Chapter 48
It was late morning by the time he pulled a T-shirt over Annelise's head and lent her a pair of his sweatpants. She looked good in his clothes. She looked good in his room. And she felt even better in his life again.
"I smell food," she commented, lifting her head like a large cat, sniffing prey.
Rowan couldn't help but laugh. "It's Jasper. He must have stayed home from the restaurant to cook for us today."
Sure enough, as they padded barefoot out to the big table, he found his brother just setting out plates for them.
For a moment Rowan's face flared red and he wondered if everyone in the family had heard them. Then again, it appeared his brother maybe had a little something more going on. Maybe Jasper’s food wasn’t just always what everyone needed.
Or always the thing that healed. Or even just the best. Maybe there was more to it, but Rowan bit his tongue on that one.
Indie, Alder, and Ford looked only to their food, thanking Jasper and taking their places around the table. It was as if he and Annelise had managed to wander out just as the food was ready. His brother always seemed to do that. Another Jasper talent? Or more?
Eggs Benedict sat beautifully served on each plate, each slightly different. It was clear enough that Annelise slid into a spot and declared it "Mine!"
Jasper nodded as she picked up a fork and dove into the one with avocado and crispy maple bacon on top. Rowan flashed a look to his younger brother, but Jasper shrugged it off as if they hadn't had that conversation the other night.
Annelise, having slept for the better part of a day and barely eating, made short work of the food, declaring Jasper's skills heavenly.
But, as they were finishing up, his mother entered the room, quietly pulling out a chair.
She sat at the head of the table and waited until all eyes turned to her.
Forks stopped and settled with soft clinks on the sides of plates. Rowan waited.
With a heavy sigh somewhere between giving up and gathering strength, Vienna turned first to Annelise. "I owe you and your family a massive apology. Honestly, I owe everyone on the river road."
At his side, in between the two chairs where no one else would see, Annelise's fingers laced nervously into his. She grabbed tight, but Rowan squeezed back. They had just agreed that they would put each other above family, that they would be each other’s family now.
He had no idea how this would go down, but their fingers were linked, and their lives were forever tied.
If he had to choose, he would. He waited with caution in his heart.
First, looking up to the ceiling, Vienna took a moment.
She seemed to fight back tears gathering at the edge of her eyes.
Once again, her fingers came up to clasp the delicate gold pentacle that hung between her collarbones.
At first, Rowan had found it odd. Now it was downright suspicious.
But still, he didn't speak. His mother had something to get off her chest.
"After the first flood," Vienna started, "I knew something was wrong in the house. Martin and his mother told me that I was crazy. I was. I kept using a hammer to tear out the drywall—some of it freshly installed—and he kept having to replace it. But Indie was suddenly sick every time I turned around and the doctors couldn’t explain it.”
Rowan only vaguely remembered that his sister had been sick so much after the flood. Now, Vienna reached out to Indie, holding her youngest's hand. "It was in your room. I don't know why it was only there, but we got it fixed . . . Or so I thought.”
There was another pause, but no one jumped in. They all waited until Vienna picked up the story. "Martin had his promotion and we had plans to move before I found it."
It, Rowan knew, was the black mold. He swallowed hard, waiting, and this time it was Annelise's fingers that squeezed his.
They would move together on this, whatever happened.
Though he was afraid of what his mother would say, how it could change everything, peace had found a home deep in his heart.
"Even with the raise, we didn't have enough money to move if we couldn't sell the house." His mother looked to each of her children and finally to Annelise. Rowan saw she was asking for forgiveness.
"I thought I had it cleared. I really did." She sighed this time, looking down at the tabletop.
Only then did Rowan realize there was no plate in front of her.
If she had eaten, it was before they showed up.
She spread her hands out, palm down, as if needing the wood surface for reinforcement.
"It seemed a small thing at the time, but the boys were all in one room together.
Martin and I gave up the largest room for them, but even so there were six of them in one space.
Rowan was in high school, and he was sharing a room with elementary school boys. "
He felt it then, the pain in her voice. The feeling that she and his father must have had about having more kids than they could provide for the way they wanted.
Vienna sighed. "Honestly, it didn't occur to me that it might have happened anywhere other than our house.
We sold the place, we moved." She paused.
"I thought we were making the best decisions for our children.
It was only later, looking back, that I realized we were also making the best decisions for our own selfish reasons. Then I committed another sin."
Her voice cracked on the last word. "When I saw that other people on the river road were getting sick, I realized what it probably was. That it was more than just our house. It suddenly seemed so obvious all the houses would have the same problem. I didn't know how to say what I’d found without admitting what I’d done.
That was the first time I realized I had done something really wrong, because I knew I couldn't tell anyone.
"I tried. I tried to start gossip about what it could be. Tried to put ideas into heads, get rumors going so people would check. As it came out that more people found it, I let the information out with my family too.” She looked to her older boys then, Rowan first. “That's why you all knew that there had been black mold at the house, but you didn't know it before we moved.
When the new family abandoned our old house, I tried so hard to find them and I couldn't. I tried to make it right, but I never found them. "
Rowan swallowed. It all made so much more sense now. He'd always wondered why the family that had moved there had left so soon and no one else moved in. The house itself must have killed them—financially at least.
He watched as his mother's tears spilled to the lacquered tabletop. Though Indie's hand reached out to offer their mother support, Rowan, sitting on the other side of her, stayed as he was. He held tight to Annelise and the promise he'd made.
When Vienna looked up, she was looking directly at Annelise. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry about the role that I played in all of it, and I don't know if you can ever forgive me."
There was a pause that dragged out when Annelise didn't immediately step forward and offer an absolution Rowan knew she didn't fully feel. He admired that about her. Even as the table sat silent, she wouldn't say something she didn't believe just to be polite or relieve her own discomfort.
But he was proud to be sitting beside her when she said, "I appreciate your honesty, and I cannot repay you enough for showing up last night."
Vienna shook her head back and forth, hard. "No. If anything, it's only the first step in my attempt to make amends with you and your family for what I owe."
Next to him, Annelise whispered softly, "Thank you."
He felt at least one layer of peace begin to shift around the table. It settled into the spaces that had been shaken up by too many revelations and too many tragedies over the last few weeks.
When the silence at last settled calmly, Vienna shifted.
"Annelise, Avery and Delanie took your grandmother to the hospital the other night to get her checked out.
All measures say she's fine, but given the reports of how long she was gone for and on CPR, they're keeping her at least one more night.
If you want, I'll take you to go see her today, or even to pick her up tomorrow. "
"That's not necessary," Annelise was brushing her off. Rowan felt his fingers twitching between hers as Vienna held up a hand.
"It's fine if you don't want that, but I would love to be able to help in that way, because I owe your grandmother an apology as well."
He was proud of his mother, too, in that moment. The women in his life were starting to stitch the world back together. They seemed powerful enough to do that on a global scale. There was more that still needed to be aired out between them, but maybe not over eggs Benedict this morning.
Indie was starting to stand up, but Vienna looked to her daughter.
Fingers still laced, she grabbed tightly and motioned for all of them to stay seated.
Turning again to Annelise, she told her, "You came here the other night with a generous offer of a piece of our family history.
After you left, I told the children I didn't want to buy the book, no matter how good of a price you could get. "
That surprised Rowan. Vienna was more of the polite type to keep family business in the family.
Or he thought maybe she saw the connection that her oldest son had with this woman.
Maybe she saw that this time it wouldn't be broken, and she needed to start treating Annelise as family.
Or she would have to stop treating Rowan as such.
"The truth is, I'm scared of what's in that book.
I told Martin what I had found out years ago about his family.
We've all heard the rumors. But the children are adamant, and it is their history.” She took another breath before adding, "We appreciate your offer, and we will buy the book for whatever you think is reasonable . . . And I will read it."
Across from him, Indie smiled, clapping her hands together lightly at the victory. Alder offered only a curt nod, the history buff in him would love it. But it was Jasper who seemed to sit too silently, his lack of reaction telling in and of itself.
Next to him, Annelise almost laughed. "I've read the whole thing," she told Vienna and then the rest of the table, "and there are certainly things in there that will surprise you or maybe hurt. That's the way history goes, but what you do with it will be up to you."
She paused then, looking around the table, though all the Velascos were not there. “Launa only had girl children, and so went the Velasco family for almost two centuries."
"And then it was only boys," Vienna put in.
Annelise nodded. "If the rumors are true, that change happened with the bargain being struck . . ." Then she looked across the table. "Indie is the first female child born in your family in just over a hundred years."
Then she looked to Vienna and at last to Jasper. "I know the rumors are that Astra gave up the family magic, but it seems it might still be here."
Rowan watched as his brother still didn't react, and that made him more worried than ever.