Chapter 13 #2
pond now. You have to stand out. Stop trying to be so ordinary and get people to notice you.”
“Easton is anything but ordinary,” Valencia says. She smiles at him, and he returns a half-hearted one of his own.
Gramma Sharon’s eyebrows go up in a manner that says she doesn’t quite believe that, but she lets the subject drop as she
asks Marcus how work is going instead.
The rest of dinner is much calmer as Gramma Sharon backs off of her pushy questions.
Not that I minded them. She wasn’t really pushing me much; she was pushing Easton.
And maybe Easton deserves to be pushed. Valencia talks about him like he’s a genius, but Gramma Sharon did have a point with the small fish in a big pond comment.
After dinner, Marcus and Valencia bring the dishes into the house as Gramma Sharon takes out her cards again.
“Now we play rummy,” she says. “Look up that one.”
“Isn’t that what we were playing before?” I ask.
Gramma Sharon shakes her head. “We were playing gin rummy. Gin rummy is a two-player game. Rummy you can play with up to five.”
So again, I look up the rules. Marcus and Valencia return with the pies and dessert plates. Gramma Sharon hands me the cards
and tells me to deal while she cuts the pies.
“But don’t deal in Easton,” she says. “He cheats.”
Across the table, Easton rolls his eyes.
“He was seven, Mom,” Valencia says.
But Easton doesn’t care. “It’s fine, JT and I are going out soon anyway.”
So I deal in Marcus and Valencia, leaving out JT and Easton. Gramma Sharon hands me a plate with two huge slices of pie on
it, then asks everyone else what they want.
She was serious when she said she wanted me to eat pieces of both pies, and despite how full I am from dinner, I can’t help
but try both. They’re delicious.
After dessert—and after Marcus wins one out of the four rummy games we play, while Gramma Sharon wins the rest—Easton and JT say they’re going to a friend’s house.
“Call us if you need a ride home,” Valencia says.
“I’m not drinking, Mrs. B,” JT says.
She gives him a skeptical look. “Smoking weed and driving is still driving under the influence, John Thomas.”
“I promise I will never do that.” He quickly adds, “. . . with Easton in the car.” Then says good night and sprints off the
deck and around the house, leaving only a scowl from Gramma Sharon in his wake.
Easton kisses Gramma Sharon on the cheek, then Valencia and Marcus, and says good night. Shortly after they leave, the sun
sets, and Gramma Sharon stands and puts the remaining pie on a plate, telling Valencia to make sure I eat the rest.
“Nate.” She hands me the empty pie plates. “Walk me out to my car.”
My chest tightens and I look to Valencia and Marcus. They both seem to think this is normal, so maybe I don’t need to be concerned
yet.
I step off the deck and wait for her to say goodbye to Marcus and Valencia, then hold out a hand so I can help her down the
steps. We walk quietly around the house. I expect her to turn to me and tell me she knows I’m full of shit. For police cars
to come flying down the street, lights and sirens blaring as she pulls a badge out of that orange purse of hers and says she’s
a retired detective.
But when we reach her car, parked on the street, she opens the door and takes the pie plates from me. She places them in the back seat and nudges the door shut with her hip.
Then she gives me one more up-and-down look and puts her hands on both my cheeks and holds my gaze.
This is it. Here’s where she looks into my soul and sees that I’m not Nate.
But she smiles and shakes her head. “It’s good to see you again.”
My mouth goes dry and I swallow. She pulls my head down to her and kisses my forehead. Then gets in the car.
“Stay out of trouble!” she yells before shutting the door.
Too late for that, Gramma Sharon. I’m stuck in place as she pulls a U-turn in the middle of the street and heads off into
the night. I’m in plenty of trouble as it is.
You know what? Screw it. I’ve done the damage and taken Nate’s identity. I don’t want to think about the future when I’ll
have to run away again. For the moment, I just want to be here and enjoy this placeholder family.
Maybe I can make a real family like this in the future. As long as I stay out of jail and don’t get caught. But for now, why shouldn’t I accept the
love Valencia, Marcus, Easton, and Gramma Sharon are willing to give?
There’s a whispering voice in my head that tells me it’s wrong, but the warmth in my chest is strong enough to shove it away.
Push it off for now and be done with it.
Because I’ve been homeless for eight months and had shitty parents who thought torture was better than acceptance. I deserve
a break, goddammit.
But standing out in front of the house, alone, I can’t help but feel that familiar eyes-on-me feeling.
I shiver as I look out at the other houses around us.
Lights are on but I don’t see anyone standing in any of the windows.
Miles mentioned that Valencia told the neighborhood LISTSERV that I was back.
Was that what made someone come to the house earlier?
Maybe it was a neighbor who Valencia tasked with watering plants while they were away on vacation and they made a copy of the house key.
And if they were a neighbor, Nate might have trusted them. At school I was taught to never trust an adult who was asking a
child for help. But maybe Nate wasn’t. And when he was outside in his yard that day in July almost ten years ago, maybe a neighbor—someone
he knew—showed up to ask him for help.
If they still live in the neighborhood, it means they kept on watching the family after Nate was gone.
My fear immediately shifts to anger. I want to know who would do this to the Beaumonts. This family who only seem to be trying
their best.
And why break in? Why not kidnap me again or kill me right there?
Maybe because they can’t for some reason. They got away with it before and now they’re worried they can’t. They knew they
could break in, but for now, there’s something protecting me. Something that’s keeping them from doing to me whatever they
did to Nate.
Maybe that something is this family? How much they’re paying attention now?
As I walk back to the deck, the dog barks from the yard next door.
Miles is in his backyard with Chardonnay—seriously, is there a worse name for a dog?
I should do some damage control from earlier. Or maybe it’ll cause more damage if I go over there. Still, I can’t help myself.
I don’t want Miles to be mad at Nate for not remembering him. Even if it’s a lie.
I’ve already told plenty of big lies. One more little one won’t hurt, right?