Ten
N othing ever goes how you think it will.
Saturday morning, every parent and guardian was texted the news that Mrs. Burch, the geology teacher, had gone into labor that morning, two weeks early.
In my opinion, she should have already been on maternity leave, but she loved teaching, and the kids, and had been looking forward to the field trip.
She was clearly one of the good ones, and mom and her twins were thankfully doing great.
As Mrs. Burch would not be making the field trip, she had asked a colleague from the University of Washington, Dr. Cameron Attwood, to take over for her, and he would be delivering a lecture and tour at the Pacific Science Center.
Griff and his buddies did not want to go, extra credit be damned. Darwin volunteered to go in his brother’s place and take copious notes. I ended up driving the three boys, plus a very excited thirteen-year-old, to Seattle.
“You just went to the stupid Science Center,” Griff reminded Darwin. “Why would you want to go back?”
“Because it’s awesome,” he told his brother, sounding ready to cry with happiness, which was what mattered.
It soon became clear that Dr. Attwood knew nothing about teenagers.
He spoke over their heads and hit them with statistics and graphs.
A few of the chaperones had glazed-over expressions, and one father fell asleep and woke himself up with a snort that everyone quietly cheered.
The one kid Dr. Attwood did appreciate was Darwin, who asked insightful, thoughtful questions.
Poor Griff wanted to die. So did Benny and Sean. I myself felt lucky to have survived.
We got home right after three, having dropped Griff’s buddies off first, and there was an SUV in the driveway with out-of-state plates. A rental, my brain immediately supplied.
“Oh,” Darwin said, leaning forward from the back seat between me and Griff. “I bet Nana and Grampy are here early. They don’t usually come until the day before Thanksgiving.”
“Your grandparents come for Thanksgiving?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Darwin assured me. “Every year.”
I was going to kill Luke for not telling me.
Once we were in the house, I heard the washing machine running.
I called out for Luke and Tatum but got no answer, and taking in the stillness, I realized the house was empty.
The note on the kitchen counter confirmed it, explaining that Luke, his parents, and Tatum had gone to the store to purchase everything needed for holiday cooking.
“I thought I was cooking,” Griff said miserably.
“Even with your grandparents here?”
“I thought we would make a new tradition.”
“You should probably have let them know before now and it would have been nice to inform me.”
“I thought Dad would’ve said something.”
“Next time, don’t assume, just tell me.”
“I will.”
He looked so dejected. “Who cooks? Your grandmother or your grandfather?”
“My grandmother.”
“Maybe you can cook with her,” I soothed him. “I’m sure she’d like that.”
He didn’t appear happy. I wasn’t either when I went into the guest room and found their suitcases in the room and the bed stripped.
In the bathroom, all the towels were gone as well.
It felt invasive. They could have at least waited until I moved all my stuff, but I suspected this was their room whenever they came, so I tried not to be annoyed.
It made sense, as the guest room was on the ground floor with Luke’s room and his office, and depending on how old they were, going up and down the stairs to stay in one of the kids’ rooms could prove difficult.
As far as I knew, there wasn’t another guest room in the house, so I wasn’t sure, beyond the couch, where I was supposed to go.
Moving around the room, I was packing quickly, when I heard a gasp from behind me. When I turned, Darwin was there staring at me with wide eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
“No, buddy, but I have to move rooms.” I squinted at him. “How come no one told me your grandparents were coming since you all knew?”
Not a word.
“I understand they visit every year, yeah?”
He coughed softly. “I didn’t want you to think you should leave or something because they would be here. I was worried about that.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
He nodded and then suddenly brightened. “Hey, since you’re changing rooms, you can sleep in mine with me,” he volunteered.
“Are you kidding?” I said and got an instant grin from him. “You sleep with that stupid vent open above your bed. It makes that room a freezer at night.”
He smiled. “Yeah, that’s true.”
“And Griff sleeps with the stupid wave machine.”
“It’s not a stupid machine,” Griff said as he walked into what had been my room. “The whooshing is very calming and is helping with my insomnia.”
“Great, good,” I assured him, walking into the bathroom to grab my toiletries, plus my loofah, which I was quite fond of, and everything out of the drawers. “But that sound would haunt my dreams, buddy.”
Once my duffel was packed and my laptop bag over Darwin’s shoulder, the issue became where I would put my clothes and where I would shower. I would not do any of that in Luke’s room and en suite, so I was thinking it would most likely be Griff’s.
“There’s a bed in the attic,” Griff said with a shiver.
“What’s with that? Are there spiders?”
“No, it’s just, there are things up there, like clothes.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Clothes,” he repeated. “Creepy clothes.”
“Like in bags?”
Quick shake of his head. “Like racks.”
“Racks?” I was stunned. “Why didn’t those come down for the yard sale?”
“You can sell clothes?” Griff was surprised. “Like, unwashed?”
I groaned. “Yeah, ya can. Ask me next time.”
He nodded.
“Let’s see the attic.”
I wasn’t crazy about being all the way up there. A steep, narrow stairway led up to it, but at least the steps were carpeted, and once I was in the space, it wasn’t terrible.
The door at the top opened to a small area that must’ve been Caitlyn’s workspace.
There was a dress mannequin, clear boxes with drawers full of ribbons, yarn, swatches of fabric, and to the left was a sewing machine and a wall of wreaths.
They were in every size and color for every holiday imaginable.
There was also a window that looked down onto the street and the front of the house.
Beyond four racks of vintage clothes, there was another room with a large, heavy tapestry rug on top of the wall-to-wall carpet.
To the right stood an empty mahogany-stained bookcase, which must’ve been moved there when the built-ins went in downstairs.
Beside that was an old wingback chair upholstered in olive-green burlap and linen, with a matching ottoman.
To the left, next to a large window and an end table doubling as a nightstand—complete with hurricane lamp on top and a drawer where my gun case would fit nicely—was a queen bed with a beautiful handmade quilt on it, like the one Locryn had, crafted by his maternal grandmother from his mother’s baby clothes.
Lots of pillows were strewn atop the quilt, and when I tried the bed, it was surprisingly firm.
“Who was the bed for?” I asked Griff.
He shrugged. “Mom would sleep here sometimes when she was up late making something and got sleepy.”
It was perfect, and even better, there was a small card table and chair where I could set up my laptop, and a space heater if I got cold.
“This is great,” I said, but when I turned around, the boys’ faces, all scrunched up, gave me pause. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s creepy up here,” Darwin assured me.
But it was not at all. It was actually very cozy.
And yes, I was on the third floor, but the kids were right below me, I had cameras covering the main parts of the house, and at night, once the house was locked down, if anything opened, I would be notified.
And it wasn’t like I was a heavy sleeper.
I had been when I was younger, but not since the Army. Those days were long over.
My phone pinged as the garage door opened.
“Okay, go down and greet your grandparents,” I directed them.
Neither boy moved.
Just then the house rocked with a huge boom of thunder, and a second later, a little black ball of fur streaked into the room and climbed Griff like a tree.
“I don’t think Wink is crazy about the thunder,” I said, watching Griff pet the cat now sitting on his shoulder, nuzzling his hair.
Walking over to the window that looked down onto Tabitha and Melody’s house, I noted how lovely their landscaping was, while at the same time enjoying the rain pelting the window and seeing the lightning illuminating the sky.
“You guys need to go. I’ll be right behind you.” After a moment, hearing no movement, I turned to them. “What’re you doing?”
“You need to come too,” Darwin replied.
“I will, but you need to go now . Your grandparents came a long way to spend time with you all.”
Once they left me, I unpacked, put my laptop on the card table, put my gun case in the drawer of the end table, used some empty bookshelves for my clothes, and then sat down on the bed and checked all the cameras.
The grandparents greeted the kids, hugging them, Luke’s father was his same height, handsome, with white hair and a ruddy complexion.
His mother had long silver hair, braided and lying over her shoulder, and she was glancing around and smiling, probably over the changes.
They were cute in their matching winter vests.
These were not frail grandparents, but instead active ones, if their athleisure wear and running shoes were any indication.
She was in head-to-toe Lululemon, and his father had on a tracksuit.
Their pleasure at getting to spend time with their son and their grandchildren was evident from their bright, happy faces.