Chapter 5
When I’ve vaguely recovered from my shock in the parking lot of the Maple Bar, I stare out my windshield for a good, long time.
There are several ways this evening could play out, and I contemplate all of them before deciding what to do.
Option One: I make myself conveniently scarce in order to avoid any tellings-off I might receive for spitting water all over Alvina’s new boyfriend.
It’s not like I did it on purpose, but such sound logic doesn’t always get through to my mother.
I can help Nathan restock the hardware shop, even though he deserted me in my hour of need, and during that time I can also try to banish the imagined but horrifying image of Alvina and Daryl kissing on a couch like teenagers.
I can hide like a coward until later, at which point I can sneak home and into my—our—bedroom, hoping Alvina will be asleep and will have cooled down by morning.
Pros: I remain out of Alvina’s reach for now.
Cons: It’s heavy on the cowardice, and I won’t be able to give Dominic his letter.
Option Two: I book it home right this second and hope I get there before Alvina, grab the letter, track down Dominic, and take it to him before I can chicken out. Then I go to the shop and hang out with Nate, once again crawling home late tonight.
Pros: I avoid Alvina, and Dominic gets the letter. Closure and peace are surely within my reach.
Cons: Still a bit cowardly.
Option Three: Go back home, get the letter, face Alvina if she’s there.
If she’s not, I can take the letter to Dom; if she’s already at the house, I can take the letter to Dom after whatever she has to say about my accidental waterworks earlier.
Spend the rest of the evening doing whatever I want, wherever I want.
Pros: Dominic gets his letter, I get Alvina’s reaction out of the way. I am a brave woman who can face the unpredictable wrath of a mother embarrassed.
Cons: The aforementioned wrath of a mother embarrassed, possibly more inflamed due to the recent nature of the event in question.
Ultimately I decide on option three. I do this because I’m tired and worn out from the shock I’ve undergone, and I’d really love to go to bed early. To do that I need to get everything done and out of the way.
I think part of me is also still hoping this is all a very bad dream.
The drive back home is short, a path that branches away from Main and into one of only several neighborhoods in Autumn Ridge.
The sun has dipped lower by now, but the falling light is still golden as I make my way down my street, past white picket fences and vibrant trees.
I know exactly what the air would smell like if I rolled down my window—humidity and the faintly sweet scent of falling leaves—and I know what I would hear, too.
Birds chirping and the breeze whispering and the crunch of leaves beneath my wheels.
It’s familiar, and as much as I wish I had a different place to live right now, I do love familiarity.
Sometimes I think I should be braver. Break away from what I’ve always known instead of wallowing where I feel safe.
I sigh as I turn into the driveway, pulling around the back of the house and killing the engine.
I sit in the silence of my car for a moment, breathing easier now that I note the absence of Alvina’s car.
I don’t know how long she’ll be out, though, so I only give myself a minute before I hurry inside, through the kitchen, up the stairs, and down the hall to my room.
It smells faintly like my mother’s perfume, and my migraine gives another painful throb.
The window lurches loudly when I pry it open, but the immediate flood of cool air is a welcome relief.
I pointedly ignore the negligee, which has now slipped to the carpeted floor, and try not to imagine Alvina wearing it during her tribal mating dance with Dominic’s father. I can only handle so much at once.
Once I’ve inhaled deeply of the fresh breeze, I grab a hanger and then get down on the floor and cast my eyes under my bed.
Because there’s an art to hiding things from your mother.
Not that I should have to, mind you, because I am twenty-seven and have earned the right to privacy.
But you never know with Alvina. So the small box I’m looking for has been placed very strategically under my bed, pushed all the way in with a hanger and only retrievable with one too.
It’s not that my mother wouldn’t think to look under the bed if she thought I were hiding something.
She would just consider lying down on the floor and groping around under there to be barbarian behavior, a distasteful motion that would dirty her clothing.
She’d much rather call Nathan and have him move the bed for her.
Nate is on my side, thankfully, and his relationship with Alvina is more strained than mine is, due to his general unwillingness to be trampled on like a rug. I wasn’t sure he’d even let her live here.
I wield my plastic hanger like an extension of my arm and stretch it as far as I can under the bed, tapping around until I make contact with the small cardboard box back there.
It takes some maneuvering and some creative twists of my shoulder, but finally I manage to hook the hanger around the back of the box and pull it toward me, until it’s close enough that I can swipe it out with my hand.
It’s not a big box, and it’s not fancy or pretty or anything of the sort. It’s just plain brown. Since I’ve only been here a week, there’s no dust to blow away, for which I’m grateful. I brush the top of the box anyway, just in case, as I stare down at it.
I don’t know if I would call myself sentimental. There were just a few things I couldn’t get rid of—not yet—and I didn’t know where to put them. But the rush of emotions that overcomes me as I pull the lid off has me holding my breath, swallowing back the feelings that are trying to escape.
The past. This box holds the past, I remind myself. There’s no room for the past in the present.
I stare down at the contents, make myself look at each of them instead of hiding. A worn, warped baseball hat, faded and blue; a still-wrapped butterscotch hard candy; two ticket stubs from the Autumn Ridge pumpkin patch.
And, nestled to the side of the box, a neatly folded piece of lined paper, containing the words I agonized over.
It took me weeks to write this very short letter, once I decided I needed to. I pull it gently out and smooth the folded edges, inhaling deeply.
I could read it again, I guess, but I have the contents more or less memorized.
So I give the hat and the candy and the ticket stubs one last glance; I reach one finger out to touch the torn rim of the baseball cap, but I stop myself.
Then I replace the lid and slide the box back under the bed, pushing it as far in as it will go.
There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
I stand up and smooth my hands down my sweater, brushing some imagined dirt from the front of my overalls. Then I pull out my phone and open a new text message.
Dominic, I type. I have something I need to give you. Could you please tell me where you are so I can swing by?
It only takes me a few seconds to press Send, and my hands aren’t even shaking that much. Admittedly there is a full-on riot in my chest, and my stomach feels like Jell-O, but aside from that—I’m good.
Yep, I’m good. Great, even. And the way I stare at my phone screen is definitely very normal. I blink a normal amount and breathe a normal amount, and my pulse thumps very normally too.
When my eyes have begun to water and I pull in a gasping breath—for reasons unrelated to forgetting to breathe—I make myself put the phone back in my pocket.
Then I stand up, shake out my pins-and-needles feet, and leave the bedroom.
I wobble down the stairs just in time to see Alvina coming through the front door.
The burst of wind that accompanies her is a bit chilly.
“There you are,” she says, as though she’s been looking for me. Her lips are turned down into a frown, and her eyes are disapproving. “What on earth is wrong with you today?”
“Nothing,” I say with an unconvincing shrug. My voice remains normal, but a wave of faint anxiety rolls through me as I watch her, waiting.
She scoffs, and some of my anxiety fades when I see her expression. This type of scoff holds more tiredness than anger, which means I probably won’t receive anything nasty.
Her hair, I also notice vaguely, is still the exact same shape it was earlier. Not a strand has moved.
Someone should study that.
“Well,” she says now, “clearly something is wrong. You spit water all over Daryl. I was so embarrassed.”
“I was just surprised,” I say—which is true. “That’s all.”
A long, skeptical hum escapes her pursed lips as she steps elegantly out of her heels. “Don’t let it happen again, please. I’m not sure how I could explain something like that twice.” Then her eyes catch on the letter in my hand, and she nods. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” I say casually, tucking the letter behind my back and out of view. “Just some stuff.”
“Mmm.” Then, looking supremely unconcerned, she adds, “Go touch up your makeup. It’s a bit smudged.”
I already cleaned up my mascara, although I don’t tell her that. What she’s noticing is the dark circles under my eyes, courtesy of poor sleep caused by her faint snores.
“Yep,” I say lightly, and only when she’s trailed into the living room do I descend the rest of the stairs, relief coursing through me.
That could have been significantly worse, and I can’t help the lightness that enters my step now that one hurdle is out of the way. My grip on my phone is steadier too when I pull it out to check if Dominic has responded.
He has, I see with a jolt. There are no words in his text; he’s only dropped me his location.
“Fine,” I say under my breath. “That works.” I tap the map in his message and pull it up, zooming in. He’s over on the outskirts of town, but it won’t take me long to get there.