Chapter Thirty-Six
CHARLIE
By the time I made it back to River Street, the sky had turned that soft, inky blue that only showed up when the world was still hungover from too much wine and too much hope the night before.
I pushed open the lobby door, juggling coffees and tote bags full of gifts.
I hadn’t planned on spending my Christmas Day in the penthouse, but I couldn’t help myself.
I didn’t have much, Lord knows I never did, but I’d raided the bar at O’Malley’s and snagged a couple nice bottles of bourbon for Jordan and Doyle, a dram of that peach liqueur I knew Dig liked, and Magnolia’s bougiest unopened can of maraschino cherries for my girl.
The piece for Magnolia had been delivered hours before the sun came up.
Lee had stayed behind, setting up his guitar with some grand plan to play downstairs under the dim glow of the stage lights, hoping the sound would drift up the stairs and pull my sister down to see what was going on.
One last attempt to win her back under the guise of a grand gesture. The one thing Lee was forever good at.
I wished him luck as I slipped out, watching him fiddle with the lights and retune his guitar, muttering to himself about everything needing to be perfect.
But Magnolia didn’t need perfection. She only needed him. Not that either of those two idiots knew that yet.
I should’ve stayed behind to help. Should’ve hung around, kept him company, steadied his nerves. But my thoughts kept drifting back to the one place I couldn’t seem to stop circling. The one person who had unpacked her mess in my heart and, I’d hoped, would take up permanent residence there.
She hadn’t been there when I woke up. I’d reached for her instinctively, hand skimming across cool sheets and nothing else.
At first, I told myself she probably couldn’t sleep, that she might’ve wandered up to the penthouse for her morning prenatal vitamins.
Or maybe she wanted to sneak back up before Doyle woke up and scolded her.
Or, worse, Nancy woke up and thought she was abandoned.
“Morning, Hoyt,” I said with a jolly wave.
Hoyt met my unusual reaction with a half-hearted laugh. “You certainly look chipper this morning, Mr. Pruitt.”
I hit the button for the elevator and shrugged. “Christmas magic, maybe. Has Tally been down to walk Nancy yet this morning?”
Hoyt frowned and lowered his eyes, pretending to fiddle with the notes on his desk. “Not yet, sir. Still a little early for Miss Aden and Miss Reagan.”
“Fair enough. Merry Christmas, Hoyt. Tell the same to Charlotte, please.”
As the elevator doors glided shut, I heard Hoyt call out, “Merry Christmas to you, too, Charlie.”
I shook off the odd tone in his voice and the fact that, for the first time in years since he’d worked the door, he’d used my first name. Tried to ignore the gnawing in my gut, that steady, relentless warning that nothing about this was right.
I moved quietly through the penthouse, setting the coffees down on the counter and slipping the bag of gifts underneath the tree, clearly suffering under the weight of the ornamental pressure. The lights were still on, blinking softly.
“Tal?” I called out, gently, in case she had fallen back to sleep in her room.
Nothing.
Her bedroom door was cracked open, but not wanting to disturb her, I stood there a second, listening for the tap of Nancy’s feet, the rustle of a blanket, her voice calling back. But all I got in return was silence and the faint hum of the fridge kicking on.
Still half-hopeful, I took a minute to tidy up the penthouse and the small messes on the counter left over from whatever they’d gotten into the night before.
I needed purpose, I needed to keep my hands busy so I didn’t spiral.
So I didn’t read too hard into the fact that I’d all but broken in the house, and Nancy didn’t greet me in her usual manner of unhinged self-defense poodle.
I opened the cabinet to pull out her tin of food, thinking that maybe the sound of kibble would raise the dog from slumber, and I’d know, for sure, Tally was behind the door sleeping peacefully, waiting for me to join her.
Jordan sauntered out of his room looking like a man who had just returned from war. His hair was a mess, and he had deep, dark circles under his eyes. He wouldn’t look at me and crossed the room to try to coax the lazy tree back into an upright position.
“Where is she?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice. It cracked straight down the middle.
Doyle walked out next, a heavy sigh escaping his body when he saw me standing, dumbfounded, in the middle of the living room.
The place felt crowded with the memory of her, but empty in every way that mattered.
The hook where her coat had hung was bare, the pink leash by the door was gone, and the faintest trace of her perfume lingered in the air, already starting to fade.
“She’s gone,” he said.
I blinked. “What do you mean, gone?”
Jordan straightened, pressing his palms flat on his thighs before dusting invisible lint from his sweater. “She and Dig left this morning. Packed their things and slipped out before either of us woke up.”
“No note. No call,” Doyle added, his voice tight. “She’s not answering her phone. Just gone.”
My stomach dropped. That familiar twist deep in my chest clawed its way up my throat.
“I thought maybe she’d just gone out,” Jordan said, more to himself than to me. “For a coffee run, or a walk by the river. Maybe down to see you. Something. But her stuff’s gone. The room’s empty.”
“She took everything?” My voice pitched. It was too loud. I didn’t care. “Did something happen?”
Doyle finally turned, cheeks flushed, jaw tight with whatever he was trying not to say.
“I told her I needed some time to figure things out,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean pack up and disappear.”
He couldn’t meet my eyes; his hand went to the back of his neck, fingers worrying at the skin while he stared at the floor, like the answer might be hiding somewhere in the grout.
I leaned against the doorframe, trying to catch my breath. “You told her you needed to figure things out? Jesus, Doyle.”
He didn’t flinch, only kept rubbing the back of his neck, shoulders hunched under the weight of it.
“What was I supposed to do?” he snapped, louder this time.
“Jordan’s mom is so sick, and I need to be focusing on my business and my husband.
And my sister shows up, throws our life off-balance, and I’m just supposed to pretend I can handle it all?
” He motioned around the room as the remnants of her presence were quietly erased, the beige walls reclaiming themselves.
“Look at this place, Charlie. It’s been chaos since she got here.
I’m not saying it’s her fault, but…” His voice cracked a little. “I’ve been hanging on by a thread.”
“No,” I said, stepping toward him. “You’re supposed to show up for your sister. You’re supposed to open the door and say, ‘I’m glad you’re here, make yourself at home,’ no matter what. That’s what family does.”
“She was never going to stay,” he said, softer now. “You and I both know that. And I didn’t tell her to go, but I didn’t exactly make it easy for her to stay, either.”
The words landed heavy between us, impossible to move past.
“So where is she, then?” I started pacing, hands running through my hair. “Where would she go?”
Jordan and Doyle shared a look, and Jordan let out a sigh so loud his entire body seemed to sink with it. “There’s a chance Doyle suggested Dig drop her off back in Newnan. With their mother.”
I stared at him. “You told her to go back to your mother. The one who ripped her to shreds every chance she got. That’s what you thought was best?”
Doyle’s jaw worked, guilt bleeding through in the twitch of his mouth.
“She needed direction. She needed—”
“She needed you,” I cut in, my voice climbing.
“She needed you to say, ‘You’re not a burden. I want you here.’ Instead, you treated her like some squatter in your pristine penthouse—the one you dragged her to, by the way.
You think folding her laundry and ordering Korean skin care makes you a big brother?
She needed someone to believe in her, Doyle. ”
For a second, I could see her there—on the couch, that ridiculous dog in her lap, smiling at me while I rearranged things in the living room that didn’t need rearranging, just to give myself a reason to be close to her. The ache that followed hit deep; I didn’t know when I’d see that again.
I stepped past Jordan, the words still burning in my throat. I didn’t know much, but I knew this: being family meant showing up. It meant staying. It meant proving, over and over, that when everything else fell apart, you were still there.
I stomped through the quiet streets of Savannah, my boots hitting the pavement a little harder than necessary.
The whole city was still and soft under a layer of Christmas calm—shops shuttered, restaurant windows dark, the only sound the rustle of wind through the trees and the occasional honk of a far-off car.
Magnolia always closed the bar on Christmas. She said the ghosts of our past deserved a little peace and quiet one day a year. But I needed a drink—and more than that, I needed somewhere to breathe. So I keyed myself in.
The lights were low inside O’Malley’s. The old wood floors creaked under my weight, and that familiar mix of whiskey and stale stout clung to the air—warm, lived-in. The kind of scent that wrapped around your ribs and squeezed.
My eyes landed on the far wall. The portrait I’d made for my sister hung there like a promise.
Photographs, lyrics, layers of memory stitched together in acrylic and ink.
I’d poured everything into that damn thing.
My love for her. My hope. The part of me that knew she needed to see herself the way we all saw her—strong, steady, brave.
But beneath it, hunched on the floor, surrounded by shattered glass, was Magnolia.