Round 55
ROUND FIFTY-FIVE
ROSE
I spend hours in Ollie’s kitchen poring over the files Billy left at the house last night. The coffee pot, three-quarters full when Oliver left for the hospital, is now all but empty, and my bladder, full.
Somewhere around nine o’clock, a soft patter taps against the roof, rain falling from the sky, but instead of turning the air cold, it creates an almost sticky warmth that makes jeans and a shirt comfortable.
Which works out well, since that’s all I intended to wear today.
Around ten o’clock, Poppy crawls out of bed and wanders along the hall, completely satisfied in her new home, and content spreading her fur all over. We’re both strays, she and I. But she doesn’t feel guilty for traipsing into someone else’s home and taking up space the way I do.
She doesn’t need me to bend over and scoop her up anymore. Instead, she happily bounds from the floor to Ollie’s unoccupied stool on her own, then from the stool to the counter. She walks over the files and bops her forehead against the side of my face.
I probably should’ve tried harder to train her not to climb on the counter.
“You hungry, pretty girl?” Setting my pencil down, I straighten my back and lift my arms into the sky, elongating my spine until a crackle, crackle, pop echoes throughout the quiet room.
My whole world might be on fire. My soul might ache more now than it did when I woke up in Ollie’s hospital, scared and alone.
But this, at least, is easy. It’s nice. Having Poppy’s rumbling purr become the soundtrack to my life is pleasure.
So I lower my hands and scratch her behind her ears, and setting my feet on the floor, I push off the stool and head to the fridge to take out the half pouch of cat food I opened yesterday.
I’ve never been to the grocery store in all the time I’ve been in Plainview.
I haven’t bought cat food pouches. Or dry cat biscuits.
Or milk. Or literally anything. But it’s still here.
Still provided by the man who spends too little of his life inside his home, and too much of it stressed about everyone else.
“Ollie really loves us, huh?” I close the fridge and snag a small plastic bowl from the stack that magically turned up soon after Poppy did.
Squeezing the pouch empty, the wet slop hitting the plastic with a plop, I toss the packet into the trash can and set the bowl on the floor.
Then I slide back onto my stool and drag my sketchbook back out from beneath Billy’s files.
I flip through my pages and pages of memories, my dreams, my thoughts, and feelings.
Then I go to the very last page and open it up to a long, long list I’ve been keeping since the start.
Bread. Milk. Coffee. A coffee mug, to replace the one I chipped.
An encyclopedia—just one volume from the set—since Ollie’s is crinkled and ruined from spilled hot chocolate.
A phone. Phone credit. A battery-operated drill.
The drill bit I lost with it. Kitty litter trays. Kitty litter… ten bags so far.
I add the newest pouch of chicken and gravy cat food, scratching the words into the page, and when I’m done, I sit back and study the extensive list with a smile.
Ollie would be offended if he saw it. He would probably scowl and grumble and tear it up if he got the chance.
But I look at it and exhale a soft, happy sigh.
Because it’s a kind of time capsule of us.
This whole book is.
It’s a journey, starting with the chipped mug, a declaration of how ridiculously scared I was back then.
And then it makes its way down to cat supplies.
Which is a whole new declaration. It’s comfort.
It’s settling in. It’s making a home with a man more selfless than any others, and a kitten who needed somewhere to call her own.
Dragging my bottom lip between my teeth, I study the list for a moment more while Poppy jumps to the floor and starts devouring her breakfast. Finally, I flip back to the page I was working on, Liam’s kind eyes staring out at me.
The laugh lines flaring across his temples.
The wire-frame glasses I can’t get out of my mind.
I flip through my drawings, working my way back in time from one sketch to the next, and with each new image, I remember the dream that came before it. When he turns bad, hurting Ollie in my nightmares, he’s not wearing his glasses. When he’s good and kind and protective, he is.
Which probably means nothing at all, except that I forgot to draw the damn glasses on his face those days.
Still, my pulse quickens, matching the constant pitter-patter of the rain against the roof.
You’re mixing all this up, ya know that?
“What am I mixing up?”
I hear him in my memories. His friendly words. His kindness.
I startle when my phone vibrates against the counter, buzzing and then trilling. The screen lights up, and Billy’s name flashes for attention. Swallowing the odd lump of nerves balled in my throat, I swipe and accept the call, picking the device up and pressing it to my ear. “Hi, Billy.”
“Hey.” His feet tap against the linoleum of, I assume, the police station. In my mind, I see him rushing from one end of the building to the other. “I just got off the phone with Judge Piatkedes. I don’t know if Ollie had a chance to tell you, but we wanna pull the files from—”
“My therapists’ notes?” I rest my elbows on the counter and carefully scratch the side of Poppy’s belly with my toes. “Yeah. He told me. I’d be interested in reading them, too.”
“I’ll send ‘em over the instant I have them. I also put in a call to your old job this morning. Spoke to your former boss.”
“Really?” Why do I feel this sense of longing for people I don’t know? Emotional pining for a place I don’t remember? “What was that like?”
He breathes out a sighing smile. Affection, I’m certain.
“They love you, Rose.” He passes through to a new room, slamming the door in his wake.
“Jesus, they love you. I know things didn’t start out totally smooth between you and me—that’s on me—but the people in your past have nothing but good things to say about you. ”
“That feels nice. Did they have anything helpful to add to all this?”
“Yeah.” His tone changes from friendly to hunter. From easy to hard. “They said you and this dude, Liam, were basically best friends. You were tight.”
“I mean…” My hair tumbles forward and tickles my jaw, so I curl my finger through the lock and play with the length. “Darcy basically said that already.”
“He said Liam wanted you romantically. Your boss—Kaitlin—said Liam was always and only ever a gentleman. He loved you, yes. But when I asked her about the almost-kiss and the big falling out, she had no clue what I was talking about.”
“She…” I release my breath on a sharp exhale. “What?”
“I’m still looking into it, but she was firm on the whole subject. And get this: she mentioned Liam’s military history. Said how honored she was to have him on her team at the nursery. How, even though he was no longer in active service, she felt safer having him there.”
“M-military?”
“Yeah. But it gets even better. He was an Army Ranger, Rose. Same platoon as your brother. He was wounded in the same mission that killed Seth and was medically discharged right after.”
“Wounded?” The word catches in my throat. Bubbling and aching and sending bolts of pain to the base of my stomach. “What kind of wounds?”
“A few.” He flips through pages on his end of the line.
“Gunshots—multiple. There was an incident that involved a bunch of underground tunnels, and during a gunfight, one of the tunnels collapsed. The falling rock and debris saved the platoon’s lives; it cut their enemy off and provided the team with a chance to escape, but Liam suffered a skull fracture after a massive chunk of the tunnel wall toppled over him.
He was medevacked out and rushed into surgery, and although he lived—intellectually and mentally, he recovered fine—he was left with a weakness in his skull that meant he wouldn’t be allowed to serve anymore.
Add in something the doctors called corneal degeneration, and he was officially retired at the ripe old age of twenty-two.
He came home, got a job where he could play with flowers and haul dirt in the sun all day, and he was a happy camper.
Kaitlin says he was a glass-half-full type.
He wasn’t bitter and mean ‘cos he couldn’t serve anymore.
He was just glad to be alive and, according to everyone over at the nursery, he was determined to make your life easier. He felt he owed a debt to Seth.”
“So he wanted to protect me…” Frowning, I trace the tip of my finger around my sketch of Liam’s wire-frame glasses. “I-is he dead, Billy?” I sniffle and swipe beneath my nose. “I dreamed that I killed him, so I—”
“Looking for him now.” A knock on his end of the line echoes into my chest. While Billy listens to the muttered words coming through the door, I take a moment to tuck my hair back and exhale.
To swallow the ache in my throat and settle.
“Alright, Rose.” The door closes again, and Billy comes back to me.
“That was Ramone. He said Judge Piatkedes signed the orders, so I’m gonna go see what I can see.
I’ve also got a line out with Seth’s and Liam’s former CO.
No one knows Liam’s whereabouts right now, but I’m gonna do my best to bring him out of hiding if I can.
He’s got training that means he could stay hidden for good if he wants to—skull injury or not—but I’ll do my best. I’ll send over the therapist files when I get them. ”
“Right away? Or do you have to go through them first?”
“They’re yours, so I’ll send them as soon as I have them. We can read at the same time.”
“Okay.” I straighten my spine and sit taller. “I’ll be around. And Billy?”