Chapter Thirty-Three Ren
Ren was up with the sun, and elbow deep in chores long before breakfast. Hard work was preferable to the nonstop reel of doubt playing in her head, and so for a few brief hours she let herself get lost in feeding and watering the animals, collecting eggs, and taking care of nesting boxes. She came inside to shovel a bowl of granola in her mouth between tasks, but Ren might as well have been invisible. The lectures and new rules she’d been convinced were coming never materialized.
Instead, Steve and Gloria talked as if she wasn’t even there, discussing water rights in Oregon and the Portland Farmers Market as they pored over survey and plat maps spread out on the table between them. When Gloria sent Ren to the cellar for peaches, there were already boxes waiting to be packed up to move.
Ren couldn’t wrap her head around it. Her parents were not impulsive. Look up the word cautious and their faces would be right there next to every possible definition. It took them a year to decide where they wanted to dig the pond, and twice as long to finally break ground. They had the same breakfast every morning, went to town the same days every week, and wouldn’t replace something if any amount of duct tape would hold it together. She’d never heard them so much as mention leaving, but now they were already partially packed up and ready to go?
Back in the kitchen, she wished again that she could talk to Edward. The weight of his absence sat heavy in every one of her thoughts as she stood over the sink, the dishwater growing cold in front of her. Whether he was Edward or Fitz, he was still the same man who watched movies he’d seen a dozen times because she never had, suffered through tourist traps so she could have an adventure, and couldn’t stand the idea of sharing a bed because he wanted to kiss her so badly. He was the person who showed her how to kiss, how to cuddle, and how to open her heart to someone new.
He was also the one who drove her to Atlanta to meet her father and insisted she call him and keep him updated, and she never did.
God, what must he be thinking? She needed to let him know that she was okay. She needed to tell him that she was sorry. She needed to figure out how to do that. No one had mentioned a thing about her returning to school, but her trunk was still in her dorm room, full of her things. She was pretty sure nobody would be willing to take her there again.
Ren would have to move with her parents or leave on her own, possibly losing them forever.
The sound of Steve pushing away from the breakfast table snapped her back to what she was supposed to be doing. She set her dishes in the drying rack and wiped her hands, happy to retreat to the barn, where she could lose herself in chores again and figure out a plan. Gloria’s voice stopped her on the way out.
“You can finish your chores later,” she told her, rolling up the maps and fastening each with a rubber band. “Help me load stuff into the truck. We’re headed into town.”
It might not have been intended as punishment, but when Ren’s parents pointed to a bench outside the realty office and told her to stay put until they were done, it certainly felt like one.
The Realtor’s office was in the same tiny storefront as that of the seamstress and the notary, because they were all the same person. Just next door was the bakery owned by Miss Jules, who also doubled as childcare for a handful of younger kids in the area.
Until recently, Ren’s tiny town was the only one she’d ever known; seeing it with new eyes was disorienting. The turnoff from the highway to Main Street had always been exciting. She liked the people, liked seeing how the storefronts slowly changed, liked the novelty of being somewhere different, even if she’d been there a hundred times. Now she imagined Edward sitting next to her and trying to understand how on earth people lived someplace so isolated. For the first time she saw the dents and scuffed paint, the cracked asphalt and crooked shop signs. There was no Starbucks or twenty-four-hour anything. It felt claustrophobic with its cracked one-lane road and single, swinging traffic light. Edward didn’t belong in a place like this. He wouldn’t fit; he’d be too big and worldly for her sleepy town. And the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she’d grown too big for it, too. With a population in the low triple digits, everyone there knew everyone else and could spot a stranger the second they stepped foot on Main Street. Even a private letter in the mail didn’t go unnoticed.
Mail…
The word poked at the back of her head as her gaze swept to the five-and-dime, just across the street. Ren paused, awareness landing. At the very least she needed to let Edward know that she was okay. She didn’t have a phone and wouldn’t know his number even if she had one. As long as she was here, her parents controlled every aspect of her life, but there was one thing they couldn’t shut down. If she hurried, there might be time.
Knowing the trouble she’d be in if she left without alerting someone, Ren ducked into the bakery. “Miss Jules?” she called out. “If you see my parents, can you let them know I ran into Jesse and Tammy’s shop for a minute and will be right back?”
Jules looked up from her game show reruns and gave Ren an arthritic thumbs-up. “’Course, Ren.”
She jogged across the street and ducked into the dark interior of the little store. Soft country music played from a set of speakers attached to ceiling tiles overhead, and Ren scanned the aisles, spotting Tammy where she was on a stepladder stocking an endcap with canned beans and a sign that advertised a buy two, get one free sale.
“Tammy!” she said brightly. “Hi!”
“Ren! Oh my goodness! Look at you!” Tammy climbed down and pulled Ren in for a hug. “You look like a real college girl!”
“Just the same old Ren from a couple weeks ago,” she said, laughing.
“No way.” Tammy held her by the shoulders at arm’s length, “There’s something in your eyes that wasn’t there before.”
Ren was sure Tammy was right.
Hooking her thumb over her shoulder, Ren asked, “My folks are over at Belinda’s. Would it be okay if I used the restroom?”
“Of course you can, sugar. Come on, let’s grab the key.”
As she followed Tammy through the store and down a narrow hall to the back office, Tammy talked about all the town happenings since Ren last saw her—the new hair salon that opened down the street, Jules’s new scone recipe, and Old Donny’s run-in with a moose. The office was a small room with an ancient copy machine and a long table in the center littered with signs and labels and small boxes of supplies. Easter bunting adorned a robin’s-egg-blue refrigerator, its surface littered with schedules and random flyers. Two desks were pushed against opposite walls. Softly humming on one of them was a computer.
Tammy pulled a bright orange coiled key ring from a hook just inside the door and handed it to Ren. “Here you go.”
Ren took the key with a smile.
“I think there’s some Girl Scout Cookies in the freezer if you’re hungry,” Tammy said. The bell over the front door rang, and the older woman squeezed Ren’s shoulder. “Help yourself, Ren. Good to see you, sweetie.”
Ren smiled at her retreating form but, instead of heading to the bathroom, moved straight to the old computer.
She’d been in this room hundreds of times over the years doing odd jobs for Tammy and Jesse, so she entered the password from memory, waited for the browser to open, and quickly logged into the Corona student portal. Ren’s email address at the Corona College domain was rgylden and she assumed all students had the same format, so she was going to try him at efitzsimmons and hope it worked. But the second she opened her email, her eyes immediately settled on a message at the top from Dr. Audran, with the word URGENT in the subject line.
Ren,
I realize class hasn’t reconvened yet, and I hope you’re having a pleasant and well-deserved break. I wouldn’t normally email about something like this, but I don’t have a phone number on record for you or your parents, and I consider it quite urgent. I received a call from your mother, who conveyed to me that you’d witnessed Edward Fitzsimmons cheating on his exam. First, I want to assure you that anything you say to me will be held in the strictest confidence. The university takes these things very seriously. We will ensure that you in no way suffer any sort of retaliation should you corroborate her story. But because of the gravity of this situation, there are certain procedures we have to follow, and I do need to verify the information with you. Can you contact me via telephone as soon as possible? My information is below, and again, I’m sorry for disturbing your break.
Best,
Michel Audran
Ren took a breath, trying to slow her racing heart.
Gloria called Dr. Audran? Ren’s stomach plummeted as she remembered that, in a moment of devastation in Atlanta, she’d told Gloria about the cheating, about the Polaroid. But why on earth would Gloria bother to call the school to report it? Ren had about a hundred questions and zero time to answer any of them. All she knew was that she couldn’t involve Edward in any of this mess with her mother. This was between her and her parents.
With her fingers on autopilot, she hit reply, and typed out the fastest email of her life.
Dr. Audran,
Thank you so much for emailing me. Let me assure you, this story is completely false. I never witnessed Fitz cheating. I never told anyone that I did. I don’t know the intent of the person who called you, but it certainly wasn’t my mother, because that conversation never happened. I’m sorry you were taken away from your own well-deserved break. I hope it is okay that I have answered you here via email, as I do not have access to a telephone.
Happy Spring Break!
Ren Gylden
Her hands shook as she pressed send, and with a leaden weight landing in her belly, she remembered Gloria taking Ren’s bag yesterday. Did Gloria take the Polaroid? And if she had, when would she have called the school? They didn’t have a landline; even if Gloria had a secret cell phone, they were so far out of range she wouldn’t have been able to do it from the homestead. At least Ren didn’t think she could…. Ren never had a cell phone to try. Maybe Gloria called from a phone at the airport when she went to the restroom. But why? Ren pressed her hands to her eyes, bewildered. Why on earth would Gloria go to all that trouble when Ren was already home safe? Why would she go after Edward at all?
Queasy with dread, Ren moved the mouse to start a new email to him but froze when the bell over the shop door rang again.
“Hey, you!” Tammy called out.
“Hey, Tam,” Gloria answered. “Jules said Ren stopped in. She here?”
Ren’s heart dropped through the floor. Standing on shaky legs, she quickly turned off the computer monitor.
“She sure is.” Tammy’s voice carried down the aisles as Ren tiptoed across the floor. “She’s just in the back using the ladies’ room.”
Ducking out of the office, Ren raced to the bathroom and opened the door, backing into the doorway as if she were just coming out, right as Gloria turned a corner and came into view.
“Hi,” Ren said, closing the door behind her. “You guys all done?”
Her mother eyed Ren for a long beat before glancing to the open office only ten feet away. “We are.”