Chapter Thirty-five
A hand against my face stirs me awake, it’s gentle, a light caress and I blink my eyes open to find the room barely lit by the dawn. River hovers over me, his face soft but there’s a hardness to his eyes that wasn’t there before and there’s a fresh cut on his lip.
“What are you doing here, princess?” He asks. “Thought you had that dinner last night.”
It takes my brain a few seconds to wake up and then I bolt up, his hand falling away from my face.
“I did,” I say, “I need to talk to you!”
He sighs tiredly, “Later.”
“River, it’s important,” I chase after him as he makes his way to the bathroom.
“Princess, I need to shower, I need to sleep,” He pulls his shirt off and throws it toward the hamper, “I don’t particularly want to hear about you entertaining other men.”
My head snaps back, “It wasn’t like that.”
He doesn’t reply and shuts himself in the bathroom. I swallow down the anxiety and move back toward his bed to wait for him. I have to tell him about this, before he goes to sleep. He needs to know I’m on his side.
He returns from the shower five minutes later, dark hair wet and water still clinging to his tan skin, rolling over the muscles of his abdomen before they soak into the fabric of the towel at his hips.
“They’re planning to demolish over half of this side of town,” I rush out, “They have it all set up and have struck deals with the landlords of most of the buildings in the area, River. We have to do something.”
He stares at me for a long time, eyes flicking around my face as if he’s processing what I just said, “They’ve been trying to do that for years, Marly.”
“They have developers on their side, they’ve already worked to get the approval. They’re condemning it all as a cover to get what they want!”
He walks toward me and leans down, kissing me softly, “Don’t worry about us, princess.”
“How are you so calm?” I ask him.
“Because this is what they do, they always have.” He shrugs and steps away from me, “This isn’t the first time, I suppose it won’t be the last.”
“I don’t want people to lose their homes, River,” I pick at the skin on the side of my thumb, “I don’t know how to stop it.”
“It’s sweet that you care, Marly,” He says with his back to me, “But this is the life we live and always have lived. What do you expect the people to do? Fight it? With what money?”
I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. He’s not wrong but I don’t think he understands the full severity of it. This will be going through; it won’t get brushed away like all the other times. He pulls a pair of ripped denim jeans on and then turns to me.
“Come on,” He says, slipping into a clean shirt, “I want to take you somewhere.”
“I thought you were tired,” I accept his hand as he pulls me up off the bed.
“I am, princess, but it can wait. Get changed and meet me at the jeep.” He kisses my cheek and then exits the room, the door swinging closed behind him. I change quickly and brush my teeth and hair before I find him leaning on the hood of the jeep, legs crossed at the ankles and arms across his chest. He gives me a soft smile before he opens the passenger door and helps me inside, rounding the car to climb in behind the wheel. We don’t speak as he drives us across town and pulls us up to a small house with a cute white picket fence and flower beds under the windows.
Before I can ask where we are, the door opens and Sadie steps out, a baby in her arms.
“That’s Logan Junior,” River tells me before he gets out of the jeep, “He’s my nephew.”
My eyes close. I haven’t even asked about the fires and if that’s how his brother died, and he got the scars, but I don’t know how to pose the question either. Do I wait for him to tell me? Will he ever?
He opens my door for me and takes my hand to guide me from the car, linking his fingers with mine as he opens the gate and walks us up the path. He only let’s go of my hand to take the baby, cradling the infant who mustn’t be older than five or six months.
“Marly,” Sadie smiles at me, her eyes following River and her son before they disappear into the house.
“Hey, sorry,” I cringe, “I didn’t know we were coming here; I hope it’s okay for me to be here.”
“Absolutely!” She grins, “I’m surrounded by boys all day, it’s nice to have an actual female in my space for once.”
I laugh.
“My dad’s just inside making coffee, let me introduce you two.”
I follow her through, glancing over all the pictures on the wall but then stop at one, unable to take my eyes off it. Sadie is standing between two men; River is on her left while I assume it’s his brother on the right. River looks just like him. They’re beaming at the camera; Sadie has a small but obvious bump and behind them is River’s neon green Plymouth and a black Shelby Mustang.
“That’s Logan,” Sadie whispers, the pain is so clear in her voice it physically hurts my heart, “It was a few months before he died, they’d just opened the track.”
“They look so alike,” I say.
“Mm,” Sadie agrees, “They were inseparable. Logan practically raised River, he changed when he died.”
“How so?” I ask.
“Marly,” River’s voice cuts off whatever Sadie was going to say, and I look over her shoulder to see him frowning in our direction, eyes flicking between me and the photo on the wall. Logan Junior stirs in his arms, so he starts to bounce him to settle and jerks his chin for me to go to him. I give Sadie a smile and head in that direction, stepping past him and into a warm kitchen. The walls are a pale-yellow color, the cabinets a rustic wood vibe with retro appliances, a cute little round table and a window that looks out into a small yard.
“Marly, this is Calvin, Sadie’s father,” A man, in his early seventies turns to face me. He has a kind face, lined with age and silver hair, his skin a couple shades darker than Sadie’s.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I reach out a hand to shake his.
“Marly?” He queries as his much larger hand engulfs mine, “Marly Winchester?”
“Yes, sir,” I answer.
He blinks at me, “You look just like her,” He whispers.
My brows draw low, “Who?”
“Winchester?” Sadie gasps, “You’re the Mayor’s daughter?”
My head bounces between Sadie and Sadie’s father, stuck on who I need to speak with first. River gets to Sadie before I can reply, and ushers her out of the room.
“Your grandmother,” Calvin answers in the silence that follows.
“You knew my grandmother?” I feel my eyes fill, I’ve never met any of my grandmother’s friends, I didn’t know she had any outside of the book club she liked to attend.
“Quite well,” He smiles softly, “Known her most of my life actually.”
My grandmother wasn’t too much older than him I don’t think, late seventies when she passed so less than ten years.
I soften, “She was a wonderful woman,” I say, “The best I knew at least.”
He nods in agreement, “She spoke highly of you, Marly, she was so proud of you.”
“Thank you,” I blink back the wetness in my eyes, “That means a lot. Do you have stories?”
“Many,” He chuckles, “But they’re for another time.”
My shoulders slump.
“I didn’t think we would ever meet,” He continues, “She always said we would one day, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.”
“Why?”
He frowns, “Wrong side of the tracks, I know your family is very strict on where you go. It’s why your grandmother didn’t tell anyone of the friendships she had here. She worried what people would do if they found out but it hurt her. There’s a whole group of us that miss her terribly, we put on our own ceremony when she passed, I hope she saw it wherever she is now.”
My eyes burn with hot tears, “Thank you,” I swallow, “I’m grateful she had you.”
“She made me promise,” He continues, his head turning toward the window to look into the yard beyond, “If you did ever stumble over here. She made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
“She knew, you see,” He rambles, “If you were here, she knew it would be for a reason.”
“I’m sorry, Calvin,” I reach for his wrist to try and bring his attention back to me, “I’m not following.”
“She told me you had two paths, Marly.” He turns his dark eyes on me, full of sorrow and hope, a combination I didn’t expect to see and yet it guts me, “You chose the path to bring you here, however that may have come. I have something for you.”
I don’t get a chance to respond before he’s heading for the door, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I don’t know where Sadie and River went and the house turns quiet, not even a clock is ticking.
Calvin comes back not a few minutes later holding a thick envelope with my name scrawled across the front. I could recognize that handwriting anywhere, it’s in every birthday card and gift tag I’ve kept from over the years.
My grandmother.
“She left this with me, told me to keep it safe until I met you and made me promise to give it to you if it ever did happen.”
“What is it?” I take the folder from him.
“I don’t know, Marly,” Calvin answers, “But she asked me to tell you to keep it a secret until you know what to do with it, she said you would know.”
My grandmother didn’t leave anything to me when she died, not that I wanted her to, so it’s a surprise to hold this in my arms. I cradle it to my chest.
“She trusted you,” I state.
“We were friends Marly,” Calvin sighs, “I would have trusted her with my life too.”
“Thank you,” I breathe, desperate to open the file but knowing she would want me to do so alone. I slide the folder into my purse and turn back to Calvin, wanting to know more about my grandmother.
He tells me so many stories, of their time together, what they did, what they talked about and by the time River tells me it’s time to go, I feel like I know her more than I did before.