Chapter Five
Waking in the Nymans’ house felt like a chore, but Liam couldn’t say no when Linda and Frank had asked him and Chelsea to stay late and look through pictures. Eventually, the evening ended, and he was glad he’d stayed. The conversation had taken his mind off the envelope.
Though not for long. After Linda and Frank went to bed and Chelsea took the guest room, Liam bedded down on the couch. Sleep didn’t come, and he’d spent most of the night envisioning the CCTV pictures and wondering where they came from.
Somehow, he’d fallen asleep. Chirping birds warned him that morning had arrived.
Bacon and coffee scented the air, and he scrubbed his eyes. His first thought was the manila envelope and its contents. He had to make calls. Someone would know who delivered the information.
But he didn’t know whom to call first.
Damn. His mind raced and tripped at once, and he dropped his head back. The living room ceiling held no answers, but staring into nothing reminded him that he needed coffee, so he threw off the afghan blanket and stood.
Muffled conversation and happiness trailed from the kitchens as if it was another ordinary day. Maybe it was. Perhaps that was what he’d been struggling to understand over the last twelve months.
Liam rubbed the back of his neck, and laughter rang out again.
Chelsea knew what he knew, or at least what he’d guessed what the pictures and report meant, but he could hear her laughing up a storm with Frank and Linda.
It wasn’t that he wanted the world to mourn without end, but they didn’t have to sound so damn happy.
He didn’t know how to move forward the way everyone else had seemed able.
He replayed yesterday’s back-and-forth with Chelsea, and his need for coffee doubled. Breakfast might be awkward, but his need for caffeine trumped the need to avoid her.
Liam ran a hand over his chest. Frank loaned him a shirt and jogging pants, and the clothes fit too tight. He adjusted the waistband and pulled at the sleeves, then headed into the kitchen. “Morning.”
Frank, still laughing quietly, let the paper drop. “Fresh pot just finished.”
Chelsea twirled a pen between her fingers, offering nothing more than a polite-but-not-really smile, then turned far too much attention to a fruit smoothie before she jotted a note along the margin of an oversized piece of paper.
The kitchen door that led outside opened and Linda dusted her hands and shut the door with her hip. “Good morning.” Opening a cabinet under the sink and removing a new trash bag, she said, “Your plate is in the oven.”
“Thanks,” Liam mumbled then poured coffee and retrieved the still-warm plate, wondering how long everyone had been awake and how he slept through their noise.
Linda relined the kitchen can. “Did you sleep okay?”
On the couch, next to mystery documents? Not a chance. “I survived.”
Linda gave him a warm smile but then turned to the dishwasher.
He took a seat at the kitchen table and studied the room. Each person acted as though yesterday hadn’t occurred. Their easy chit-chat and normal morning activities rolled along as though it wasn’t the first time they’d been together since the funeral.
Linda leaned against the counter and paged through a cooking magazine.
Every few pages, she’d mention how a picture made her hungry.
Frank would say something about how he couldn’t wait to try whatever she suggested, then he’d page through the town paper, remarking about the high school team or a new transportation plan, and Linda would agree.
High school football games and a new traffic light? Liam didn’t understand why no one felt like him—out of sorts and lost. Maybe because they weren’t at fault. Realizing that stabbed him in the chest.
“How’s the book going?” Linda asked Chelsea.
“It’s just a mock-up but…” She twirled the pen. “Not good.”
Frank folded the paper and laid it down. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Something’s not right, and no matter what I jot down, it doesn’t help.”
Liam wanted to point out the obvious. Julia wasn’t there—that was the problem. He didn’t know what the shit Chelsea was doing with their book mock-up thing, but the answer glared like a neon sign.
“You’ll figure it out.” Linda turned a page in the magazine.
“I thought…” Liam placed his mug on the table loudly enough to grab the room’s attention. “Today would be different.”
“Different how, sweetie?” Linda asked.
“Just different.” He shook his head, frustrated. “But you are doing everything the same.”
“What do you mean?” Linda studied him curiously but then her features softened as she understood. “Nothing will ever be like it was.”
He understood that. It wasn’t as if he’d spent the year moping under a dark cloud. At least not all the time. But he needed something to change. Hell if he knew what it was or how to do it.
“Are you okay?” Chelsea asked softly.
“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
Chelsea rolled her lips into her mouth then offered a pitying smile. “Okay.”
Damn, he didn’t want to feel guilty for snapping at her on top of everything.
Linda closed her magazine and moved to the table. “Maybe it shouldn’t have taken us a year to get everyone together. I couldn’t have managed what we did yesterday after the funeral… But hearing from her friends and sharing our stories made my heart fuller.”
He shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth, having no idea when would be the right time.
Chelsea laid her pen on the oversized page. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Forget I said anything.” Liam chomped on another piece of bacon, ignoring the eggs and muffin.
He sensed Frank and Linda staring and could feel Chelsea study him.
She could still be upset about last night.
They hadn’t traded a word when Linda and Frank forced them to sit together and look at pictures.
He bet she was silently cursing him out with her ridiculous name-calling. Donut brain. Sprinkle ass.
“I think,” Linda said, “this year has been hard, and we’ve all had to find a new normal. That doesn’t mean we don’t hurt.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, not sure what to say.
Frank offered him the paper as though the mundane activity might help.
“No, thanks.”
And with that, Linda reopened her magazine. Frank stood and headed to the coffee pot for a refill, and Chelsea twirled her pen as if she were headlining a marching band.
The dryer signal chimed, and Linda pushed back from the table. Frank wandered from the kitchen with his refill.
Liam scowled at his eggs then dug in and tapped his bare foot. Chelsea’s pen dropped onto the table, and he looked up. Her dark pink-lips were pressed into a tight line that made them lose their color. Her eyebrows arched, and she stared as though she were waiting.
“What?”
“Don’t be like that to them,” she scolded.
He smirked. “Don’t act like it’s party central—”
“Oh, give me a break. No one’s acting like that.”
Liam shoveled another mouthful of eggs into his mouth.
“You’re not the only one who has had a hard time since she died.”
“Then act like it,” he snapped.
Her lips parted—then she slapped her mouth shut. Tears formed in her eyes, and she dropped her chin. Shit, he didn’t mean to do that. His throat knotted, and a lonely emptiness washed away his hostility, no matter how hard he tried to hang on to its protective armor.
“Sorry,” he finally muttered, though she’d hid her face with an intense study of her notes. “That was a dick move.”
Chelsea shrugged, not glancing up.
“And about last night.” He stabbed the eggs, moving them around. “I shouldn’t have been a dick then, either.”
She made angry marks across the page. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Why doesn’t this feel weird to anyone else?” He gestured toward the living room then the bacon.
Her pen hovered over the paper, then finally, she lifted her head. “It does. It feels terrible.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“You know what I miss?” she asked, twisting the pen between her fingers.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Hmm?”
She smiled, glancing to the side, then laughed. “This morning has been so quiet.”
He froze and realized that even with the buzz of conversation, the kitchen was quieter than it would’ve been with Julia’s laughter. Then he smiled too. “You two were loud.” He laughed. “Even when you thought you were being quiet.”
Feigning surprise, she said, “You act like we were obnoxious.”
“And you act like I never received a drunk-dialed pick-up request from a bar.”
She laughed again. “Never.”
He snorted.
“But if we ever did, we couldn’t have been obnoxious.”
They laughed, and he relaxed as they reminisced. Each recalled story brought on another one until he realized that this was what everyone else did yesterday. He leaned back in his chair, feeling not as empty, but he sobered.
Chelsea offered an understanding nod as though she could read his mind. She inhaled and finally let it go when she picked her pen back up and returned to her work.
“What are you doing?”
Her face scrunched. “I’m making edits. Or at least trying. But they’re not working.”
“Why aren’t they?” He leaned over the table to eye the page. It was mostly filled with pictures. A large amount of the text had been crossed out. Tiny notes filled the margins with arrows and lines, and several photos were marred with question marks and slashes.
“Because she was always the photographer and the one with the artistic eye. I don’t know why something isn’t working.
I just know it isn’t, and—” Chelsea pushed back from the table and retrieved another print from under her purse then laid the regular-sized page in front of him.
“And because my pictures are awful compared to hers.”
He eyed the pages but didn’t see any difference. “Eye of the beholder, maybe?”
Shifting her weight, she frowned. “Probably not.”
He couldn’t see a problem with any of the pictures. Hell, he couldn’t distinguish between Julia’s work and Chelsea’s. He eased back in his chair and focused on his coffee, trying to remember the last time he’d asked Julia about the book, but came up blank. “I didn’t pay enough attention, did I?”
Chelsea cocked her head. “To the books?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“You did,” she promised and made a cross over her heart. “I would’ve heard otherwise.” She paused with a knowing look. “Actually, we both would’ve heard otherwise.”
He chuckled, then leaned back, arms crossed, and realized that he had been moving through the motions for the last year, not living life, wishing each day would start and end differently.
Yesterday’s celebration and today’s coffee with Chelsea had seemed like torture, but maybe those were the two things he needed.
Needed for what? The past wouldn’t change. The future waited. All he had to do was live. But hell, he’d forgotten how.