Chapter 13 Zandra
THIRTEEN
Zandra
Callum gave me a once-over as I climbed into his truck. “I thought your entire wardrobe was business casual and designer jeans.”
“It’s my day off.” I was wearing my favorite worn-in cut-off jean shorts and an oversized sweatshirt that fell off one shoulder.
The interior of Callum’s truck was surprisingly tidy. Clean dashboard, no random papers or fast-food wrappers cluttering the console. The seats were worn leather, comfortable beneath me as I climbed into the passenger seat, holding a potted plant in my lap.
“You may notice, I mixed it up too.” He pointed at his hat. “Wearing my ball cap facing forward.”
“Almost didn’t recognize you,” I deadpanned. “Mr. Charming.”
He grinned. “And there it is.”
Over the last few days, we’d kept up a low level of flirtation while working together. Essentially, Callum making ridiculous little requests and me protesting before giving in. But our ongoing banter, silly as it was, had made this trip to see Mrs. Mackenzie feel less intimidating.
“You got the address?” Callum asked.
It hadn’t been hard to track down Mrs. Makenzie’s number through the Silver Ridge grapevine. When I called, she’d told me Monday, today, would be good to stop by. Which was perfect, since Callum and I had the day off.
I read the street address off my phone, and Callum put it in his GPS. “Thanks for doing this with me,” I said. “I mean it.”
“I know. Joking aside, it’s no problem at all.”
Funny how I didn’t mind Callum’s teasing about “owing him” for doing me this favor. While Ian’s claim that I owed him made me want to punch my ex through the phone. Probably because I trusted Callum would never really be that petty.
Once, I’d thought otherwise. But these days, Callum was one of the people I trusted most. How was that for a turnaround.
We talked about work stuff during the fifteen-minute drive. Then Callum put his truck in park in front of a run-down house that desperately needed a paint job. He eyed the street. “Didn’t realize Mrs. Mackenzie had moved out here.”
“Must’ve been at some point after Jessa died.”
This place was far more depressing than the house I’d spent so much time at in high school. I’d remembered a bungalow with flower boxes and a white fence. Not this lonely road that dead-ended into a gravel pit.
“Ready?” Callum asked.
“No, but I’m going anyway.” I pushed open the door and got out. More of a jump, since Callum’s truck was a good distance from the concrete.
Really, if I wasn’t such a coward, I would’ve faced this by myself.
But instead, I was showing up here with an indoor plant as a gift and the town’s favorite golden retriever bartender to act as a buffer. Since everybody loved Callum around here, Mrs. Mackenzie would be no different, right?
Today, he’d worn a snug T-shirt in a dark green, along with jeans that didn’t have a single rip or tear. But Callum looked effortlessly sexy in anything. Just throwing off masculine pheromones like it was his side hustle.
I had to get a grip.
Without a doubt, seeing Jessa’s mom would sober me up.
I hesitated in the overgrown yard. “We could do this another day,” Callum offered.
Get moving, I told myself. You’re a grown woman. As much as I wanted to slink off and hide like Chloe, I couldn’t.
“No. I’m good.” Callum was here beside me, and I was so dang grateful for that.
On the porch, I shifted the potted plant to one arm and rang the bell. The door cracked open, and a thin woman with wiry hair peered out. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mrs. Mackenzie. I called you a little while ago?” I lifted up the plant, because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Oh. Of course. I remember you, Zandra.”
Nothing could’ve prepared me for how much Mrs. Mackenzie had changed. She had to be in her mid-fifties, but she looked at least a decade older. Her once-full cheeks had sunken in, leaving sharp angles where there used to be soft curves.
Yet seeing her face brought everything rushing back. Jessa’s funeral, where I’d stood frozen beside the casket, unable to find words that could possibly comfort this woman who’d lost her daughter. The candlelight vigil, where Jessa’s mom couldn’t even speak for crying.
Now, sixteen years later, the guilt crashed over me like a tidal wave. My throat tightened, and my chest felt heavy with the weight of all the things I should have said, should have done.
I should have stayed in touch.
I should have saved her daughter.
While I stood there numbly, Callum stepped in beside me, making the porch groan. “Hello, Mrs. Mackenzie. I’m Callum. Zandra and I work together at the brewery now, so I thought I’d join her.”
“The O’Neal boy from Jessa’s year.” She opened the door a bit wider. “I don’t have many visitors these days. But you can come in.”
We stepped inside the narrow shotgun-style house. The front door opened directly into the living room, which flowed into a small kitchen.
Aside from a pile of mail on a table by the door, everything was tidy. A worn couch faced an old television, and in the corner sat a small desk with a laptop computer and landline phone. But there was an overwhelming sense of loneliness here, as if most of the room was rarely touched.
I held out the potted plant. “I brought this for you.”
That’s when I noticed the collection of planters by the sliding patio door, all of them holding the brown, withered remains of what had once been houseplants.
My heart sank a little more. But Mrs. Mackenzie took the gift anyway, setting it on the nearby kitchen counter.
Her expression still hadn’t changed since she’d opened the door.
“Won’t you sit down?” She gestured haltingly at the couch. “I got out a soda for you. It’s on the coffee table. A Coke. I remembered that’s what you liked, Zandra. Just like my Jessa.”
I took a seat on the lumpy couch and reached for the soda. “This is perfect. Thank you.”
“Son, I didn’t know you were coming. Did you want a drink?”
“That would be great, ma’am. I can get it myself.”
“You can just call me Paula.”
He covered the distance to the kitchen in two long strides, grabbing a can from the collection on the counter. Callum sat beside me, while Paula took a narrow, straight-backed chair from a corner. She glanced around like she was searching for something to say.
“I just got back to Silver Ridge a few weeks ago,” I started. I told her how I’d come to help out after my grandpa’s accident, which it seemed she hadn’t heard about.
But every word from my mouth was as stilted as Jessa’s mom was acting. Who could blame her? This woman had spent the last sixteen years without her daughter. Without Jessa’s laugh, without her bright smile, without all the grandchildren she might have had someday.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I’d been faster, smarter, braver that night, Paula wouldn’t be sitting here alone in this sad little house.
Callum jumped in like he could sense how close I was to falling apart. “That construction up the road must be a headache for you, Paula.”
“Oh, yes. They’ve been making a racket.”
Thank you, Callum, I thought. Now there was a perennial topic of conversation in any town. The endless indignities of road construction.
I got up from my seat to look at the framed pictures on the walls. Beside the TV was a display of old photos of the Mackenzie family from when Jessa and her brother Leo were kids. The siblings had shared the same pale blond curls and round faces.
In one picture they were kicking a soccer ball around. In another, Leo was by himself holding up a fish he’d caught.
Leo’s cocky smirk made me think of Callum. Two confident boys who’d swaggered down the high school hallways, though Leo was younger. Yet there had been something harder about Leo too. Something…angry. Which must’ve just gotten worse after Jessa died.
And then there was a selfie of me and Jessa as teenagers, our arms around each other with the creek behind us. Her pale complexion was flushed pink from laughter. I stood beside her with my long braid draped over one shoulder, my skin golden and hers pale.
We looked so young, so full of hope and possibility. So alive.
I startled when Paula spoke from right behind me. “Jessa’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak. All I could do was nod, my eyes stinging and heart thumping painfully in my chest. Paula had talked about Jessa that way at the funeral, too. In the present tense. Like she simply couldn’t believe her daughter was gone.
But then I felt the warmth of Callum’s hand on my arm. “Jessa was a great girl. I remember how kind she was. Could make anyone smile. Even Zandra.”
I was surprised Callum could recall that much about my friend. But then again, he’d apparently noticed plenty about me back then too. The Callum I thought I knew wasn’t the real him.
And he’d just reminded me what Paula really needed. To hear about how much her daughter had meant to me.
I cleared my throat. “Jessa was the most loyal person I ever knew. She stood by me no matter what. Made me laugh all the time. Just…brought sunshine to my day.”
Paula’s face softened for the first time since we’d arrived. “And to mine.”
“She’d show up at my house with some ridiculous story about something that happened on Main Street after school, or she’d drag me down to the creek just to sit and talk about our dreams for college.”
Paula reached out to touch a photo of Leo. “After he left Silver Ridge, Leo took a job on a fishing trawler up in Alaska. It’s been a long while since I last heard from him. No clue where he is.” Something in her tone made me pause, though I couldn’t pinpoint why.
“Losing Jessa was really hard for him,” I replied, remembering what Winnie had said.
Paula nodded, eyes still on the photo. “Especially because he and his sister fought a few days before that awful night.” Her gaze suddenly darted to mine. “He never would tell me what they argued about.”
Jessa had said something about sibling drama. I’d forgotten until now. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what they fought about either.”
Her composure slipped, her small form swaying, and she reached out to brace herself on my arm. Her fingers tightened painfully on my wrist. “I miss my girl.”
My heart was breaking for her. “Can I give you a hug?”
“Alright.”
As I wrapped my arms around her, my eyes locked with Callum’s. He nodded and gave me a closed-mouth, sympathetic smile.
I breathed easier once we were back outside and out of the stale air of Paula’s home. We got in Callum’s truck, and he turned on the engine, but he didn’t drive away.
“There was a Mother’s Day card on that table by the door,” he said quietly. “It was sitting on top of an envelope. Already open. Did you notice that?”
“What? A card?” I was half listening, while the rest of me was still stuck in that house.
My responsible, adult side knew I should go back and see Mrs. Mackenzie again soon. She was lonely. Yet I couldn’t stomach the thought of returning to that oppressive space, surrounded by all those memories and nothing else. Like breathing in pure sorrow.
That had to make me a bad person, didn’t it?
I’m the worst, Jessa, I thought. I miss you. Please tell me to shut up and not be so hard on myself, because that’s what I need to hear.
“A Mother’s Day card,” Callum repeated. “I think it was from Leo. Which is odd, right? Didn’t she say she hadn’t heard from him? Doesn’t know where he is?”
“Maybe it was from last year,” I said, though even as the words left my mouth, I knew how weak they sounded. “Or maybe someone else sent it.”
Callum’s brow furrowed. “Who else would’ve sent it but her son?”
I understood what he meant. But why would Paula have lied to us?