Chapter Ten Mercy
Chapter Ten
Mercy
The school parking lot was full. A busy day at the end of the year. They were always busy, weren’t they? Once the calendar neared May, it was concerts and field trips and parties and the usual conversations of Can you believe another year is done?
The kids got taller without us noticing. They’d settle into the routine as the months passed, and by the time they were ready to move on to seventh grade, when I was done with them, they were ready for more independence. Ready for more responsibility.
I parked my car in an empty spot at the back of the lot and stared at the one-story brick building. The digital sign next to the road scrolled through reminders about the seventh- and eighth-grade band concert and the boys’ soccer championship game.
The doors were still bright blue, the sidewalks still covered in chalk from one of the younger classes. Everything was so familiar that it hurt. I could hardly breathe through the relief of it.
But I was stuck. Again.
My legs didn’t work.
With Grant holed up in his office, I’d grabbed my keys and driven without thinking, ending up at the school. And even though this was the first place I’d thought about going, I couldn’t bring myself to go in.
I wondered whether Cameron’s soccer team had won his tournament.
Whether Kayla had convinced her mom to let her do the blue-tipped braids. She’d look so pretty.
Whether Walker ever read the book I’d picked for him over the summer.
My students didn’t exist to provide me with a distraction. It wasn’t fair. They’d see my face and want me to be the person I was before my car accident, and I couldn’t give that to them.
Imagining their disappointment . . . God, it hurt so bad.
So I sat there. Locked in place, like I couldn’t move. Thinking about all the things I’d done wrong since I left the hospital. My thumb brushed over the divot on my finger.
This wasn’t a game, no matter how badly I wished I could treat it as such.
The questions were stupid. Rash. A feeble attempt to put myself on some sort of solid ground with a man who came with more questions than answers. A feeble attempt at control.
I wanted to push through this in the same way I’d always dealt with Grant, but it was impossible.
I couldn’t unearth my memories through banter, and I couldn’t conjure a simple solution through tests.
I wanted to know what he and I were like.
I wanted to know if we’d talked about Connor before we got married.
If we’d laughed about what he must have thought.
If I’d cried on my wedding day because, for money or not, I would’ve wanted my brother to walk me down the aisle.
When I was the same age as my students, maybe a little bit younger, I had a very clear idea of how my life would turn out.
I’d go to Michigan, just like Connor. I’d get my teaching degree and I’d help kids just like myself.
I’d marry a sweet boy who made me laugh and carried me over the threshold of our beautiful home.
I’d have a dog. A couple kids, maybe. Eventually.
Instead, life had just gotten harder. More complicated.
My dream school came with student loans.
Big ones. Relationships felt too scary to stay in.
Whenever that big first step of intimacy revealed itself, I used it as a springboard to get the hell out of Dodge.
Even the sweet boys who made me laugh didn’t last very long.
In the end, I didn’t marry a sweet boy. I married a walking mystery with a sexy accent, a tight ass, and excellent emotional control.
I let my head fall back and closed my eyes, desperately wishing for some equilibrium. Wishing there was some true safe place where I could let myself rest without expectation. For most of my life, that had been Connor.
Everything had changed so quickly, hadn’t it? The literal blink of an eye.
A deer darting out into the road. Or, in my brother’s case, a blood clot in his brain that took him before he likely even knew anything was wrong. He went to bed and never woke up. I woke up missing the most pivotal piece of my life.
I wanted it back. I didn’t want to think about turning twenty-six, or twenty-seven, and still feeling this sense of incompleteness. Of inadequacy. Turning thirty and coming up blank with what my life would look like.
I started the car again, finding not the slightest joy in the purr of the engine.
Would I remember anything by then?
Would I remember a life that I’d built with him?
Would there be trust and communication, instead of secrets and withheld truths? What else was lurking in the dark, shadowy parts of my brain that I couldn’t touch?
The ache twisted into something deeper, more painful, and I rubbed at it again.
Go away, I thought. The reminder of what I was missing was hardly necessary. It was in every thought. Every breath. Every corner of the house. Every flicker of Grant’s eyes. Every evasive answer to the endless questions.
I drove aimlessly, hardly even realizing where I was until I turned down my old street.
It looked the same, but it didn’t make me feel better that this was where I’d gone.
There was an empty parking spot across the street, and I pulled in behind a silver pickup truck with an American flag in the back window.
The house was still red. The door was still black. The flowers were gone. In their place was a stroller.
This wasn’t my home anymore. There were things I didn’t recognize. Everywhere I went—even the familiar places—that was the case.
My throat was tight as I eased away from the curb. A few kids riding their bikes down the street gawked shamelessly at my car, and I gave them a friendly wave as I pulled out.
By the time I got home, I felt marginally better.
I wasn’t trying to play games with Grant—not really. I was just trying to find familiar footing where I already knew it existed. It was everything else that didn’t make sense. Not the way he looked at me, not the fact that he’d asked for my help. Or the fact that I’d said yes.
The sky was still light when I pulled into the driveway, the air pleasant and warm, the lush smell of spring lingering in the air.
It was fresh-cut grass and new blooms—on the ground and in the trees.
The best part of living somewhere with four distinct seasons was the thrill of the change between each.
No matter how many times I smelled fall in the air, no matter how many times I sat by the window to watch the first snow or tracked the lengthening days and welcomed the warmth of summer, it always felt new. Exciting.
But this time, spring felt a bit too symbolic for me to fully appreciate it. There was a flowering tree to the left of the front porch—heavy pink blossoms that I couldn’t name. There was new life everywhere I looked, but inside, I still felt empty. Felt wrong.
I shut the door, flipping the dead bolt, and for a moment let my forehead rest on the hard surface while I tried to pull myself into a better headspace. Grant was still in his office, so I found a book and curled up on the couch.
An hour later, he still hadn’t emerged, even though the sky was dark now and I found myself yawning.
The clock on the wall above the couch clicked loudly, minutes continuing to pass.
I chewed on my bottom lip, fighting an irrational impulse to go see what he was doing.
Ask what was wrong. Check if he was okay.
I’d read the same page four times when I heard a noise from his office, like glass against a hard surface.
“Fuck this,” I muttered, slamming the cover closed and striding down the hallway toward the closed door.
Instead of barging in, I paused, shifting my ear closer to see if he was on the phone with someone or in a meeting, but the office was quiet except for soft classical music and another click of glass.
My stomach knotted tight with nerves, but I still raised my hand and rapped one knuckle against the door.
Silence.
Glass against glass.
I knocked louder. A sigh that was loud enough for me to hear. Another clink.
“I have to go,” I heard him say. “No, I can’t talk about this anymore.”
My neck was hot, and I tried to press my ear closer to the door.
“I’ll call you later, I promise. I’m just . . . I’m not in the mood.”
Yeah. The feeling was mutual, because after an entire day of self-reflection, I wasn’t particularly in the mood either.
I knocked again. “I’m coming in whether you give me permission or not,” I warned, laying my hand against the door while I waited. “So you better not be naked or anything.”
I heard him mutter, “Oh, for God’s sake,” before the door was yanked open so quickly that I almost fell into the room. “Why on earth would I be naked in my office?”
His hand reached out to steady me, and I righted myself with a prim clearing of my throat, extracting my upper arm from his firm grasp.
“I don’t know what you do behind closed doors.”
He raised an eyebrow and stalked back to his desk. He’d shed the vest from earlier, but his oxford was still wrinkle-free. The tie was gone as well, two buttons left undone at the base of his throat. His hair? Still perfect.
Grant picked up a decanter filled with amber liquid and added a healthy pour to a lowball cut-crystal glass. That was the sound I’d heard, and my eyebrows shot up because I’d never seen him drink before.
“You’re drinking.”
“Oh, my dear, you’re incredibly astute, aren’t you?”
There was a sharp edge to his voice that made me narrow my eyes in warning, but all it seemed to do was make his eyes glint dangerously.
“What happened?”
“Be more specific.”
I crossed my arms. “Why are you drinking?”
“I’m thirty-five years old. Last time I checked, that didn’t necessitate asking permission.”
“You know why I’m asking. You’re acting strange.”
“‘Strange,’” he said, rolling the word around his mouth like it was a rich mouthful of expensive brandy. “Am I, now?” Then he stood to his full height, so much taller than mine, and my belly quivered. “How would you know?”