17. Jasper, Present Day
Jasper heard the rumble of the car pulling up next door before he saw it.
At first, he thought it might be the guy from before—the one Chloe had dragged behind her the day she’d stopped by. Zach, he’d been called, a young man who looked as if he’d crawled out of the forest only to stand in the middle of Jasper’s house with his hands tucked in his armpits, his gaze never straying far from Chloe’s face. Jasper had recognized the smitten, stupefied look too well to expect never to see him again. That boy would be back to visit the Sampson house, and he’d be back often, or Jasper missed his mark.
It was a strange feeling, the pulse of jealousy he felt when he considered the task Zach had ahead of him. His battle was an uphill one, to be sure. Chloe Sampson wasn’t the sort of girl to make things easy on a suitor. She’d laugh and smile and flash the dimple in the middle of her right cheek at all the right moments, but she wouldn’t bend without putting up a fight first. If Zach wanted to get anywhere, he’d have to throw his whole heart into the task of wooing her, and even then it wasn’t a sure thing.
Not that Jasper was the least bit interested in Chloe for himself. He just missed the uncertainty of it all—the fluttering, uneasy feeling that he was in over his head, the secret smiles that meant more than a touch.
It had been a long time since he’d felt that. More than sixty years, if he was willing to do the math, which he wasn’t. At his age, math was never a good idea. The sums and subtractions always ended up being depressing.
He peeked out the window above his kitchen sink, the one that looked out over into the Sampson’s front yard, offering him an unbroken view of the house. The car that pulled up wasn’t one he recognized. It was dark blue and sleek, the windows so tinted he couldn’t see any signs of life inside.
The last time a car like that had pulled up, it had belonged to Child Protective Services. It had gone against every instinct Jasper possessed to put in that call when he had, handing those poor kids over to a system where there was no guarantee that they’d be treated fairly or even kindly, but what other choice had there been? Sneaking in a few groceries while the kids were at school and sitting out on his porch to keep a nighttime vigil had worked for a few days, but he was an old man—and a tired one. There was only so much help he could offer from behind a closed door. He’d waited as long as he could, and even then, he feared he’d waited too long.
He braced himself as the door swung open and a man’s legs stepped out of the car. They were too short to belong to Smitten Zach the Mountain Man, and the shoes were much too fussy. So were the shoes that got out the passenger side—a pair of high heels that would ruin a lawn faster than you could say “aerator spikes.”
That was when he realized who it was.
“No,” he said, even though there was no one to hear him but a hundred different plants that never, no matter how much he talked to them, talked back. “No, no, no, no.”
His words were as futile as the rest of him. As he watched the woman emerge from the car and shake out her flaming-red head of hair, he knew that everything good he’d been working toward was at an end. No more Chloe barging over and handing him books that made his heart flip over in his chest. No more Noodle sitting shyly in the yard, reading aloud to him from the Nightwave graphic novel he was obsessed with. No more of those other two kids, so loud and clamoring and alive that it sometimes hurt to watch them.
Ravenna Sampson was back. And from the size of the suitcases she started instructing the short man to pull one by one out of the trunk, she looked as if she planned to stay.
Jasper waited ten minutes before deciding to act.
For the first five minutes, he listed all the reasons why he shouldn’t get involved in the drama he could hear unfolding on the other side of the fence.
For the last five minutes, he’d paced up and down his living room, wearing a tread in the thick white carpet. No matter how many times he tried to tell himself that he didn’t care, that they’d survive without him, that no one needed him or even wanted him around, he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that something terrible was going on over there. It was too quiet. Those kids were never quiet. Between the dog barking, the television playing at full volume, the occasional explosions that rocked the whole neighborhood, and always—always—the Frisbees whizzing into his quiet retreat, it was like living next to an active volcano.
He’d just hit on a plan to head over with a few of those Frisbees when a loud knock at the back door interrupted him.
“Mr. Holmes?” called a female voice. “Please, Mr. Holmes. We know you’re in there. Let us in. It’s an emergency.”
Jasper’s first thought, that Chloe had come to beg for his assistance, was quickly replaced by the realization that this voice was higher in pitch. His second thought was that it made perfect sense for Trixie Sampson to be the one shaking his whole house. Chloe wasn’t the sort of person who asked for help. She wasn’t the sort of person who asked for anything. She reminded Jasper so much of himself at that age that it sometimes hurt to watch her.
“What’s going on?” he grumbled as he pulled open the door. Sure enough, the younger Sampson sister stood there with those soulfully big eyes and spattered freckles like something out of an L. M. Montgomery novel. He suspected he’d have been able to hold out longer against the family if not for how alike they all looked. Their similarities were damnably charming, if only because not one of them gave it a second thought. They were forever tied by the bonds of blood and affection, and it never once occurred to them how valuable—and rare—that was.
“Finally,” Theo said as he pushed his way past both his sister and Jasper into the house. He moved in a hurricane of long limbs and prepubescent body odor, but stopped short once he reached the interior. “Why do you have so many plants? Are you growing herbs in here? Vegetables? Poison?”
This last one seemed to fill him with a sense of excitement that vibrated so strong it rattled Jasper’s bones by proximity.
“Theo, you can’t just barge into someone’s house without asking,” Trixie said. Then she turned her eyes on Jasper, and he realized he was done for. “You’ll let us in, right? You don’t mind? Since you’re already taking care of Noodle and everything?”
Jasper, who had long ago closed his heart off to anything but the simple act of lub-dub, lub-dub, swung the door open with a sigh. “Fine. You can come inside, but I’m not feeding you. And don’t touch anything.” He glanced quickly out after her. “Where’s Noodle?”
A grimace flashed across Trixie’s face. “He didn’t want to come. He’s…visiting.”
Jasper didn’t have to ask who he was visiting. Even if he hadn’t witnessed the prodigal mother returning, the expression of distaste on the girl’s face told him everything he needed to know.
“Is your sister also ‘visiting’?” he asked, aiming for polite disinterest and falling painfully short of his goal. Fortunately for him, Trixie and Theo were too caught up in their own emotions to notice.
“She almost cut her finger off,” Theo announced in a delighted voice that showed what he thought of such a treat. He turned until Jasper could see the sleeve of his T-shirt, where a patch of red showed. “Look. She got blood all over me. She was cutting up carrots for dinner. No one even likes carrots. But then in walks Mom, and BAM!”
“Don’t you dare call her that,” Trixie said, her voice low and dangerous. “She is not our mom. I don’t care how many presents she brings or who this fancy new guy—” She cut herself off, her lower lip between her teeth, and dropped a bag to the floor with a thud.
It was only then that Jasper realized what she was carrying—what they were both carrying. Backpacks, and ones that were stuffed so full that there was no way they’d just stopped by for some help with their homework.
Trixie followed the path of his gaze and bit her lip even harder.
“I know you don’t like us very much,” she said. “And I know it’s a lot to ask, but pretty please can we stay here for a few nights? Me and Theo both?”
“No.” The word shot out before Jasper could stop it.
Instead of taking this sharp denial at face value, both of the Sampsons seemed to draw strength from it. Theo clasped his hands in front of him and put on an expression that could only be described as that of a fallen angel. Trixie, conversely, narrowed her eyes with a shrewd understanding that belied her tender years.
“We’ll be so good, Mr. Holmes,” Theo begged. “You won’t even know we’re here, honest. Unless that flower over by the window is nightshade, like I think it is. I might take an eensy-weensy clipping so I can—”
“Stop it, Theo. You aren’t helping.” With a determined tilt of her chin, Trixie cleared her throat and launched into speech. “Webster’s Dictionary describes community as a feeling of fellowship with others. In the following argument, I will relay to the audience not only that community extends beyond the mere—”
“Absolutely not,” Jasper said, cutting her short.
She blinked up at him. “But I haven’t gotten to the good part yet. You have to at least let me get past the opening statement.”
Jasper was about to point out that he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to when Theo dug a hand deep into his pocket. The boy pulled out a crumpled, well-worn slip of paper and held it out.
“Here,” he said as he slipped it into Jasper’s hand. “Maybe this will help. I stole it from Chloe’s purse. It’s the blank check you gave her.”
“The devil it is,” Jasper muttered as he uncrumpled the paper and laid it flat. Sure enough, his own signature winked up at him from the bottom. From the looks of it, no attempt had been made to name a figure—not the five thousand dollars he’d offered, not the million dollars she’d threatened to steal, and not even a five-dollar fee to cover a single box of name-brand cereal.
“If I give it back to you, it’s kinda like paying room and board, isn’t it?” Theo asked, a look of anxiety causing lines to form around his mouth. Of all the Sampson children, Theo was the one Jasper had always felt himself to have the least in common with; he was too exuberant and boisterous, his confidence off the charts. Something about those lines, however, struck home.
“I don’t have any money of my own, or I’d add it to the pile,” Theo said. “I tried having a paper route once, but there are only like six people in the whole town who get newspapers anymore.”
“You don’t understand,” Jasper said, his words almost a plea. He started taking a few steps back, as though putting space between him and these two kids might help him stave off the inevitable. “You can’t stay here.”
“We won’t take up much space,” Theo promised with another of those woebegone looks.
“And we’re at school most of the time anyway,” Trixie added. “You’ll barely notice us.”
Jasper reached for the only available lifeline he saw. “But what about your sister? You’re just going to abandon her?”
The two kids shared a look so intense that Jasper could practically feel the current flowing between them. He doubled down.
“She gave up everything to take care of you, and this is how you repay her? By running away at the first sign of trouble? Some brother and sister you’re turning out to be.”
His words were cruel and his tone even crueler, but that was the problem with kids who’d grown up the way they had. Few things had the power to scare them.
“Chloe can handle anything,” Theo said with a determined jut of his chin.
“She knows how I feel about that woman,” Trixie added, stopping herself just short of spitting in disgust. As if sensing how close Jasper was to the brink, she started to unzip her backpack. “I can pay you, too, if it helps.”
“I don’t want your money—” he began, but he cut his words short when he saw what she was pulling out. As with the past two books that had recently been returned to him, this one was as recognizable as his own face. As Catherine’s face.
“This is yours, right?” Trixie said, holding the book—a first-edition library copy of The Haunting of Hill House—out of Jasper’s reach. He could have easily snatched it from her despite his advanced age, but he didn’t.
I was right. Lonnie actually had it. That old bat’s been holding on to the book for all these years.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“I took it from her room. I’m not stupid. I know you and Chloe are doing some weird literary scavenger hunt.”
He almost laughed out loud at how totally wrong—and devastatingly right—Trixie’s assessment of the situation was. To all outward appearances, Chloe was merely interested in tracking down a series of library books that had been damaged sixty-some-odd years ago. To Jasper, however, what she was doing was tantamount to resurrecting a corpse.
“Did you read it?” he asked, his voice sounding strained.
“Nah. Books are Chloe’s thing, not mine, and they turned this one into a Netflix series anyway.” Trixie dangled the book closer. “What do you say? Do we have a deal? I’ll give you this smelly old book, and in exchange, you’ll let me and Theo stay here until the hosebeast leaves?”
“Hosebeast?” he echoed in an effort to buy himself some time. What he planned to do with that time, however, was anyone’s guess.
“She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?” Trixie suggested. “The devil incarnate? The Great Disappearing Ravenna? I don’t care what you call her just so long as you don’t call her my mother.”
Theo sniffled. “She didn’t even say she was sorry. She just walked in like nothing had happened.”
“She’s married now,” Trixie added. “She changed her last name. She’s not a Sampson anymore.”
Each of these was uttered like the clincher to an argument that had long since been won. Which, to be perfectly honest, it had. Jasper wasn’t sure when he’d become such a pushover where this family was concerned, but he suspected it was the day that Ravenna had first brought Chloe home from the hospital. That red-faced, wriggling baby had taken one look at him and screamed as though she’d give anything to crawl back into the warm cocoon she’d come from.
Me too, kid, he’d thought at the time. Me too.
“Let me see the book,” he said, reaching for it. Trixie didn’t balk as he snatched the book from her hands and turned greedily to the last page. He didn’t remember all the things he and Catherine had written in the margins, but those final words were imprinted on his heart.
In the unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree she thought clearly, Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don’t they stop me?
Serious question for the definitely-not-Eleanor in my life: If someone tried to stop you now, what would you do? Would you walk away? From me? From us?
You know I wouldn’t. I can’t.
But why are you doing this?Why are you doing this?
Because I love you, C. You know it as well as I do. I’ve loved you since the moment I first laid eyes on you.
Yes, but you’ve read the book now. It didn’t end well for Eleanor, and it’s not going to end well for us, either.
I know.
Jasper ran his fingers over that last line, his hastily scribbled I know. Oh, that he could reach back through time and shake the young man who’d committed those words to the page. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. The kid he’d been—only a few years older than Trixie and Theo, his eyes burning just as hopefully—had no idea that he was in for a lifetime of heartbreak and regret and loneliness.
Loneliness most of all.
“Does this mean you’ll let us stay?” Trixie asked eagerly.
“Yes,” he said, suddenly feeling too exhausted to fight back. He’d been fighting since the day he was born, and what had it gotten him? A house full of plants but no pictures. Empty halls and emptier holidays. A closet crammed with Frisbees he didn’t need or want, but that he held on to because those bright spots of color were the closest thing to a life he had.
“Yes!” Theo cried.
“Thank you!” Trixie sighed.
Both kids made a move as if to tackle him in a hug, but Jasper was quick to step out of the way.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned. He hadn’t felt the affectionate pull of another person’s arms in too long. He was pretty sure that breaking the streak now might actually kill him. “I don’t have a guest room, so you’ll have to sleep on the living room floor.”
“I can sleep anywhere,” Theo boasted.
“We’ll make a fort,” Trixie agreed.
“And if that family of yours comes knocking, I’m not lying. I’ll tell them exactly where you are and how you coerced me into taking you in.”
“We don’t care,” Theo said with a mulish set to his mouth.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Trixie added with much less belligerence. “I told Chloe what we were going to do.”
That got Jasper’s interest. “And she let you walk out the door? Without a fight?”
“She told us to do our worst.” Trixie grinned in such a wide, engaging way that Jasper almost found himself grinning back. “She said there was no way under the sun you’d ever agree.”