26. The Final Blossom #2
My hands still on the wire.
"Cade," I say slowly, "is harder."
I let myself sit in it a second.
"Cade's got exactly one true flaw, and it's this…that in the ways that matter most, he is no different at all from his father."
Sawyer waits.
He's good at that, the waiting.
"You don't know his history, so here's the short version," I say.
"Cade's father walked out. On Marina, on Cade, on the whole of it, back when Cade was young enough that it set the shape of him permanently, like a wire bent before the plaster dries.
And the man had himself a whole philosophy about it, the way men like that always do.
" I twist a wire snug. "His gospel went…
you don't dwell. You don't hold grudges.
If something goes wrong, if you do the wrong, you suck it up, you box it away, and you move on down the road, and you do not look back.
He raised Cade on that scripture. Keep running toward the next thing.
Never once sit in the wreckage of the last one. "
"And Cade bought it."
"Cade lives it. It's why the man's got a tattoo that reads run toward home and a suitcase that's been half-packed since he was nineteen years old.
" I seat the last wire. "Here's the flaw underneath it, though.
The thing his father never understood, and Cade's only now beginning to.
That same tidy philosophy…just move on, don't hold a grudge, suck it up and go, it feels like pure strength when you're the one who did the leaving.
" I look up at him. "But it can be spun clean around and aimed straight back at your own chest. Because if grudges truly don't matter, and moving on is the highest virtue a person can have, then what on earth is meant to stop the woman you left from doing the exact same thing to you?
From looking you dead in the eye, shrugging, and moving on down her own road? "
Sawyer goes quiet, turning it over.
"You think that's what he's counting on. That Amber hasn't got it in her to hold it against him. That she'll take all of you back no matter what, because grace is just who she is."
"I haven't heard him say it in those exact words.
" I shut my eyes a moment. "But yes. That's the bet I think he's quietly making, underneath all that silence he's been keeping lately.
That her grace is a guarantee written into the contract.
That she'll move toward us, not past us, because a grudge is beneath a woman like her. "
I shake my head.
"He's a fool to bet on it. And I think, deep down in him, he's beginning to suspect he's a fool, and it's frightening him mute."
Sawyer frowns.
"So why aren't you defending him harder? He's your packmate. Alphas close ranks. I've watched it happen my whole life. You lot circle the wagons even when one of your own is dead wrong. But here you are, handing me his ugliest truth, and I'm about as close to your rival as a man gets."
I work in silence a moment, wires cool under my fingers, deciding how much of myself I'm willing to spend on a roadside.
"Because I grew up inside a house that closed ranks," I say. "And I know down to the bone exactly what it costs."
I keep my eyes on the engine. It's easier to say it to an engine.
"From the outside, my parents were flawless.
The prettiest house on the lane. The correct pew at church.
My mother's garden in every county magazine that ever ran.
" My voice stays level. "Behind the front door, the marriage had been dying for years, and everyone inside it knew.
My mother's answer to every crack in the foundation was to decorate over it.
New drapes. Fresh flowers on the table, always fresh flowers.
A dinner party to paper over the silence.
She could make anything on God's earth look beautiful.
She simply couldn't make one single thing true. "
"And your father?"
"My father retreated into his work and never came back out.
Every hard conversation, every raised voice gathering on the horizon…
he'd arrange to be at the office instead.
" I pause, because here's the part I've only ever said once, to Amber, in the dark, a lifetime ago.
"And I became the child who kept the rooms peaceful.
I got very, very good at it. I could feel a fight coming the way you feel the weather turn in a bad knee, and I'd move to soften it before a single voice had risen.
A joke. A well-timed distraction. A bright little question about somebody's day.
" I loosen a stubborn nut. "I made myself into the flowers on the table.
Pretty. Pleasant. Placed there to make the ugliness a touch easier to sit beside. "
I close the last connection and sit back on my heels.
"But that isn't a life, Sawyer. That's a stage set. That's a house where nobody ever says the true thing out loud, because the man at the head of the table never once found the courage for a plain I'm sorry. Never learned to open his mouth and let one real feeling walk out of it."
My voice drops.
"And what I've finally worked out, years too late for it to do me any good. If you can't say the hard thing. If you'll always sooner manage a feeling than speak it…you cannot keep a love alive. It's not possible. It rots quietly, behind the pretty drapes, while everyone at the table smiles."
Sawyer says nothing.