Chapter 2 #2
Thank God. I never thought I’d be so thankful for another casserole in my entire life. I pushed back from the table, leaving the list behind for Sayer to examine. “I’ll get it.”
I sensed his eyes following me as I walked out.
My sandals whispered over the ornate runners before I reached the front door. Only a faded figure was visible through the frosted glass. Probably another casserole dish—or even a pie—that I didn’t have room for.
I patted my hot cheeks in an effort to calm down, then opened the door.
“Hello—”
“Landry!” a voice shrieked.
A body slammed into mine. Saturated vanilla and peony drenched my nostrils. My joints locked. I knew this smell—this touch. The blond hair that poked my eyes and stuck to my mouth.
“Emma?” I pulled back.
“Surprise!” My half sister’s gold bracelets shook with jazz hands, those familiar, rich eyes sparkling like seltzer water.
Emma, here, in the foyer. With a rolling suitcase behind her, and a single bag strap thrown over her shoulder. Her jeans hung on her lean hips, and a pastel blue, baby doll T-shirt contrasted perfectly against her vitiligo. Happy, helpful, sunshine-breathing Emma.
“You’re here,” I whispered. Blossoms of light shriveled to worry.
Emma was here.
“You’re not happy.” Her smile faltered.
“No!” I exclaimed a bit too loudly. Could she feel the lie in the air?
I grabbed for her suitcase, spine tense, and shooed away her offer of help. “Just surprised. I didn’t—you said you were going to Florida for a bit?” That was why she couldn’t make the funeral.
“I lied,” she tittered. She squeezed my shoulder before closing the front door. From my peripheral, Sayer emerged at the end of the foyer.
They both squealed with excitement.
I hauled her suitcase into the corner beside the grandfather clock and waited for Emma and Sayer to finish bouncing in place.
A dark, roiling feeling started in my stomach.
Emma, here. Emma, in this house. The thought of her pressing, if only a little, made my hands shake.
I held onto her luggage handle to steady them, then turned.
“You didn’t tell me Emma was coming by,” Sayer said. A shade of hurt flickered in his expression. The two of them, almost identical in height, looked to me.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” she clarified. “I didn’t want Lanny to refuse me.”
“I wouldn’t have,” I countered. And it was the truth. Having another familiar face at the funeral would have been nice. But I shoved the thought down.
Her chocolate eyes narrowed. “I called you twice.”
“We’ve been busy with things,” I said. We stood in a triangle, examining one another, and all I could picture was us as children. At Sayer’s house or here in the backyard, in town at the library with Aunt Denny bent over a child-sized table, reading from a notebook page.
Be wary the beds and the space beneath, Aunt Cadence’s voice whispered. The cracks in the floors and the furnace teeth.
The grandfather clock chimed twice.
“Of course,” she said, a bit solemn.
Keep your eyes from the shadows and tongue so still.
“That’s why I came anyway. To stay for a bit.”
Because once Harthwait grows dark, the monsters become real.
I wish I had that same power now: to tell Emma such a trivial nursery rhyme to scare her away for the night. Or maybe my aunt had secretly wanted to be alone, and that’s why she’d read us those scary stories.
Maybe she hadn’t really wanted us around after all.
“Well, I’m sure.” Emma gave a look, something mixed with empathy and frustration.
“Are you staying?” I asked. That was not the consolation I needed. Even Sayer wasn’t staying in the house with me.
The thought made my guts bottom out. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d looked down and they lay in the middle of the floor.
Emma nodded. Her teeth were white and straight, minus one incisor. It stood a bit higher than the rest, crowded around its neighbors.
Her next words were gentle but honest. Like the grit of sand beneath your fingernails after a long day on the beach.
“Vince told me I should come visit for a bit. He said he tried to call but you never answered.” A shrug.
Unsaid words settled between the three of us.
“I cashed in my vacation and everything! I mean, I’m remote, so I guess it didn’t make much of a difference.
But no more flying to meetings!” She said it like I should be jumping in place.
How could I, when my father sent her in his stead as emissary?
He’d never wanted anything to do with me himself.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that it hadn’t changed now.
Emma would tell you that she was the product of an affair. Sort of.
My father was the man you might read about in unhinged online articles. The one leading two lives: one where he decided to marry my mother, the second where he had a girlfriend, and neither knew the other existed.
Emma’s mother, Penny, got pregnant by my father nine months before he decided to marry my mother.
Not only did he move in with his new bride, but he moved in with Penny, too, in an effort to “be a supportive father.” For years, he kept both lives separate, banking on work trips and late hours to keep his wife and girlfriend in different corners of his life.
The diligence to keep both secrets amazed me—and not in a good way.
My mother found out about Emma and her mother just after my fifth birthday. Emma was six at the time. There were only so many business trips, missed softball games, and midnight phone calls one could have before someone grew suspicious.
What haunted me the most was not how everyone found out, but what occurred afterward.
I remembered the moment my mother stood crying at our back door, watching as the headlights to his truck flickered on and disappeared down the driveway. Because he chose Penny and Emma over my mother and me.
Everything else from my childhood had been a blur.
The only buoy of happiness was our family dog, Belvedere.
A cane corso, if I remembered right. I used to sit on his haunches while Vince, when I still called him Dad, and I walked to the mailbox in the morning.
The driveway snaked this way and that. Belvedere walked tall and sturdy.
I’d used him as a pillow, a horse, a prince, and dress-up mannequin more often than not.
Belvedere was put down the day my mother found out about the affair.
Happy birthday, indeed.
After my parents had officially separated, Penny and my mom met one time at the park. Emma and I had gotten along well enough, and my hesitance toward her softened when she called our father a jerk.
“Mommy chose him over Mike,” Emma said. Her brow wrinkled, eyes nearly black as she squeezed the soccer ball she’d brought. “I hate him.”
“You do?” I hovered by the goal post. In the distance, my mother waved her hands as she spoke to Penny, who remained seated on a bench.
“Well, duh. Mommy says he’s my daddy, but Mike has always been my daddy.” She squeezed the soccer ball so hard that it shot out of her hands and rocketed down the field. She stomped after it, ponytail swinging.
Only when I was older did I realize Emma had admitted her mother had been in a long-term relationship, too. She’d always assumed Mike had been her dad—and it seemed Mike had thought the same, until my father came into the picture.
Her fiery attitude made me follow her down the soccer field that day. She kicked the ball farther and farther before turning and kicking it to me.
One word led to another. I asked her about her mom, if she cried a lot at night, too, or if she didn’t cry since Dad was there.
At one point, she asked me if I ever got angry, and I said sometimes, when the kids at school were mean.
Emma told me she’d been bullied because of her vitiligo.
I told her I was bullied because of how little I was.
Things shifted, like broken china pieces, bloodied, jagged edges touching one another’s until they found a place to fit.
Over the years, Emma and I kept in touch.
Emma’s oldest half brother, Mason, was twenty-two at the time.
Emma managed to persuade Mason into driving her over for playdates until cell phones were allowed.
Through high school, we kept tabs on my father’s extramarital affairs via social media (on my behalf) and physical stalking (on Emma’s behalf).
By the time we were accepted at USC, we had a six-year-long text thread dedicated to our father’s adventures.
“We need to keep tabs in case we run into these people in the wild,” she said one night over a bucket of Neapolitan ice cream. “You never know when the opportunity to embarrass him might strike.”
I’d pushed my ice cream around in my bowl. “I don’t think we’ll ever be so lucky.”
The TV flickered blues and grays and whites from the other side of the room. Her eyeliner was smudged in deep crescents under her eyelashes. “To pin a cheater? Like him? Never. But it’s worth a shot.”
“Your mom won’t leave him, though,” I said. Penny chose to act oblivious. Vince would never, ever step outside of our marriage, she said. When she really should have said, His money is too, too important for me to get rid of him.
“Nah,” Emma grunted. “She won’t.”
“Where you heading? I could come.” Emma trailed after me, off the front porch and down the cobblestone path.
I carried a small box of knickknacks on my hip toward my SUV.
A few ceramic chickens rattled inside—Aunt Cadence had a penchant for them.
I’d never gotten a chance to ask why. Meredith, a shop owner in Stetson, took donations no matter the day, and she’d never once turned one down.
I figured donating what I could to Meredith would be easier than reselling them myself.
“Out,” I said, pointed. I tried to keep my expression soft. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m positive.”