Chapter 15. Lenore
Lenore
I wake with a crick in my neck from sleeping on the couch. Silvery morning slices through a gap in the curtains, banishing shadows beneath the furniture.
I push into a sitting position, tilting my head from side to side, fingers working over the sore muscles as I piece together everything that happened last night.
What time did Callan leave? I barely have time to wonder when there’s movement in the kitchen. I get up to investigate.
An old floorboard cracks underfoot, announcing my presence as I enter the kitchen. He glances over his shoulder. “Morning.” He’s dressed in his pajamas still, blackish hair untidy. It’s an intimate picture. My heart lifts a little, knowing he stayed here with me all night.
Maple sausage sizzles in a cast-iron skillet on the stove, syrupy smoke filling the kitchen. “I wasn’t sure how you like your eggs,” he says, which sounds like the setup for a bad pickup line. “Sunny-side up all right?”
I nod and draw out the captain’s chair at the dining table to sit down. The woods are visible through the nearest window, their colors riotous in the closing days of September. “How did you sleep?”
With a chuckle under his breath, he admits, “Not great.”
It washes over me that we must have been folded together on the cramped love seat. Vague memories pierce the cloud of sleep: long legs, tangled together; the dead weight of an arm across my shoulders; a broad chest, rising and falling, heartbeat steady beneath my cheek.
A giddy warmth fills me. Even assuming he wanted to stay all night to make sure I was safe, he didn’t have to stay on the couch with me. He could’ve slept in one of the spare bedrooms.
“You didn’t…” I’ve started speaking before deciding what I want to say. Cal looks over at me, waiting for the end of that sentence. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to stay here all night.”
A smile hooks the corner of his mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says, looking down as he plates the food.
“You look like you think something’s funny.”
“I’m not laughing at you,” he says, “but you did ask.”
It takes a moment to register what he means. Humiliation clangs through me like a bucket dropped down a well, clattering against my insides, so deep it doesn’t seem to have a bottom. He didn’t stay the night with me because he wanted to. He stayed because I asked.
I plant my elbows on the table and bury my face in my hands. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what I’m saying, when I’m that tired. You could probably have a whole conversation with me, and I wouldn’t remember.”
“There was no conversation, if that makes you feel any better.”
I hear the floorboards shift as he moves around the counter into the dining area, followed by a ceramic thunk on the table in front of me.
I resurface, staring at the flecked stoneware of my grandmother’s Pfaltzgraff plate. “Thank you,” I mutter.
Cal settles into the chair kitty-corner to mine. “I’ll probably head out after breakfast.”
I nod, not quite looking at him as we eat. My head was already scrambled when I arrived here, a little over a week ago. Instead of finding clarity in the wide blue skies and brisk mountain air, my thoughts are more clouded than ever. A fog of distraction hangs over them.
Maybe it would help to talk to someone. It’s the time-honored tradition, when you don’t have anywhere else to put your feelings: You whisper them at two in the morning to the only other girl awake at the sleepover, or you grab lunch with your best friend, or you call your mom on the walk to work.
Except I’m long past the days of sleepovers, and as for moms or best friends—my grandmother had often played both roles, and try as I might to maintain my friendships, none of them could fill the hole in my heart where Gran belonged.
Any other time, Katie would be an option, but I can’t imagine burdening her with this right now.
Damien would be even worse. Even if we were talking about someone else, and not his childhood best friend, he’d swat the conversation away like a fly buzzing around his ear.
I can hear his voice in my head like we’re still kids: Gross, Nore.
I don’t want to know who my sister has the hots for.
I’m pulled from my thoughts by a dull humming, rhythmic, repetitive. Beside me, Cal’s head perks up, brow furrowed as he listens, too.
“Be right back.” I push to my feet and head to the keeping room, where my phone dances across the coffee table. Incoming Call: Damien French. His ears must’ve been burning.
I swipe to answer. “Hey, what’s up?” I pad back into the kitchen and decide to make an instant coffee, turning on the tap and grabbing a mug from the dish rack.
“Have you spoken to Gita?”
“No,” I say, sticking the mug beneath the faucet. “Not since last week.” From across the counter, Cal shoots me a questioning look. I mouth Damien and roll my eyes toward the heavens.
“It’s the buyer,” my brother is saying. “I guess the home inspection came back with all these fixes—no surprise—and now they’re wanting us to replace the septic system or accept a lower offer to make up the difference.”
I forgot about the inspection. They must have swung by sometime when I was out of the house last week. Maybe when we were at the farmer’s market.
“How much lower?” I ask.
“Fifteen grand.”
Hot water overflows, searing my hand. I hiss and drop the mug into the sink with a clatter. “Shit.”
“I know,” Damien says gravely.
Cal is out of his seat, miming wordlessly for me to swap places with him. I’m so flustered that I obey, sitting at the table while he spoons instant coffee grounds into the mug. “I mean, do we really have a choice here? It’s not like we can afford to replace it.”
“We could tell them no,” Damien says, “to lowering the price. See whether we get any other offers.”
Well, that’s optimistic. Offers were already sparse to begin with; as Gita explained, the French Hill property is a niche market.
Most buyers aren’t looking for seventy-three acres, not unless they plan to raze the entire lot to put up solar panels or some other profitable venture.
The farmhouse at least has curb appeal, but there haven’t been any significant improvements made to the interior in the last fifty years.
Not like Shelby and Jesse’s imposing brick Federal, turned inside out to make it more digestible to modern buyers.
I hear Patty Wilcox in my head again, tutting over all that history lost. It’s not something I ever paid much mind to, growing up.
I’m not certain whether Gran kept the old paneling and horsehair plaster intact because she valued the history of her late husband’s ancestral home or because she couldn’t afford to update it. Maybe it was a bit of both.
“Do you want any milk or sweetener?” Cal asks in an undertone. I shake my head.
“Is someone there with you?” Damien asks.
“What? No.” I widen my eyes and draw a finger across my throat so that Cal knows not to make another sound.
“I heard someone. A man’s voice.”
“Nope,” I squeak. “Just me.” I’m not particularly convincing, but Damien has always been squeamish about my love life. No way he presses the issue if he thinks I’ve had a one-night stand with a stranger—or, more likely, with some guy he probably knew in high school.
Cal looks like one of those street performers who paint themselves up as statues to go busk in Times Square. The mug is in one hand, a spoon in the other poised to stir, but he hasn’t moved a hair’s breadth.
Damien scoffs. “Whatever. So, we’re agreeing to the price drop?”
“You could try to negotiate if you want.”
“I don’t have time to play phone tag with the real estate office.”
He lets that statement hang in the air, like he’s waiting for me to offer. Because I, unlike him, have all the time in the world. At least for another two weeks.
I sigh through my nose. “I’ll handle it.”
We hang up a moment later. Cal hands me the coffee. “Thank you. Sorry about that,” I add.
He settles back at the table, but angled toward me with his knees apart, one arm hooked over the back of the dining chair. “Do we have something to hide?”
His posture is casual, but the question is barbed. I’m a little perplexed by it. “I don’t know,” I hedge. “I don’t really want Damien questioning what you’re doing here at seven in the morning.”
“I work here,” he points out.
I wave a dismissive hand. “You know what I mean.”
He holds eye contact for longer than is comfortable for most people.
It makes me feel like I’m under a microscope.
I get the sense that there’s something he’s not saying, but after a few more seconds, he stands and collects the dishes, going to rinse them at the counter.
“Did you still want me to come along to the town office on Monday?”
I’m thrown off-kilter by the change of subject. I can never seem to find my footing with him. “Sure. If you’re not busy.”
He nods without looking at me. Dries his hands on the tea towel folded over the oven handle. Stretches, and scrubs his hands over his face. “All right. Text me if you need anything between now and then,” he says.
On that note, he leaves.
I’m left sitting at the dining table with the vaguest impression that I made some misstep. Said the wrong thing, or looked at him the wrong way, but try as I might, I can’t pin anything down.