Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Y ou’re a fool, boss. Fire me if you have to.”
Maxwell set down his tools, tipped his goggles up, and stared at Janessa. “Pardon me?”
“I don’t know why you’re avoiding Eryn, but she’s miserable.”
His ire sputtered. “I’m not avoiding her.”
Janessa’s head tipped to the side as her eyebrows raised. “Is that how she sees it?”
“Did she ask you where I was? Because you could have told her.”
“I did tell her, but Maxwell? She didn’t ask. She looked like she expected to be ghosted all along, and now it had come true.”
Ouch. Ghosted was a nasty word. But that was basically what he’d done, if only for a day. He braced himself. “I was bound to disappoint her sooner or later.”
“Seriously? That’s what you’ve got?”
Maxwell spread his hands. “Whatever I do, it’s never enough.”
“Hold everything, boss man, and back up a bit. You’ve accomplished far more in your, what, thirty? years than most anyone I’ve met.”
“Twenty-nine, thanks, anyway.” He was willing to own the extra week before his birthday, but an entire year? Nope.
“Even more impressive.”
“Get real, Janessa. Thanks for bringing lunch. How’s painting going over in Four?”
“I’m giving you free advice.” Her jaw took an obstinate edge.
“Which is likely worth exactly what I paid for it.” Maxwell pointed at the door.
“Pretend for a minute you’re not Maxwell the Great, just an ordinary guy who works too much and is lousy at relationships.”
He really ought to fire her. This was more liberty than even Heather had ever taken, and he’d known her for a decade. Janessa? Barely over a year.
On the other hand, she wasn’t completely wrong. “Pass me my lunch, and have at it. You’ve got ten minutes to get this all off your chest, and then you get to never mention it again.”
“Gotcha, boss man.” She held out the cooler. “It’s soup, so you might want to sit at a table somewhere.”
The orders never ceased, but he’d granted her ten minutes, and he’d let her use them. Then she could shut it or walk.
He followed her to the small deck, where they’d set up a portable table and a couple of folding chairs. He opened the container and inhaled the aroma of green bean soup, something Aunt Nadine had introduced into his life, along with dozens of other tasty, home cooked foods like he’d never had in his life.
Eryn probably had made the soup. She may even have made the sourdough bread cradling ham salad between the slices.
She’d never been far from Kansas but had uprooted her entire life, everything she’d ever known, to follow where Maxwell had beckoned. Sure, she’d come with her dad, but this might as well have been a foreign land to both of them.
And now he was too wrapped up in work even to set her mind at rest.
But hadn’t he proved to himself that he was just like his father? And that meant work first, second, and third. Relationships were down in fourth place, if even there.
“Boss?”
He focused on Janessa as he took a bite of the sandwich then motioned her to talk.
“There’s more to life than work.”
For some people, maybe. He chewed. She had ten minutes — nine, now — and she might as well spend them all talking.
“I hear you’re a Christian. I’ve never heard you cuss, and you go to church.”
That was her definition of Christianity? Ugh. He’d definitely failed.
“I’m no expert, but doesn’t that mean you answer to a higher power than the almighty dollar?” Janessa held both hands as though in defense. “I know your family is filthy rich, and I get that we need money to make the world go ’round, but it’s not God. Or it shouldn’t be.”
Against his better judgment, he was with her so far. He took a bite of soup. Waited.
“You’ve watched the Christmas Carol movie or read the book, right?”
He nodded. An animated version when he was a kid… and he saw where she was going with this. Eight minutes.
“So old Ebenezer Scrooge pushed everyone aside in order to get rich?—”
Maxwell had had enough. “Hold it right there. I am not like him.”
“He pushed everyone aside in order to get rich, but he was alone and grouchy. Money can’t keep you warm. Money can’t laugh with you. Money can’t buy sunsets or sweetgrass wafting on a summer breeze or an ocean lapping at the shore. It can’t buy the things that really matter.”
“I have a job to do.” And he didn’t care about money. Not that much. It was approval he craved.
She scoffed lightly and shook her head. “Your grandfather will fire you if the project is set back by a few days? Not likely. I’m willing to bet you don’t have to prove anything to him. He knows you’re conscientious. And that, by the way, is not the same thing as being a workaholic.”
She was right that neither Grandfather nor Tate would fire him. And if they did, Maxwell could go back to running his own business his own way. But he also didn’t have to prove anything to God, so who was he trying to impress?
Himself? The people around him? What really drove him? He didn’t even know.
Yes, he did. Dad. No matter how hard he worked, James Sullivan found ways to make him feel inept. At least if he poured everything into work, he could look better to Dad than Bryce.
Bingo.
Appearing better than his brother in his father’s eyes drove him. Wasn’t that pathetic? Bryce was a grown man of thirty. He made his own choices. Maxwell wasn’t responsible for him, and one-up-man-ship wasn’t a good look on anyone.
“Just think about what you’re doing to Eryn as well as to yourself. I think she could be really great for you, but relationships don’t happen by accident. They take time and attention.”
Maxwell’s eyebrows tilted up as he studied Janessa. Where was this advice coming from? It sounded personal.
Janessa pulled to her feet. “Yeah, I’ve been there. I’ll leave you to it.”
He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got three more minutes. Why not give me the other barrel?’
She laughed mirthlessly. “There is no other barrel, boss man. It was all in that first one. Don’t be an Ebenezer Scrooge and wake up a bitter old man, surrounded by gold coins but with no one to love. That’s the whole sermon.” She turned away.
“Gold coins? I wish!” Maxwell tried for a jovial tone.
Janessa pointed a finger at him. “That there is exactly what I’m talking about.”
“It was a joke,” he mumbled.
The door into the cottage closed behind her.
Had it been a joke, or did he believe that more money made things better? He had enough for a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of his life already. Maybe not if he found himself cut off from the Sullivan fortune, but even so, he was unlikely to ever be destitute.
Keith Ralston had needed to sell the farm that had been in his family for generations because of overwhelming debt. His house had once been grand, or at least, fairly nice, but it had fallen into disrepair over decades of neglect. Not likely because Keith had preferred to spend his money on other things, but because there hadn’t been enough to go around.
Eryn hadn’t lived with her dad from inertia, but because of the cost of living. Her clothes weren’t up to date in fashion. Not that Maxwell cared, but most women he knew did. Men’s fashion was more forgiving, at least in the construction world where he dabbled.
He came from a world of have. She came from a world of have not. And now he’d made her feel that she was less than, as well.
Great. He needed to think and pray on that while he chipped out more tile.
Biting her lip, Eryn opened her backpack in the lodge’s great room. She’d left Paisley downstairs at the duplex and packed the journals herself, steeling herself against their siren call. Just one more entry couldn’t hurt, right?
Oh, but it could. She knew that now.
Paisley knelt in front of the fireplace and nudged the mesh screen aside before beckoning Eryn beside her.
Eryn lowered herself to a cushion on the hearth and took a deep breath. There was still time to gather the books and run. Keep those reminders — those hurts — close to her chest.
“There’s a lot to be said about getting rid of bad memories,” Paisley mused, watching the flames dance. “I’ve had a bit of practice.”
“You have?”
“My mom’s a mess. She was a drug addict for years, then came clean, then relapsed in June. I don’t have a lot of good memories from my childhood.”
Amelia notwithstanding, Eryn did have some.
“I met my father for the first time in June,” Paisley went on. “He’s scum. I never want to see him again.”
Eryn winced. “I’m sorry.” At least her own dad was an upstanding man.
“My sisters…” Paisley took a deep breath. “They try, I guess. Kait looks after Mom, but she’s bitter. Like you, I have a sister named Amelia. She’s the oldest, and she ditched the rest of us as soon as she could. She’s back east somewhere. Last I heard, she was nearly through med school on scholarships. I ran away, too, but with less to show for it. I didn’t have Amelia’s focus. I worked seasonal jobs for years: ski lodges in winter, resorts like Sweet River in summer.”
“I never guessed.” Eryn had been focused inwardly, not looking out to see who else might be hurting, and why. What kind of friend did that make her? A lousy, selfish one.
Paisley shrugged. “I cover it up well, I suppose. But running from the past doesn’t change it, and it doesn’t allow healing.” She looked at Eryn. “Dwelling in it doesn’t, either.”
“You’re right.” Eryn pulled the top journal out. 2008. She’d read the whole thing. “Do I need to tear it up, or will it burn okay whole?”
“Looks easy to tear, and it might be therapeutic.”
Eryn snorted under her breath. Her friend had no idea. Or maybe she did. She grasped the notebook, twisted it, and ripped it in half. Then she fed the pieces to the blaze, watching as the flames danced on the paper before blackening it. Poof. The first handful was gone.
Panic threatened to engulf her the same way the flames engulfed the next bundle of paper. But no, this was the right thing to do. She’d known it all along, but today was the first time she’d been brave enough to face the challenge.
2010 was half read, and now she would never finish. It likely held more of the same, and she didn’t need to wallow in it. It was the past. Amelia was dead, and with these journals burned, her power to hurt Eryn would also disappear.
Okay, not completely, because short of a major bout of amnesia, memories would remain. But maybe with practice, she could keep them from affecting every minute of every day.
Wow, she couldn’t believe she’d been a slave to these stupid diaries for nearly two months. Burning the pages felt like unlocking shackles from around her ankles. Not that prisoners had a choice, but Eryn did, and she was taking it.
Freedom.
Paisley’s quiet voice seeped into her mind. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”
Eryn looked at her.
“Second Corinthians 5:17. It’s been both a challenge and a comfort to me.”
Eryn fed another wad of paper into the fire.
“Ooh, a book burning! What’s the occasion?” Bryce’s taunting voice came from behind them. “I prefer to read banned books rather than burn them.”
Eryn’s heart chilled to ice, and she clutched the backpack to her chest. “Get out of here.”
He laughed. “Whatcha hiding? Is it something my little brother should know? I always have his best interests at heart, as I’m sure you know.”
“Get lost, Bryce.” Paisley sounded bored. “This is none of your business. Don’t you have someplace you need to be?”
He dropped into an easy chair nearby. “Nope. I came in to enjoy the fire.”
Could Eryn keep going with him watching? It would be so much easier to take her backpack back to the duplex and try again later. Or maybe just keep the journals. She didn’t have to read them. No one was forcing her to.
No. She’d come this far. She tore the next one in half and tossed it into the blaze. Once it was mostly consumed, she did it again. Then again.
“Old love letters? I bet Maxie would love to read those.”
“None of your business, Bryce,” Paisley warned.
Eryn didn’t need to worry about Bryce. Paisley would take care of him if he tried to snatch the booklets from her. She had only one job: burn the books. Today. Right now.
2014. They were through high school now. Was Amelia still obsessed with Maxwell? Was she remembering their marriage pact and dreaming about it?
Eryn fumbled the next diary, and it dropped open. She clenched her eyes shut as she closed it then tore it. She needed her eyes open to feed the fire, though.
This was getting easier, year by year. With every destroyed diary, the backpack in her lap grew lighter. Her heart grew lighter.
Eryn was unlikely to conjure up memories of her twin’s devotion and love for her, but they weren’t in those books, anyway.
They might be.
No. They weren’t.
Eryn tossed the last three into the fire without ripping them first. She needed them gone. Absolutely, irrevocably gone.
Now, they were.
The panic subsided, but where had the tears come from? “I’m sorry, Amelia,” she whispered. “I forgive you.”
Bryce snorted and stalked from the room, his boot heels clacking across the floor until the lodge doors closed behind him.
She’d survived burning the journals while Bryce watched.
And she had a new girlfriend — Paisley Teele — who had her back like no one ever had before. She reached to hug her. “Thank you.”