Chapter 13
Even though Ethan said I can come and go as I please, I still knock on the glass back door by the kitchen. I can see him at the stove and my two younger nieces at the island. He waves me inside immediately.
“You don’t have to knock,” he says as he turns back to cooking what looks and smells like burned pancakes.
I kinda want to tell him that he should be locking the back door, but rein it in. For now. My paranoia is for a reason.
“Yeah, Aunt Sloane,” Riley says with the seriousness of an eight-year-old. “Mommy always said family doesn’t have to knock.”
My throat tightens but I smile at her words. “She was a wise woman.”
“Just like me.” Riley nods once, then looks back at her plate of crispy pancakes, wrinkles her nose.
I go to the pantry, pull out cereal with so much sugar I can’t believe it’s even in here. It was tucked behind mason jars of beans and tomatoes from the local farmer’s market.
“Oooh, I want some,” Quinn singsongs, shoving her plate away.
“Me too. I can’t eat this. I’d rather starve.” Riley’s tone is more than a little dramatic.
Ethan just sighs, turns off the stovetop and dumps the remaining “pancakes” (they don’t deserve the name) in the trash. “Fine, but everyone’s getting fruit on the side,” he mutters.
The girls whoop in delight and something in my chest eases. They’re going to miss their mom forever, and will have moments of grief, but they’re going to be okay. Kids really do rebound faster, and while my heart is still broken, I’m so damn happy to see the joy on their faces.
“I can’t believe this is even in your pantry of whole-food nonsense.” My tone is light, but I’m not actually joking.
Ethan snorts as he pulls out different varieties of milk. Almond for Riley and me, oat for Quinn and low-fat regular for himself. “She bought it for you.” His dry tone holds a hint of amusement.
“That makes more sense. I do love my sugar.” Probably more than is healthy but whatever. “Fiona still sleeping?” I try to keep my question casual.
Ethan nods, his expression hard. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to talk to her,” I say even as I wonder if I have the right.
“Thank you.” His immediate response surprises me and then I decide to push it one step further since the two girls are animatedly talking to each other as they shovel the sugary flakes into their mouths.
“Look, it’s not my place but it probably wouldn’t hurt to get rid of the alcohol in the house right now. Or lock it up,” I add, hoping he understands what I’m saying.
He pauses, but then nods. “I…know. I found the vodka in her room.” He glances at the girls, then back at me, lowers his voice as he leans against the opposite countertop. “And for the record, I’m sorry about last night. I shouldn’t have drunk so much. I’m…embarrassed.”
“I think you’re allowed one night.”
“No, I’m not. I’m it now for them,” he whispers. “I have to act like it.”
He’s not wrong, and I’m glad he’s taking responsibility.
Alcohol nearly destroyed my life, and while Ethan has never had a problem with it, sometimes stuff spirals so fast and then there’s no way to get ahead of it.
He shouldn’t be drinking around the girls, especially since it’s clear that Fiona may have the same problem I do.
I don’t want to overreact; she could just be acting like a normal teenager.
But alcoholism runs in our family and it takes no prisoners.
I simply nod and scarf down my cereal. I can’t stay long, not when I have a lead to follow up on, but I also wanted to see the girls. Or maybe I needed to.
“Also, thank you for the heads-up about Hannah,” he continues. “Ava picked up her box of stuff and agreed to mail it for me. I probably should have just done it myself but…” He shrugs, the dark circles under his eyes prominent. “She offered, so I let her.”
I texted him this morning about what happened with Hannah in the pool house in case the cops show up again and want to follow up.
I seriously doubt they will, but he needed to know anyway.
I’ll be following up with Hannah later too, something I’m definitely not going to tell him.
“I’ve got some errands to run today. Do you need anything while I’m out? ”
“No, people have dropped off so much food and gift cards to restaurants, so we’re covered there.
And a couple neighbors have invited the girls over to play.
” He clears his throat. “Look, I need to talk to you about something. This is weird to say but we haven’t talked about it yet.
” He glances over at the girls, finds them watching us intently, their bowls empty.
“Nosy Rosies, why don’t you head upstairs and get ready?
Your ride will be over to pick you up in a little bit. ”
Moving quickly, they put their bowls in the sink then race each other for the stairs, passing the giant Christmas tree with a stack of presents underneath.
Briefly I wonder how…god, how we’ll all handle Christmas Day.
It feels awful to think about opening presents from Cara—because the majority of the ones under the tree were wrapped by her and are from her.
My chest hurts for a second and I have to lock down the swell of emotions that start to shove to the surface.
I set my empty bowl in the sink then grab a bottle of water to take to Fiona.
“Cara left you a small trust and her vehicle,” Ethan blurts before I leave.
I blink in surprise. “What?” She once said something about leaving me a trust, but I brushed it off. She had three kids, so I figured she’d changed her will.
But he nods. “She has a clause in there that says whatever vehicle she’s driving at the time of her…” He clears his throat. “That it should go to you because she assumed you’d be driving your piece of crap forever.”
“Hey,” I mutter, fighting another swell of emotion.
But he tosses me the keys. “We’ll need to transfer the title to you, but the BMW is yours.”
I clutch the key fob and key ring tightly before shoving it into my pocket. I have no idea what to say.
Thankfully he keeps going so I don’t have to respond. “I’ll get you the details on the trust—”
“It’s fine. It should go to the girls. I don’t want it.”
Ethan sighs. “She said you’d say that. And it’s yours.
The girls are taken care of, trust me. My parents set up accounts for each of them when they were born and we also set up accounts for them…
They are more than good. And Cara wanted this for you—she loved you as much as you loved her.
You’ll take it because she wanted it, and not argue with me because it will cause me more stress. ”
I can’t find any words so I just nod and mumble something before hurrying out of the room. I figure crying in front of him isn’t the way to start the day.
I walk by Riley’s room and see both her and Quinn playing some handheld game and still in their pajamas instead of getting dressed. Sounds about right.
For a moment I contemplate sneaking out to meet up with Alex but I still haven’t gotten a text from her and I need to talk to Fiona.
I knock on her door and when she says “Come in,” I gently ease it open. She’s sitting up in bed on her phone, her eyes red and puffy. I feel unsure if I should even be here but her words stop me. “That thing you said about vodka…” She clears her throat as she sets her phone onto her nightstand.
I step inside and close the door behind me. So we’re definitely having this conversation, even if I’d rather run a marathon than hash it out. She needs to know about our crappy family history.
I feel my phone buzz in my pocket, and even though I’m sure it’s Alex, I don’t look at it. “It’s true. Vodka makes us mean. My mother—your grandmother—was an alcoholic. And she was a mean one.”
She stares at me for a long time, and I see something like understanding flicker in her eyes. Fiona is a smart girl so I’m not surprised she picks up so fast on what I want to say. “You…never drink. Mom always said you didn’t like it.”
“Oh, I like it all right. Too much.” I step farther into the room, wondering how much I should tell her. I’m the one who opened up this can of worms so I have no one to blame but myself. And she’s old enough for some of this anyway. “She really didn’t tell you?”
Leaning against her headboard, she shakes her head.
I get in the bed next to her, nudge her gently.
“Scoot over,” I say as I hand her a bottle of water.
When she takes it, I continue. “Our dad died when I was four, and I don’t really remember him.
Your mom did though, and she said that once he was gone, our mom turned into a different person.
I never knew her as any different than the violent alcoholic who lived in the same house we did.
” I intentionally don’t say raised us because our mom never did any raising. No, that was all Cara.
I clear my throat, trying to get this stuff out. It’s hard because I never let myself think about the past, but Fiona deserves to know. I need to protect her from poisoning her life with alcohol.
“I think it must have been harder for your mom, having a loving household, a whole one, then…” I shake off the tears that want to spill over, the stupid emotion that settles deep in my chest, twists hard. I’m like a raw nerve walking around right now. “The short of it is—”
“I don’t want the short, I want all of it.” Fiona traces her finger along the condensation of the metal bottle.
“Okay.” I won’t tell her everything; she doesn’t need to know it all anyway.
At least not now. “Your mom put off college to stay home and help raise me.” She already knows that, but I add more details.
“I told her over and over I’d be fine but she’d put out too many lit cigarettes from our unconscious mom that could have set our house on fire. ”
House was a bit of a stretch, but again, I keep some details back.
“She was afraid our mom would kill us both unintentionally when she fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand. Or forgot to turn the stove off.” Something that happened more times than I want to remember.
More than once our mom left the stove on and then left a hand towel on it.
Looking back, I wonder if it was intentional or if she simply didn’t care if she lived or died. And us with her.
“Is that why she was so neurotic about checking the stove?” There’s a hint of surprise and almost understanding in Fiona’s voice.
“Yeah. I’m the same. I have cameras set up in my condo and I sometimes check them when I’m out of town just to make sure that I turned everything off.
” Okay, that’s a lie. I don’t check them sometimes, I check them obsessively.
Yes, I know I need therapy but it’s probably not happening.
I go to enough AA meetings and I figure that’s good for now.
I like to tell myself that there are worse things than being safety conscious.
“I thought… I just thought she was embarrassed about growing up poor and that’s why she never talked about your lives in Alabama.”
I don’t know what to say so I simply lay my head back against the headboard next to hers and stare across the room, out the huge window.
The window is too high or we’re too low to see the pool, but we’ve got a good shot of their neighbor’s yard and pool beyond.
“Maybe she was embarrassed. I don’t think so though.
I think she was probably traumatized.” I scrub my hands over my face.
It isn’t fair that Cara is gone. She was the mom, the wife, the one who kept everything together.
Her kids need her. Hell, I need her and feel like an asshole for thinking that way.
Her kids need her more than me, but I can’t fathom a world without her in it.
She was always my constant—my mom, sister, protector; the one who pulled me out of a dark cycle of self-destruction that would have killed me eventually.
“I never knew,” Fiona whispered.
“Of course you didn’t. She was your mom, she wanted to protect you.
” I hate that I’m talking about her in the past tense.
“It was her job. And just so we’re clear, I’m an alcoholic.
I’m sober now and I haven’t had a drink since you were two.
I don’t drink at all.” I was a complete asshole at her second birthday party, something I’m glad Fiona doesn’t remember.
After that incident, Cara pulled me aside and told me to get sober or I wouldn’t be allowed in their lives. That was the wake-up call I needed. When people talk about having to hit rock bottom, it’s no joke. And my rock bottom was a world without my sister in it. Ironically, I was living it now.
“I don’t know if you have the same gene we have or…what. I just know that no good comes from drinking.” Saying it out loud is almost a relief. I want to break the cycle so that my niece never knows the same pain I lived with.
Tears spill over Fiona’s cheeks so I wrap my arm around her shoulders, pull her close as she lets out a sob. She continues to cry as my phone buzzes in my pocket but I still ignore it.
Eventually she stops crying but I can see the exhaustion in her face.
This will be harder on her than her sisters.
She’s almost an adult, hitting that time where she and her mom would have ended up being friends.
And now she’s lost one of the most important relationships in her life way too early.
In a horrifically violent way. It’s going to scar her, shape the rest of her life in different ways.
“I’ve got to go out for a little bit but…maybe ease up on your dad?”
Swallowing hard, she nods. “I was awful to him last night,” she whispers.
“He understands. He’s grieving too… Just apologize to him.” I slide out of her bed. “Sometimes saying sorry is the only thing we can do, then try to be better people. And he loves you. He’ll forgive you.” He’s probably already forgiven her. I have my issues with Ethan, but he has a forgiving soul.
She nods, then burrows back under the covers and I have a feeling she’ll be sleeping again soon. I know the talks about alcohol aren’t over, and I can only hope that she makes better choices than I did at her age.
When I step into the hall and read Alex’s text, my heart rate kicks up. Hurry up! She gets off her shift soon. Headed to pick you up at Bellevue.
I palm my keys (because I’m not driving Cara’s car now, maybe not ever) and hurry out. I can’t let this lead slip away. If this woman knows where Powell is, I’m going to find him.
And I’ll get my answers one way or another.
I don’t know if Alex understands that I’ll do almost anything to get justice. And I’m willing to live with the consequences of my actions.