth to speak, and she braced herself. “Are you sure?” he asked, shaking his head like he was just too afraid to believe it.

She was about to blurt out “Yes” but it didn’t feel like enough. Then she remembered the errand she’d run before coming here, her whole reason for doing it. Instead of saying anything she unzipped her jacket and let it fall to the floor. Then she began to roll up the left sleeve of the flannel shirt she was wearing. Kyle’s shirt.

In the periphery she could see the kids’ necks craning her way, wondering what the hell she was doing.

When she finally had the sleeve past her elbow she turned her arm over. Then she ripped off the large bandage she wasn’t supposed to rip off yet.

Kyle’s mouth fell open. He took hold of her hand, lifted her arm, and stared at the tattoo: an overlapping K and C in an elegant black script, similar to the one on his chest. And above the entwined KC there was a simple pair of delicate wings with Charlie inscribed between them. The whole thing covered most of her scar, but not all of it. She’d done that on purpose. The scar was part of her story too.

“I’m sure,” she said.

There was no sweeter sound in the world than Kyle’s shocked laugh as he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. The team cheered like they’d just scored a goal, and Star joined in by barking several times. They held on to each other until Logan spoke up.

“Hey,” he said. “No PDA allowed on school grounds, Coach.”

They pulled apart but Kyle kept his arm around her. She turned to the bleachers and felt her face heat up as she remembered no gossip spread faster than middle school gossip. But she smiled at them. “Sorry for the interruption, guys.”

“That’s okay,” Rosie said.

“Yeah,” Will said, with a lopsided grin while he rubbed Star’s back. “It’s about time.”

The rest of the kids nodded in agreement.

Then Ben stood up. “We just hope this means you’re back on the team, Ms. McCray. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing without you.”