Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Lettie
It was happening again. The same way it always did.
I heard her moving around in her room before sunrise. Not the usual shuffle of someone reluctant to face the day, but purposeful steps. Deliberate. The sound of drawers opening and closing. Hangers scraping against the closet rod.
Harvest Week.
I stood in the kitchen, coffee mug warming my hands, and waited for her to emerge.
She appeared in the doorway ten minutes later. Hair combed. Blouse pressed. Lipstick applied in that shade of coral she only wore once a year.
“Good morning, Violet.”
“Morning.” I took a sip of coffee. “You look nice.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Dear.
That word.
The one she saved for this week and no other time.
She moved into the kitchen with an energy I’d learned to expect but never understood. No complaints about her joints. No hesitation. Just smooth, deliberate movement toward the table.
The table. Not her recliner.
She pulled out the chair across from me. The one that sat empty fifty-one weeks a year. The one she claimed during Harvest Week like it had always been hers.
“Is breakfast ready?”
“Almost.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
Starving. Another word reserved for this week. The rest of the year, she picked at her food and complained about her appetite. But during Harvest Week, she ate like someone who remembered what hunger felt like.
I plated eggs, bacon, and toast with mechanical precision. Set it in front of her and watched her pick up her fork without complaint.
“This looks wonderful, dear.”
I forced myself to eat. My stomach twisted the way it always did during this week. That low-grade unease that came from watching a pattern repeat without understanding why.
Five years I’d been watching this. Five years of the same transformation. Five years of questions I’d learned not to ask because the answers never came.
“So,” she said between bites, “Harvest Week is coming up.”
“It is.”
“Are you prepared? Do you have enough inventory?”
The same question. Every year. Word for word.
“I always have enough inventory.”
“Of course you do.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It never did during this week. “You’re so organized. So capable.”
I’d heard this before. The compliments that felt like stones thrown at glass. The interest in my business that vanished the moment the festival ended.
“Who do you think will be at the festival this year?” she asked.
There it was. The question that actually mattered. The one she always circled back to.
“The usual people. Sue Ann. Betty. The church ladies.”
“Anyone new?”
I set down my fork and looked at her directly. “Why do you ask that every year?”
Her smile tightened. “Just curious.”
“You’re never curious. Except during Harvest Week.”
“Well, maybe I should be more curious year-round.” She took another bite of eggs. “Maybe I’ve been too wrapped up in my own problems.”
The same deflection. The same non-answer.
I’d tried pushing before. Tried demanding explanations. It never worked. She’d shut down or snap or retreat to her room, and the pattern would continue regardless.
So I’d learned to accept it—this annual ritual I didn’t understand.
“Will that biker be there?” she asked.
My hand stilled halfway to my mouth. “Brock?”
“Is that his name?” She tilted her head. “The one who’s been coming around.”
This was new—the question about Brock. But the tone wasn’t. That careful, calculated interest she only showed during this week.
“Probably.”
“Hmm.” She went back to her eggs. “He seems very attached to you.”
“He is.”
“And you? Are you attached to him?”
I forced myself to breathe through the unease crawling up my spine. “Why are you asking?”
“Because I’m your mother, Violet. I worry about you.”
Liar.
She didn’t worry about me during the other fifty-one weeks. But during Harvest Week, she performed concern like it was part of the ritual.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Are you?” Her eyes sharpened. “Because it seems to me, you’re getting involved with dangerous people.”
“They’re not dangerous.”
“They’re bikers.”
“So?”
“So bikers bring trouble. Violence. Chaos.” She leaned forward. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”
The concern in her voice felt so familiar now. Five years of hearing it during this week and this week only. Five years of wondering what it meant.
“I can take care of myself,” I said.
“Can you?” She sat back. “I wonder.”
The conversation ended there. She finished her breakfast in silence, then stood and carried her plate to the sink. Rinsed it. Set it in the dish rack.
Just like she did every year during this week.
“Thank you for breakfast,” she said. “I think I’ll sit on the porch for a while. Get some fresh air.”
She walked out before I could respond.
I sat at the table, staring at her empty chair, feeling the weight of five years of unanswered questions pressing down on me.
Cerberus whined.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Me too.”
The rest of the morning passed in that familiar haze of unease. I worked in the garden, harvesting lavender and chamomile, but my hands moved on autopilot while my mind circled the same questions it circled every year.
Why only Harvest Week?
What does this festival mean to her?
What is she waiting for?
Because that was what it felt like. Waiting. Anticipation. Like she knew something I didn’t. Like this week held significance I couldn’t see.
I’d tried asking directly, years ago. She’d looked at me with those cold eyes and said, “Some things are better left alone, Violet.”
So I’d left it alone.
But the questions never stopped.
By noon, I’d worked myself into that state of low-grade panic I’d learned to expect during Harvest Week. My chest felt tight. My stomach churned. Every sound made me jump.
When I heard the rumble of Brock’s bike, I nearly dropped the basket of herbs I was carrying.
Cerberus barked once. A greeting, not a warning.
I set the basket down and walked around the side of the house. Brock was already off his bike, his eyes scanning the property like he always did.
Looking for threats.
He found me instead.
“Hey, baby.”
“Hey.”
He crossed to me in three long strides and pulled me against him. His hand settled at my waist. Warm. Solid. Real.
I pressed my face into his chest and breathed him in. Leather and motor oil and something darker underneath.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Liar.”
I pulled back enough to look at him. “My mother’s doing it again.”
His expression didn’t change, but I felt the shift in his body. The way he went still. Alert.
“Doing what?”
“The Harvest Week thing.” I shook my head. “She gets like this every year. Dresses up. Asks about the festival. Acts like she actually gives a shit about my life.”
“And the rest of the year?”
“She doesn’t.”
He cupped my face, tilting my head up so I had to meet his eyes. “How long has this been happening?”
“Since we moved here. She helped me with the Harvest Festival a few weeks after we arrived, but after that...” I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what it means. I don’t know why only this week matters to her.”
“What does she ask about?”
“Who’s going to be there. What I’m selling. If there’s anyone new in town.” I paused. “This year she asked about you.”
His jaw tightened. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I don’t know what to tell her because I don’t know what she wants.”
“Then we wait.” He kissed my forehead. My temple. “And we watch her.”
“I’ve been watching her for years, Brock. I still don’t have answers.”
“Maybe this year you will.”
I wanted to believe that. But years of the same pattern had taught me not to hope for explanations.
“Come inside,” I said. “I need to check on her.”
He followed me into the house, his presence a solid weight at my back. Cerberus trotted ahead, leading us to the den where my mother usually spent her days.
She wasn’t in her recliner.
She was standing at the window, staring out at the driveway. The same place she stood every year during this week.
“Mother?”
She turned, smiling when she saw Brock. “Oh. You brought your friend.”
“This is Brock,” I said carefully.
“Brock.” She said his name like she was tasting it. “The biker.”
“It’s Hades,” he corrected, his voice low and firm. Not harsh, but absolute. The kind of correction that didn’t invite argument. “That’s my road name. Lettie is the only one allowed to use my name.”
My mother’s eyebrow arched slightly. She studied him for a moment, then nodded as if filing the information away. “Hades. How... biblical.”
“Ma’am.” His voice was polite. Respectful. But I felt the tension radiating off him.
“You’re very tall,” she observed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And strong, I imagine.”
“Strong enough.”
She tilted her head, studying him with that intensity she reserved for Harvest Week. “Do you love my daughter?”
“Mother,” I hissed.
“It’s a simple question, Violet.” She didn’t look at me; she kept her eyes locked on Brock. “Do you?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Hmm.” She turned back to the window. “Love makes people do foolish things.”
“Sometimes,” Brock agreed.
“Dangerous things.”
“That too.”
“I hope you know what you’re getting into.”
“I do.”
She laughed. Soft. Almost sad. “No. You don’t. But you will.”
The words hung in the air like they did every year. Cryptic. Weighted. Meaningless without the context I’d never been given.
I stepped forward. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing, dear.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Just an old woman rambling.”
The same deflection. The same non-answer.
“You’re not that old.”
“Aren’t I?” She finally looked at me. “Sometimes I feel ancient.”
There was something in her eyes. Something I’d seen before during these weeks, something that looked almost like regret.
Then it was gone.
“I think I’ll rest now,” she said. “All this excitement has worn me out.”
She walked toward us without another word. Her eyes locked on Brock as she closed her door with a soft click.
Brock’s hand found mine. Squeezed.
“What the fuck was that?” he whispered.
“That’s what happens every year.” My voice came out flat. Resigned. “She transforms during Harvest Week. Acts like a different person. Then the festival ends and she goes back to her recliner like nothing happened.”
“And you don’t know why?”
“No.” I looked at him. “I’ve tried asking. She won’t tell me. So I’ve learned to just... accept it.”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I.” I squeezed his hand back. “But I don’t know what else to do.”
We stood there in the hallway, weighted down by five years of unanswered questions.
And I knew, with absolute certainty, that whatever this was, it mattered to my mother in ways I would never fully understand.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I lay in bed next to Brock, my face pressed into his chest. His heartbeat was steady beneath my ear; his arm locked around me, even in sleep. Even unconscious, he held me like I might disappear.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I’d spent years being untouchable. Alone. Safe in my isolation because there was nothing to take from me. No leverage. No weakness.
Now I had this. Him. The weight of his body beside mine. The warmth of his skin. The knowledge that if someone wanted to hurt me, they had a roadmap written in his flesh.
My mother knew it. I could see it in her eyes during those moments when her mask slipped. She understood that I was vulnerable now in ways I’d never been before.
I carefully extracted myself from his arms, moving slowly so I wouldn’t wake him. He stirred, his hand reaching for where I’d been, but he didn’t wake. I slipped out of bed and padded downstairs in bare feet, moving quietly through the dark house.
Cerberus lifted his head from his bed in the kitchen.
“Can’t sleep either?” I whispered.
He stood and followed me to the back door. I let us both out onto the porch.
The night air was cool. Crisp. The kind of air that smelled like autumn and change. Like something ending and something else beginning.
I sat on the steps. Cerberus settled beside me, his massive body warm against my leg.
“Something’s coming,” I told him.
He huffed.
“I know. I just wish I knew what.”
The stars were bright. Clear. Indifferent to my fear.
I thought about all the people I’d killed. All the poison I’d administered. All the lives I’d ended. I’d never felt guilty about any of it. They deserved what they got. The universe didn’t punish people like me, because people like me were already living in punishment.
But now, sitting in the dark with my dog and my fear, I wondered if this was karma. If the universe was finally coming to collect. If my mother was the instrument of that collection.
I didn’t believe in karma. Didn’t believe in cosmic justice.
But I believed in consequences.
And I’d been avoiding mine for five years.
Maybe it was time to pay.
Cerberus leaned harder against me. A reminder. A comfort.
I wrapped my arm around him and held on.
Whatever was coming, I’d face it. I always did.
But this time, I wouldn’t be facing it alone.
And that terrified me more than anything.