Coffee #2
“Baby,” he said, his voice trailing off. He hesitated, his mouth opening as if to start the count. Five. Four. He did not finish it. The numbers collapsed before they left his throat. He let his breath out through his nose. “I am going to stay down here tonight. On the couch.”
“The bed is upstairs.” I reminded him.
“I’m good here.”
“Stop watching me,” I told him.
Zane’s shoulders dropped half an inch. His lips thinned into a straight, pale line. “I’m just here, Seren. That’s all.”
“Go to sleep.” He should sleep. I do not want him awake when the haunting begins.
“Okay,” he said. He didn’t move toward the couch. He stayed by the armchair; his weight shifted slightly to the left heel.
3:14 AM. The kitchen island had an eased edge. The granite is Absolute Black, but under the small pendant light Zane left on over the sink, it looks like grease. There are forty-two white subway tiles between the edge of the range hood and the corner cupboard.
The stairs did not creak if the foot is placed exactly four inches from the left drywall line.
In Tom’s office, the air smelled of cedar shavings.
The chair did not shake when it is touched.
The leather was cool. It took seven minutes for the skin of my thigh to transfer enough heat to make the material match the room.
My whole life, ghosts were the ones awake at three in the morning. Moving things. Leaving messes. Now I am the one awake at three in the morning. Moving things. Leaving messes. The ghosts are not haunting me; I am haunting me.
The front door opens at 6:12 AM. The air that flowed through it was wrong. It smelled of the cabin of a Boeing 737, stale coffee, recycled air, and already smoked tobacco.
Austin dropped his duffel bag. He let it fall from his hand, and it hit the tile with a thud that vibrated through the floorboards.
He was still wearing his coat, the black leather, spotted with the rain that started overnight.
He did not look at Zane. He looked at me, sitting on the second step of the stairs with my knees pulled up inside a gray sweatshirt that belonged to Tom.
The one I found while haunting and looking for things to throw around.
“Seren,” he said.
His voice was too loud for the house. He crossed the six feet between us in two strides, and he pulled me up by the elbows.
His grip was hard, a living pressure. He pulled me into his chest; I just went hollow.
The inventory stopped. The counting of the subway tiles, the tracking of the hummingbirds, the distance between the phone and the edge of the granite.
He held me against his chest until his chin dug into the crown of my head, his breathing ragged against my ear, three short gasps that sound like someone trying to start an engine with a dead battery.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered into my hair. “Fucking hell, Seren.”
My arms stayed down at my sides. My palms were flat against the thighs of my jeans. I did not feel the heat of him. I did not feel the significance of his hands on my shoulders. I was just a space where someone used to be.
“Yeah,” I said. The sound came out flat and empty.
He pulled back, his hands staying on my shoulders, shaking me once, very slightly, as if he was trying to clear a jam in a machine, trying to force the gears to engage. His eyes were bloodshot, the rims pink and raw.
“Are you okay?” he demanded. “Have you eaten? Zane, has she eaten?”
I looked at him. I looked past him to the kitchen island, where the phones were face-down, glass and silicon that dictate nothing. I felt nothing. There was no tremor in my hands, no catch in my throat.
“The Appalachian oak is what he chose,” I said. “Blue and white flowers.”
Austin looked down at me, his brows drawing together until a deep, vertical crease formed between his eyes.
He looked at my mouth, then my eyes, then back to my mouth, waiting for a crack, a sob, a pulse.
He let his hands drop. He looked at Zane.
Zane looked at him. They looked at me. I looked at it all.
The silence returned, but it was heavier now, packed tight with the air of three people who had no idea what to do.
At 1:45 AM, the voices from the kitchen released into the otherwise empty house. I was sitting on the third step from the top. My feet were bare. The wood was cold enough to make tiny goosebumps form on my skin, a distant physical fact that has nothing to do with me.
“—called me that morning,” Austin said. His voice was muffled by the drywall, but the pitch was wrong; it was too thin, the edges frayed.
“Eight o’clock. He seemed fine. Told me he was stepping back from the firm.
Told me it was time for the next generation to take the weight, said he wanted to relax and enjoy the time with Seren.
And I congratulated him. I fucking congratulated him, Zane.
I thought he meant retirement. I thought he wanted to enjoy the years with Seren…
not… not this. He knew. He knew about the cancer. ”
A chair dragged. A glass hit the counter; the heavy crystal tumbler Tom kept for the good stuff. The stuff he hid during my teenage years so all I had access to was cheap vodka.
“You didn’t know,” Zane said.
“I should have heard it. We went through it together after Jax was arrested, I know what he sounds like when there’s something big going on. I should have heard the damn drop in his voice.”
Through the walls, there was a sharp, ragged sound, a wet, choked intake of breath that cut off before it could finish. It was a seismic event. I had never heard Austin Portwood cry like this. I did not think the house has ever held that sound before.
“She doesn’t look good,” Austin muttered. I wondered how he could tell. After he got here, I went into my dad’s office and locked the door. When I heard them in the kitchen, I snuck out and came here. He had not even seen me besides our five-minute interaction when he arrived.
“I know,” Zane said. “I’m trying. She’s… like a statue. She’s not reaching out to me for help. She forgets I’m here most of the time. That’s okay, I get it. I understand how grief twists your mind. I thought maybe she would let you help her…”
Zane’s voice trailed off, and I could imagine the look on his face.
Contemplative, with a hint of pain that no one else but me would notice.
Eyes lost in thought, his mind remembering the bad times from years ago, the way I shut him down after Jax was arrested, and how I turned to Austin instead.
He has never blamed me for doing that. It hurt him even if he didn’t blame me for it.
“She worries me,” Austin sighed out. “Her mind worries me.”