Chapter 34
SASHA
“’Bout time you layabouts got back here,” Chester says when I knock on the door the following week. It’s the first of October, and even though leaves dance and scrape across his front porch in the wind, the sky, for once, is a brilliant blue.
He’s only got the door open a crack, poking his head through the gap.
“Sometimes you have to wait for perfection,” I say, pulling down my sunglasses and winking. “Or for the weather to cooperate.”
Chester chortles.
Over the leaves, I can hear the chickens cluck good-naturedly as Griffin hauls material to the back.
It’s strange Chester doesn’t open the door. It is crisp outside, I guess.
“Well, the good news is we should be able to get everything done but the stain today,” I say cheerfully.
“Listen, I’m happy to see you two,” Chester says, “but I told you the deck is fine as is.”
I prop my hands on my hips. “With a giant hole in it?”
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
I have to work hard not to roll my eyes. “Okay, well, you going to invite me in so I can show you what we’re doing? You can yell at us from back there. Easier if we cut through the house, I think.”
“No!” He puts a hand up as I take a step toward him. “I can go around.” He reaches behind him to pull the door closed but stumbles, losing his balance.
“Chester!” I catch him by the arm, keeping him upright.
“I’m fine,” he says, pulling his arm away. “God dammit.”
I know that’s not directed at me, but I’m still surprised by his tone—I’ve never heard him short like this before. I watch his hands as he grips the door and doorframe to balance, ready to catch him if he falls again.
When he looks up again, he curses, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m just tired. Haven’t been sleeping well.”
I remove my sunglasses, and when I do, I get a better look at him. His eyes are shadowed with dark circles; the lines in his face look deeper than they did just the other day. He looks skinnier, too, and he was skinny to begin with.
“Chester, have you been sleeping at all?”
“I’m fine,” he says, waving his hand. “Just old. Gettin’ up to whizz every other minute at night takes a toll, is all.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“For goodness’ sake, Sasha, I’m doing fine.”
He doesn’t look me in the eye when he says that, though.
And he sounds exactly the way I did writing my mom back after I made the mistake of checking my email the other night. “I had plans for you,” she wrote. “Lots of charity events filled with more eligible bach—”
I’d snapped the laptop Griffin gave me shut after that.
I shake my head, grasping the front door handle. “All right, Ches. I’m making you some breakfast.”
“Listen, I—”
“I’m not taking no for an answer.”
I think I finally understand why Griffin likes being so bossy. When you know what needs to be done, you don’t have patience for excuses.
Finally, Chester sighs wearily and steps aside.
When I finally see past him, I have to forcibly clamp my mouth shut.
I’ve been here before, and it was always a little cluttered.
But more of a cozy lived-in cluttered with books stacked here and there on surfaces and some of the eclectic paintings and antler sets on the walls looking like they needed a good dusting.
But nothing like this. The place is a mess.
The floor’s covered with dirt and dust bunnies, and there’s junk on every surface.
Mugs lined with dark, long-evaporated coffee cover the coffee table, along with a few plates, spoons, and newspapers.
Tissues and candy wrappers lie in a ring around the armchair facing the TV.
“Haven’t had much energy for housework lately,” Chester admits.
I smile. “It’s tough when you’re not feeling up for it,” I say. “Sometimes—”
But when I poke my head into the kitchen, I can’t finish my sentence. There’s so much crap on the counters they’re barely visible. The sink is filled to the brim with dishes, and there’s a terrible smell coming from under the sink.
“Chester—”
“I’m ashamed of myself, if I’m being honest,” Chester says, looking down. “All I need is a good sleep, though, and I’ll be fine.”
“There’s no need to be ashamed. Sometimes it…gets away from you.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
“Hey, you should have seen me the other night when I was looking through all those old adoption records. I fell asleep in a pile of paper. I woke up and I was wearing them like a blanket. I even drooled on some that might have been important.”
That’s supposed to make him laugh, but instead, Chester screws up his face. “Adoption records?”
“Oh, uh…” I want to get him sitting down, but he looks so curious, I tell him about the Eleanor project. “It’s an old legend at Griffin’s family hotel. Supposedly the ghost of someone murdered there used to haunt the east wing. You’ve heard of it, right?”
“I have not.”
“Well, a real woman was murdered there, over a hundred years ago.” I can’t help the note of impassioned energy that gets into my voice as I speak. Then I remember I’m supposed to be taking care of him.
“Is that so?” he asks, leaning his hand on the counter.
“Chester—”
“What were their names?”
I sigh. Stubborn man. “Come on. Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
Once I’ve got him seated at the table in the dining room, which is covered with what looks like three puzzles in progress, I explain more, sticking to the very high highlights—Eleanor and James had a lovechild in Switzerland.
We’re trying to find out what happened to the baby and James, and, most of all, who really murdered Eleanor.
As he listens, Chester’s expression turns contemplative.
Or maybe he’s just exhausted.
“Anyway,” I say, wishing I hadn’t brought it up. “What did the doctor say? Any tips for sleeping better?”
He blinks, as if remembering where he is. “Doctor? Oh. Well, not much the doctor can do about gettin’ old, is there, sweetheart?”
“Maybe—”
“Listen, Sasha. I’m fine. I am hungry, though. I’m feeling energetic enough to holler at your husband to go get me some eggs, so why don’t I do that while you pop a piece of bread in the toaster for me? I got some loaves in the freezer I made up last week.”
I frown, inspecting him, but he does appear to look a little more energized. And if he was making loaves of bread last week, he has to be okay, right? I realize he’s actually letting me help him, so I smile. “Okay, Ches. You go make Griff get some eggs and I’ll take care of the rest.”
The minute he’s gone, I pull open the cupboard under the sink, wincing as the smell of the overstuffed garbage hits me square in the face.
I find a pair of gloves down there, and after putting them on, get to work cleaning up.
Chester’s gone a long time—I was counting on him getting distracted, and sure enough, when I peek out the kitchen doorway, I see him sitting outside on the stack of wood by the back door, gabbing with Griffin.
Griffin, who’s straightening out a long board on the frame, laughs at something Chester says, and my chest swells. He looks gorgeous, with his pen behind his ear and his plaid jacket, smiling wide, thinking no one but Chester can see him.
I think back to the men I dated before Griffin.
None of them were particularly kind, unless they were talking to people they considered peers.
None of them were outright mean like my father, but they never went out of their way to talk to any of the people who served them coffee or trimmed the hedges at their parents’ estates, either.
I realize right then that up until this moment, I’d been worried that the reason I feel so much for Griffin is because he saved me from Vincent Creelman. But that’s not really what he did, is it? He saved me from a boring, soulless future. One where I never would have met Chester Brown.
And where I don’t think I’d ever feel about a man the way I do about him.
But it’s not permanent, is it?
I pull back into the kitchen, busying myself with opening a new trash bag and stuffing items from the counter into it.
My heart suddenly aches at the thought of going our separate ways after all this is over.
Because even with trash in my hand in an old man’s kitchen, this life Griffin’s given me is a thousand times better than the life I had before.
My life without Griffin.
An hour later, after Chester’s stuffed full of scrambled eggs, toast, and a glass of grapefruit juice I found from a jug that passed the sniff test, I tell him I’m going to walk him down the hall to his bedroom.
He yawns, and for once, he doesn’t argue.
“Gotta make a pit stop, though,” he says, taking a sharp left into the bathroom as we move slowly down the hall.
“I’ll wait right out here.”
“If you insist,” he says, rolling his eyes.
At least he still has the energy to be sassy.
While Chester bangs around in the bathroom, echoing Griff’s hammering outside, I peer at the lone framed photo hanging on the wall. It’s a black and white shot of an older man standing on the banks of what looks to be the Quince River, holding a fishing rod.
He’s too far away to see his face, but even if he wasn’t, his hat’s pulled down low, obscuring most of it.
That must be Chester’s grandfather. I squint at the photo, but he looks to be alone.
It’s too bad—I would have liked to see Chester as a boy.
It’s strange, actually, that there aren’t more photos of him or his grandpa, seeing as he grew up in this house.
“Son of a bitch,” Chester mutters through the door.
Instantly I’m outside it. “You okay?”
“You still there?”
Relief runs through me. It doesn’t sound like he’s injured. “Should I get Griff?”
“Hell no you shouldn’t. I still know how to use my damn willy.”
I grimace. “Ew, Chester!”
“Scram, girlie. Go find something to do.”
I look toward the end of the hall, feeling curious now. “Can I look around?”
“So long as you don’t come in here.”
I roll my eyes. “So crabby.”
The hallway has two doors in it besides the bathroom. One I can tell is Chester’s bedroom, because the door’s ajar and there’s a single mussed-up bed with a bedside table stacked with books and a couple of bottles of pills.
I resist the urge to get downright nosy.
The second door’s at the end of the hall. But when I try it, the handle’s locked. I shake it, and something rattles up top: A corroded padlock that looks like it’s been there for years.
The door bangs open behind me, making me jump right off the ground.
I spin around. “Holy shit, Chester.”
He looks at me a moment, then over my shoulder.
“That was my grandfather’s room,” he says as he shuffles over to his bedroom.
I follow him to the entrance. “Why’s there a padlock on it?”
“It’s full of his stuff.”
I lean against his doorframe as he lies down in bed, looking impossibly frail. How is it possible that he was so sprightly just a few weeks ago?
“Have you ever been through his things?”
Chester plumps up his pillow under his head. “No reason to.”
I wonder for a moment if I’m being insensitive, then decide it’d be better to be rebuffed than not ask.
“I can do it with you sometime, if you like. Along with the rest of your house. You can decide what you want to keep and what—”
“No.”
His voice is surprisingly firm, his head even lifting off the pillow briefly.
“It might feel—”
“I said no, darling. My grandfather never wanted anyone touching his stuff. Made me swear never to go near the attic or the boxes in his room when I first got here.”
“I think you get to make the decisions now, though,” I say gently.
“For someone who wants me to sleep, you sure talk a lot.”
I smile. “Okay. I’m going to tell Griffin to call it quits with the hammering. We’ll be back here tonight with some groceries, okay?”
But he’s already closed his eyes.