Chapter 43 #2
Please don’t turn me out. The ten-year-old inside me who never would have asked is coming back to life. The little girl huddled in the back of a police car, holding both her sisters while watching our mama go in another direction, knowing we might never see her again. We didn’t see her again.
And I hadn’t known then how much I needed Trudy Wallace to accept me. The last thing I want is for her to tell me to leave now.
I clear my throat. “Well, I don’t mean here. In your house. I just mean in Sterling Falls.”
Aunt Trudy’s hands come to her hips. “And now what’s wrong with my precious cottage?”
I glance at Jolene, then back at Aunt Trudy. “Well nothing, other than it’s a little small for the three of us.” I’m thinking Trudy, Simon, and me, because Jolene won’t be staying, and that’s an issue for another day. “And your couch is lumpy.”
“Understatement,” Jolene attempts to say under her breath.
Aunt Trudy turns her glare on my sister. “Says the girl supposedly sleeping in tents in the jungle.”
It appears Aunt Trudy is questioning Jolene’s stories as much as me. Who knew?
Jolene is quiet, but I feel the anger brewing beneath her skin. Her own battles, like Stone said.
Three siblings can be raised in one household and each of them will turn out differently.
“Why would you want to stay here?” The underlying disgust in her voice makes me wonder what she’s doing here.
Instead, I ignore my questions about her life and point at Trudy. “Because she’s family and I love her.”
I turn back toward Trudy, knowing I’ve never really said the words with the same emotion I feel in this instant. Love you had been a throwaway phrase in response to her salutation on each phone call, where she proclaimed she loved me.
“I love you, Aunt Trudy, and I’d like to stick around a little longer. Probably a lot longer.”
Slowly, her lips curl. Her mouth widens. Her eyes soften. “I’d like that, baby girl. Simon would like that, too.”
Simon. Oh God, I don’t want him to think he isn’t wanted. I want to get to know him better. Our journey has only just begun. We’re making progress, slow but steady progress. I can’t turn my back on him. I promised him I’d stay, and I want to prove myself.
Let me show you who I am.
Oh, God. Stone.
“Now, if we’re done trying to dictate my life, I’m going to bed,” Trudy states, lifting her chin. Then points between Jolene and me. “I suggest you two do as well.”
Once Trudy leaves us, I glare at Jolene, not certain where to start with her, and then decide I don’t want to start at all.
She’s a grown ass adult. I cannot change her. I don’t want to change her. I accept her. Okay, well, not her sleeping with a cheating man, but it isn’t my right to judge her decisions. It isn’t my place to dictate her life. I can only love her, even if I don’t like her choices.
Family. It’s complicated.
“I’m headed to Gloria,” I state, excusing myself.
Once I climb into my camper van, I stare up at the ceiling, questioning all my life choices.
Staying away from Sterling Falls for all these years. Keeping myself distant from Trudy.
Chasing, chasing, chasing.
Not a man.
A dream, perhaps.
Then again, I’m living a dream. Maybe what I’ve been searching for all this time is me. I’ve been living a life but not loving it as I should. Chasing something I wasn’t going to find anywhere other than the only place I’ve ever considered home.
Stone.
His name so easily comes to mind when I thought Trudy would take the top spot.
Waiting. I’d been waiting for what?
Stone slips into place again.
He made decisions in the past that shouldn’t be held against him in the present. He’s mournful, ashamed, guilt-ridden. I heard it all in his voice.
He’s there, and I’m here, because I left him behind. I always leave first and look where I am.
The loneliness hits deep as I curl to my side and stare at the front seat of my van. In my forties, I’m still living like a vagabond. Here. There. Nowhere. When there are people in Sterling Falls who want me to stay.
Trudy. Simon.
When I think of the boy, everything in me seizes up. I never want him to feel unwanted, abandoned, left behind.
Let me show you who I am.
Fuck. I haven’t done a good job. Not by any of them, including Stone. And that stops now, here.
Okay, tomorrow.
Because maybe Trudy is right. Here she is, and here Simon is, and they need each other.
Simon, who doesn’t need just a house, but a home and love, and I want the same things.
And Stone is here, and I am here, and I need him, too. He can provide that home, that love, I desire.
And yet I walked away tonight.
Home isn’t a location, Trudy once told us. It’s a safe space. There’s a difference.
Trudy has been that safe space for so many of us.
Stone feels like a safe space, too.
With that on my mind, I toss and turn until my brain seems to think it can’t think any more. I close my eyes for a little while, which feels like no more than a few minutes, before Jolene is rapping on the back window of Gloria.
“What the fuck?” I mutter, sitting up, feeling my back pinch as I brush my hair out of my face.
Jolene is yelling at me through the glass, and I can’t exactly make out what she’s saying, so I scramble to the sliding door and flip the latch.
Jolene rounds to the side of the van.
“What did you—”
“Is Simon out here?” she questions, sticking her head into the van and forcing me back so she can scan up, down, and around like a ten-year-old boy won’t be blatantly visible in the small vehicle.
“Simon?” I parrot. “Shouldn’t he be getting ready for school?” A quick glance at my phone says it’s seven-o-eight.
I’ll need to drive him to school in about fifteen minutes and then I’m headed back to Stone. We need to talk more. He needs to know I’m not leaving.
“That’s just it,” Jolene says, her eyes wide, her cheeks sallow. “Simon isn’t in the house.”
“What do you mean?” I push past her, finding my legs shaky from lack of sleep, but also creaking because of my curled-up position.
I’m wearing a shirt I stole from Stone and a pair of his socks, which are oversized on me.
“Simon,” I call out, rushing into the house, repeating his name like my sister simply missed seeing him.
He’s in the bathroom. Or the kitchen. Or even Trudy’s room.
But Trudy stands just outside his bedroom with her phone to her ear.
When I reach Simon’s bedroom, the bed is unmade, and I scan the space for clues. Anything that says he’s just hiding.
Only, the backpack he keeps near his bed is gone, and his favorite gym shoes which are normally tossed near the sack are also missing.
“I’ll head out,” I warn Trudy, running my hand down her robe-covered arm as some form of reassurance. He couldn’t have gotten far. I hope. “I’ll see if he’s along the road somewhere.”
My thoughts race to every bad scenario.
Trudy’s voice trembles as she speaks into phone, nearly deaf to my muttering around her.
“Judd, Simon is missing.”