41. Ellie
Chapter 41
Ellie
“I think it’s finally over.”
“It sounded like it,” I agree, watching my sister carefully.
“Thank God. Now, I can get on with my life.”
“We should start planning Glenna’s memorial service,” I agree. “It’s kind of sad that she had no family, nothing in this world.”
“I’m not giving her a memorial service,” Dawn announces.
“You’re not?”
I should probably be surprised, but I’m not. My sister and I have always been different, but in the last few weeks I’ve started wondering if I knew her at all. We just got done with another interview with the lead detectives in the case. Although, it wasn’t really an interview as much as it was an interrogation. They think my sister helped Wolf. They think she’s hiding him. Now, I obviously know she’s not doing that, but I agree with the detective. Dawn knows more than she’s telling us. I don’t suppose it matters anymore, however. They’re moving Glenna’s case from priority. They’re focusing on their hunt for Wolf, and I doubt they’ll ever completely stop that—especially after I supplied them with his real name by lying and telling them that he approached me in the bar first with his real name and that I had no idea he was talking to my sister or Glenna under a different name. They’ll never find Wolf, however, and of that I’m certain. That means, for my sister, it’s over. It should be a time of joy, but with Glenna dead, Liam so far away and not really talking to me, there’s not much joy to be found.
“No, I’ve already spoken to the funeral home. Once Glenna’s body is released, I’m having her cremated quietly with her ashes scattered,” Dawn says.
“Shouldn’t we have a small service?” I ask.
“Don’t pressure your sister, Ellie. If she doesn’t want a service for this girl, she doesn’t need to do one. There’s no point. You said yourself that the girl didn’t really have anyone. She was alone in this world. The world is for the living. Dawn needs to put this behind her.”
I stop walking towards the car. I look at my mother and sister and I wonder—not for the first time—who they are. Did they change overnight into these people, or were they like this all along and I blindly went along not noticing until I found out they had lied to me.
“Well? Are you coming? Dawn and I need to get back to Page.”
“You’re going home to Page?” I ask, blindsided. This is the first I’m hearing about Dawn going back with Mom. “I thought you were having Glenna cremated and you both said you’d help me finish packing and closing down the house. You never mentioned leaving.”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Eleanor,” Mom snaps.
“I’m having Glenna’s body transferred to the funeral home in Page. They’ll do it there and it will be half the cost.”
“I… You two have been talking about this for a while,” I stutter, feeling kind of stupid. All this time, I thought Dawn just wasn’t talking to me. I assumed that she was just closed up because of the trauma. That obviously wasn’t it. She’s been talking quite a bit to our mother, apparently.
“So? What does it matter?”
“It doesn’t, I guess.”
“You don’t need us to pack up. If you’re intent to go back to that biker and ruin your life, then do it. You won’t listen to me, you never did,” Mom says, her voice full of annoyance and derision.
“Liam won’t ruin my life, Mom. He loves me.”
“He’s nothing but a criminal. I’ve seen those biker shows on television. He’s a thug that makes his money dealing in drugs and women. Why you want that element in your life, Eleanor is beyond me. I had hoped that when you came home the first time, you’d gotten smart, but apparently, I was wrong.”
“That’s not who Liam is. You’re basing your hate of him on a dramatized television show,” I respond. My voice is monotone, because I’m not sure what I’m feeling. I just know that I feel like I never knew my family at all.
“Don’t you try and defend him to me. Dawn and I both saw how broken you were when you came home.”
“Yeah, Ellie. Maybe you’ve forgotten what a mess you were that first month when Fury didn’t even bother to call you. It was five weeks before he finally worried about you. Five . You want to act like he’s such a good guy. He’s scum,” Dawn snarls and I step back, because the hate in her eyes is so deep that it’s terrifying. I don’t think it’s all directed at Liam. I think it just lives in her.
“Funny, you want to call him scum and Mom wants to talk about the things he is supposedly involved in and yet both of you are happy he’ll be taking care of Wolf’s body. How many times have you quizzed me about that, Dawn? You want to make sure he’s dead and never found again. Isn’t that right?” I ask her, paraphrasing the small conversations that we’ve had when it came to Wolf.
“Wolf was a monster, he deserved to die,” Mom sniffs, but Dawn just stares at me. I think we’re beginning to understand each other.
“At least on that we can agree,” I murmur. “While you two are busy judging my husband?—”
“He’s not your husband anymore. You should have put that mistake behind you. You knew he was bad then, or you wouldn’t have come home,” Mom snaps. “Why my girls are intent on ruining their lives over trash, I don’t know. Thank God that Dawn has finally seen the light. I’m giving up hope on you.”
I flinch. Not so much at what my mother just said, more because she’s almost right. I did come home because of Liam’s life. I didn’t trust his love for me.
“I would have went back to him, then. I just needed time to sort through all of the sadness. I would have gone back to him if you’d told me he called.”
“And that’s exactly why we didn’t,” Mom yells. The words are so loud that I know the people on the street are now staring at us. I shake my head. I thought going back home to Page back then was going home to my safe zone. I thought I could go there and think things over then Liam would call and we’d be able to fix things between us. I can see the exact moment everything began to go off the rails and it’s all pointing at me. I have more of Dawn and my mother in me than I realized and suddenly, I know that’s not a good thing.
I turn away from them, walking the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?” Dawn yells.
“Home,” I tell them without looking back. I don’t owe them anything. They’re not the people I had built up in my mind. They’re toxic. I made the wrong decisions when I left Tennessee. I need to learn from them and make sure I don’t repeat the same ones.
I just hope I’m not too late.