Chapter 9
9
Christa
A month can go by in a blink when you’re having fun.
In my case, all sorts of fun.
Professionally, I’m pleased with how well my job is coming along. Despite his initial snark, Colin is turning out to be exactly what I suspected—a brilliant coder, the yin to my algorithmic yang. We have a great team, and the work we’re doing is creating three impressive fintech products.
Personally, I’ve got my feet in two worlds: the past that haunts me to this day and the sweet, yet bitter present. Things with Teagan are as good as ever. They’ll stay that way unless she learns the truth about her brothers and me.
Go easy on her , River writes in a text message.
I smile at the screen and reply with a winking emoji. I don’t know what else to say. My nerves are jittery as I make my way up the front steps of my old house.
You’ve got this , Cassius texts me as well.
This friends-with-benefits thing between us is way more than that. It’s growing into something deeper, and the sexual intensity amplifies everything by a thousand percent. I can’t get enough of them, they can’t get enough of me, yet I know this is all it’ll ever be because a relationship like ours would likely never work in the long term.
Finally, I gather the nerve to knock on the door. A minute later, Aunt Mary opens it and stands motionless before me.
“Christa?”
“Hey, Aunt Mary,” I reply with a small smile. “Long time.”
“Yes. A very long time.”
“You look good,” I tell her, my stomach in knots.
“You, too,” Aunt Mary says, narrowing her brown eyes at me. Her wrinkles have deepened, and I see she’s not bothering with hair dye anymore. Her silver mane is pulled into a loose bun at the top of her head. The mustard-colored cardigan she’s wearing over a brown tweed dress makes her shoulders look small and her back even more hunched than I remember.
“Los Angeles was nice, wasn’t it?”
“Until it wasn’t,” I reply. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch since I got back. It took me a while to settle in and figure out a way forward.”
“Better late than never,” she says, and I don’t miss the snarky undertone. “I just made a fresh pot of coffee. Do you want some?”
“I’d like some, yes. Thank you.”
“Come on in, then.”
I follow her into the kitchen, catching glimpses of my childhood along the way. The house hasn’t changed much over the past seven years, with the exception of a fresh coat of paint and a couple of new pieces of furniture. Everything else is the same as I remember it—midcentury modern and way too dull for my taste.
Her hands shake as she pours me a cup of coffee, then leaves the milk and the sweetener out for me. “I’ve got sugar, if you want. Though I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
There she is.
“I thought I’d lost you for a second,” I mutter and settle for the sweetener. Hopefully, it will soften the bitter taste in my mouth.
“What’s that?”
“Sweetener is fine, thank you,” I say.
She gives me a long look as we settle at the breakfast table, close to the window. The garden looks nice, though I don’t know how she’s able to tend to it, given her condition.
“The boy next door gets fifty bucks a week to clear out the weeds and trim the bushes,” Aunt Mary says, perhaps picking up on my thoughts.
“Samson?” I ask.
“No, they moved out two years ago. Another couple moved in. The Smiths,” she says. “The husband’s a cop; the wife is a hairdresser. Their son is a good boy. Likes to help.”
“I’m glad you’ve got some support here.”
“Never asked for it, but I always welcome it,” she mumbles, her gaze dropping for a moment. “What are you doing here, Christa?”
I give her a confused look. “Honestly, the bare minimum toward my former state-appointed caregiver.”
“I’m your aunt. Your father’s sister. I took you in after they died.”
“Yes. State-appointed caregiver.”
She might’ve pinched a nerve with the whole sugar thing, but I’ve got years’ worth of pent-up rage about the way she treated me. I’d hoped the years we spent apart might’ve made her a tad more introspective, but I’m starting to think I came in with too-high expectations.
“Would you have preferred foster care? Living in squalor while Linda burned through your allowance on crack?” Aunt Mary scoffs. “Please. Christa, I did alright by you.”
“You still don’t see it, do you?”
“What? See what?”
“The way you treated me; the way you spoke to me.”
Aunt Mary shakes her head, but she still can’t meet my gaze. “I did the best I could under those circumstances. Nobody asked me if I wanted to raise somebody else’s kid.”
“You know what? Never mind. I don’t know why I bother.”
“I couldn’t have my own, and then Ben died. By the time you came to me, I was already over the whole raise-a-family thing, alright? I just wanted to be left alone.”
“You should’ve sent me back to child and family services then.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not? Real talk: we’re both adults now,” I reply.
She nods at my coffee. “Why not enjoy that instead? It’s some fancy Swedish blend I got from the neighbors for Christmas. I save it for special occasions.”
“I’m a special occasion?”
“Of course,” Aunt Mary says and sighs deeply.
“Thank you. I guess.”
She leans back in her seat, holding her mug close to her chest. “What happened in Los Angeles?”
“Nothing special. It just wasn’t a good fit for me.”
“Bullshit.”
I guess I know where I get my evasive skills from. I was too young to pick that up from my parents before they passed away, but Aunt Mary is an expert at zigzagging from one topic to the next until I forget what I was mad about. Every conversation we ever had was like this. A mind-numbing roller coaster.
“You were there for seven years,” Aunt Mary says. “How do you leave a place that employed you for seven years?”
“I was in Pasadena for four years. CalTech, remember? Los Angeles only had me for three.”
“What the hell happened? Teagan told me you were doing alright. You had a job at a fancy company—what was the name again?”
“I never told anyone where I worked,” I reply. “The work I did was rather sensitive, so they had me sign an NDA as soon as they hired me.”
“She said the job was high-paying.”
“It was. But it just didn’t work out.” I look at her. “What do you want to hear from me? I don’t get it. People have a right to change their minds, to change cities, to do whatever they want.”
She gives me a suspicious scowl. “Were you fired? Did you do something?”
Technically speaking, she’s only half wrong. I wasn’t fired, but I definitely did something. Something big enough that burned the whole company to the ground. I let a heavy sigh leave my chest and take a long sip of my tepid coffee.
“No, I wasn’t fired. I left.”
“Why?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m trying to figure out what would possess you to come back to Portland and work for the Hawthornes when you could’ve made something of yourself in California.”
I raise both eyebrows at her in genuine surprise. “ You worked for the Hawthornes for more than thirty-five years, if I remember correctly.”
“And never got anywhere.”
“Don’t you dare blame that on Zed or any of the Hawthornes, for that matter,” I shoot back. “You had plenty of room to grow. You were just really fucking comfortable in your little corner office. At least be honest.”
She crosses her arms and gives me a sour grin. It’s times like this that I simply cannot believe we’re actually related. I may have been a child when I lost my parents—but I still remember Mom and Dad. They were good and kind, soft-hearted and gentle-natured. Nothing like Mary. It just doesn’t make sense. All I ever wanted was for her to love me, to treat me like I belonged.
Yet I always felt like a guest in this house.
“And you’re looking to do what, exactly?” she scoffs. “Pick up where I left off and rot away in a corner office?”
“I lead their financial technologies department,” I promptly reply.
“Yeah, Teagan mentioned something like that.”
“You spoke to Teagan a lot, then.”
“Well, I could never reach you. She was the only one close enough to you who could tell me the truth about how you were and what you were doing,” Aunt Mary concedes. “Listen, Christa, I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot here.”
“No, we’re having the same conversation as always. You throw something in my face; I put up with it, rinse, and repeat. Except this time, I’m throwing it back at you, and you don’t like it very much, do you?”
“I’m not the devil!”
“No, you were supposed to be a parent.”
She points a finger at me as she speaks. “Hey, I fed you, I clothed you, I made sure you stayed in school!”
I let out a mocking laugh. She always brings out the worst in me. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t know why I even brought it up.”
After a moment of silence, she asks, “Where are you staying?”
“Circle Street. Close to Old Town and the Steel Bridge.”
She shrugs slightly. “You could’ve moved back here. My door was always open.”
“Yeah, because it worked out so well the last time I lived here.”
She shakes her head. “I honestly don’t know what the hell you’re so mad about.”
All I can do is admit defeat. I set my mug down and get up from my chair. “I think this was a bad idea, but I’m glad I got to see you. I’m glad you’re still here,” I say, ready to head for the door.
“I always cared for you.”
“But you never really cared about me,” I snap. “All you ever cared about was getting me skinny so I would land a nice, rich guy. I remember every fucking speech, every sting, every goddamn word. Maybe you don’t. Maybe everything you said and did seemed normal to you, but I’m telling you now, it wasn’t.”
“I did the best I could with what I was given.”
“You made me hate my body, and that took me a long time to get over!” I shout and walk toward the door.
Aunt Mary doesn’t move, but I hear her grumbling.
Coming here was a bad idea, I think.
But by the time I’m out of the house, shaking with anger, I realize it wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. Not really. I needed to be reminded of why I’ve kept my distance all this time.
If she’s not willing to hold herself accountable for her actions, who the hell am I to start educating her on how to be a better person?
I’ve done fine without her, and I’ll keep doing fine.