Chapter 13
“You don’t have to do all this work. It’s not your mess,” Annelise told her for probably the umpteenth time. But Jenna couldn’t not help, she was pretty sure this was her family.
“I’m happy to. I pulled into town and Ford saved me.”
It didn’t seem like the time to jump in and spout out what she was really here for.
Not when the majority of the townspeople were suffering horrific losses.
Annelise was only salvaging part of what was in her home, and Jenna wasn’t in any place to wave her hand and make it all go away.
She said she was happy to help. And she was.
At least when she said it, Annelise seemed willing to take her up on it. The other woman handed her a full garbage bag to take out to the porch and laughed, “Then you should be helping the Velascos.”
As far as Jenna could tell, the Velascos didn’t need help.
They’d been busy giving it. The economic disparities in Belle Hollow could be graphed directly along the mountainside.
She thought here was where she was needed the most. Also, if the tests were right, these people were actually her family and she wanted to know more.
“What happened to the fourth house down?”
The whole little row of houses here were busy with homeowners, friends, and other members of the hollow swarming over them.
Except one that had clearly been abandoned some time ago.
At the other homes, the people came by in fits and starts.
Sometimes the houses were empty, usually with the windows open, airing out.
That spoke to the trust the neighbors had in each other.
Jenna liked that. Sometimes it was just a few people, and sometimes Jenna had seen everyone descend on one place.
In the midst of disaster, Belle Hollow was taking care of its own.
“Ironically,” Annelise answered, “that’s the old Velasco house.”
What? That was a far cry from the place at the top of the hill. “What happened to it?”
Jenna almost smacked her hands over her mouth, but she didn’t because she didn’t want to acknowledge the gasp, and she sure as hell was not touching her face with these dirty gloves. As soon as the words tumbled out, she shook her head and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
It wasn’t her place to pry—genetic family or not. She didn’t really know these people, and they didn’t owe her their secrets or even just their history.
Raising one eyebrow, Annelise turned and looked over her shoulder, her waders bulky and bending at odd angles.
Jenna guessed she must look much the same.
The resemblance between her and this woman, who as best as she could stitch together in the past couple days must be her cousin, was bordering on eerie.
They also seemed to communicate seamlessly—as if they just understood what each other meant and wanted.
They had already worked here in tandem for stretches without speaking, but getting everything done.
A little eerie, it was oddly comfortable.
She heard the whispers of “Monica” as she’d walked into the main room at the grand Velasco home.
Though the locals had all stopped themselves as if they were being rude, it was candy to her.
She had the name Astoria, but that was a likely grandmother.
Monica must be her birth mother or someone else closely related.
She’d gone online and researched, but a lot of the people around here didn’t have much record on the internet, and Astoria Lockheart seemed to be one of them.
“So the same area flooded just over fifteen years ago,” Annelise told her, waving one gloved hand around as if gesturing to the whole street.
“FEMA came in and we rebuilt within the year, though the Velascos moved out. They sold it to another family, but the other family moved out suddenly later. It just sat abandoned.”
Annelise shrugged, but the move covered something more—something Annelise knew but didn’t want to say.
Jenna had always been able to read people pretty clearly like that.
Her relationships didn’t last all that long because when someone cheated on her or lied to her, she saw it as soon as they did it.
Even more, she saw a lot of guys who simply couldn’t tell the truth on a first date, or she could sense he already had a girlfriend.
She left so many dates because she’d been able to see into what the future would be like, so she’d simply never gone on the second.
There was so much about her that she couldn’t tie to her Dad and her Mom.
So much that didn’t come from the family she’d known growing up.
Again, she wanted to ask more. She wanted to dig into the rich, wet loam of Belle Hollow, see if she could understand her own history.
But she held back, because she’d have to explain who she was first.
They worked in silence for a while, Story often sitting on the floor in the other room, her zip-up plastic suit more comfortable than the heavy waders Annelise and Jenna wore.
Jenna ferried bags to the porch and then from the porch down to the street where some kind of county emergency system would do pickup.
She drank lemonade Astoria poured from a pitcher one of the neighbors had provided. It sat next to a paper plate of lemon bar cookies, which Jenna had also partaken in. The small bounty sat on one of the few clean and salvageable surfaces in the small home.
“Day’s getting late, girls,” Astoria called out. It was low but matter of fact, and they both understood.
“Do you want to stay here?” Story asked Annelise, and Jenna stepped back out of the conversation.
“Do you?” Annelise asked in return, not quite belligerently but clearly not willing to take the bait.
“The Bormanns offered me a place,” Story said.
Of course they did, Jenna thought. Mindy Bormann was some kind of resident mechanical magician.
She could fix anything, and from what Jenna had seen here at the house today, the Lockhearts were going to need a dishwasher, washer, dryer, Annelise’s car, maybe likely even the HVAC out back repaired or replaced.
What Jenna didn’t hear was any offer for Annelise to stay with the Bormanns, and it was the perfect opportunity. “I have a hotel room just this side of Charlottesville. Do you want to come stay with me? Your grandmother—” Her own grandmother? “—can go stay with them.”
There was a pause. Looks flew back and forth between the two women that Jenna couldn’t keep up with. She tried again before realizing she shouldn’t push. Too late. “I’ll order us a pizza, and we can grab a bottle of wine. Have a girls’ night.”
There was a mild shake of her head, and Annelise turned. Though Jenna had been prepared to be turned down, all Annelise said was, “That sounds wonderful.”
Still, there was something in the way Annelise looked at her that made Jenna think today they’d been cleaning the house, but tonight over that pizza and the bottle of wine they’d be clearing some history.
Jenna had no idea what would come along with it—only that she’d come this far to get it, and she wasn’t backing out now.