20. Grant
TWENTY
GRANT
The fight starts in the kitchen.
I'm not there for it, I hear about it later from Nova, who appears at the salvage yard on her bike on a Tuesday afternoon, unannounced, with her headphones around her neck and the expression of someone who has said several things they can't take back.
"I yelled at her," Nova says. She's sitting on an upturned crate in the garage. Mack has made himself scarce, reading the situation with the accuracy of a man who has raised kids of his own.
"What about?" I ask.
"About you." She picks at her nail polish. "About her choosing you over, not you specifically, I wasn’t, I said she always chooses men over everything. Over me. Over—" She stops. "I said some things that weren't fair."
I don't say anything. I finish the part I'm working on.
"She put herself through law school," Nova says.
"She worked nights in Atlanta so I could go to a better school.
She drove three hours to pick me up at a camp when I had a panic attack at eleven because I'd never been away from home before.
" She's staring at her hands. "I know she's not, I know she didn't choose wrong. I know the divorce wasn't about me."
"And?" I say.
"And it still feels like I lost everything," she says. Very quietly. "And I'm angry at her because she's here and Dad's in Denver and I can't yell at the wall."
I set down my wrench and sit on a stool across from her.
"You should tell her that," I say.
"I already yelled at her."
"Not the anger. The underneath of it." I pause. "Your mom's smart. She can hear the difference."
Nova looks up. Her eyes are bright in that way that means she's been crying and would deny it.
"What if she's—what if I've been so—what if she's too tired?" she asks. The fear in it, real and young.
"She's not too tired for you," I say. "I've watched her for three weeks. She's tired of a lot of things. She's not tired of you."
Nova breathes.
"You should go home," I say. "Tonight. Not to apologize, not a performed apology. Just go be with her. Watch something dumb on her laptop. Let her make you tea."
"She always wants to make tea," Nova says. "Like it fixes things."
"Sometimes sitting with someone while they try to help you is the thing," I say. "The tea isn't the point."
She thinks about this.
"Did you have anyone?" she asks suddenly. "When you were my age. Anyone who just, was there."
"Yeah," I say. "For a while."
"What happened?"
"Life happened." I pause. "But they came back."
She looks at me for a long moment with those clear dark eyes that see things.
"Yeah," she says. "Okay."
She gets on her bike.
"Grant." She's already moving. "Don't—" She stops. Pauses with one foot on the pedal. "Don't be dumb about my mom, okay? Like, don't talk yourself out of it."
"I'll try," I say.
"Try harder than you think is necessary," she says. And rides away.
But that night, Nova doesn't come home.
Jessika calls me at nine PM. I can hear it in her voice before she says anything, the specific frequency of controlled panic.
"She's not here," she says. "She was supposed to be home by seven. She's not answering her phone."
"Did she say where she was going?"
"To the library. She does that sometimes, she goes after school to study, but the library closes at eight and I've called twice.”
"I'll look," I say.
"Grant—"
"I know where she goes," I say. "Let me look. I'll call you in twenty minutes."
The rodeo grounds are dark when I get there. The milk crate is there but Nova isn't.
I sit in my truck and think about where else she goes.
Nova finds quiet places. That's what she told me, I always find the quiet places in new towns.
I drive to the park. The library parking lot. The rodeo grounds again from the other side.
Then I remember what she said about the Callister Road pull-off.
I find her on the church property.
It's an abandoned Baptist church about two miles from town, on a county road that doesn't see much traffic, with old oak trees around it and the particular quality of emptiness that deserted buildings have.
Nova is sitting on the church steps with her back against the door and her knees to her chest and her phone in her hands.
She looks up when I pull in.
I get out. Sit down on the steps beside her.
"She texted you?" Nova says.
"She's worried."
"I know." She looks at her phone. "I said things I shouldn't have."
"You told me that." I pause. "Why are you here and not at home?"
She's quiet for a moment.
"Someone's been texting me," she says.
I go still.
"Who?"
"I don't know who. An unknown number." She turns her phone and shows me.
There are about fifteen messages in the thread. The first one came two weeks ago. Just: Hey Nova. You don't know me but I knew your uncle.
And I watch as she scrolls through: a conversation, slow and careful, about Morgan. About his life in Briar County. About things the person clearly knows, real things, specific things, about him.
"Have you told your mom?" I ask carefully.
"No." She looks at me. "Because I thought it might be, I wanted to figure out if it was real first. Before—" She pauses.
"Some of it, Grant. Some of what they said.
Only he would know this. My uncle used to tell me—" She stops, her voice catching for a moment.
"He used to tell me this thing. A story.
About a fox that lived in the creek by the ranch.
And this person mentioned it. They mentioned it exactly. The way Morgan told it."
I look at the phone.
"Nova," I say carefully. "There's something I need to tell you and your mother. Together."
She looks at me. Those direct dark eyes.
"He's alive," she says. Not a question.
I look at her for a moment.
"Tell me what you know," she says.