Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
CHARLIE
“Edna Finch?”
Alice sounds confused. She still looks hurt, but she doesn’t try to bolt again. I can’t believe I’m telling her this, that I’ve confessed half the things I have to Alice. But something in me likes telling her things; some quiet part of me wants her to know who I am.
“Edna is the last person I ever pranked,” I admit.
That Friday before I turned sixteen was one of the worst nights of my life, but it was also one of the best. My phoenix night where my entire miserable life finally burned down so I could build something new. Something honest.
I can barely look at Alice, but I keep going. “I was twelve when I found out my dad was cheating on my mom. I didn’t mean to keep it a secret—he kept promising he’d tell her himself. Before I knew it, a year had passed, and then it was my secret too.”
I was terrified to tell my mom the truth. My dad said she’d be mad at me for keeping quiet, that things between us would never be the same, and I was just young enough and trusting enough to believe him. That secret ate me alive, but there are a thousand ways to make yourself forget. Bad and dangerous ways.
“That’s when I started getting in trouble around town, when I started drinking. And it only got worse the longer I kept that secret.”
I started stealing beer out of my dad’s garage fridge when I was thirteen, often multiple cans at a time so I could share them with friends. I’m not sure when he figured it out, but he never tried to stop me. I guess he thought if I was keeping his secret, he might as well keep mine.
Alice’s face softens the more I talk, but I’m not sure if I like the look she’s giving me. Even now, people feeling sorry for me never sits right in my chest. A lot of things happened to me, sure, but I made a lot of choices too. Where my life went, all those dark roads I went down, those were my own fault.
“The weekend before I turned sixteen, he made a big deal about us going on a father-son camping trip. But then he texted me Friday afternoon to say he’d be out of town until Sunday. He told me to stay at a friend’s house and lie low until he got back—and I just sort of snapped.”
I’m not sure how many drinks I had before I came up with my plan. Before I was ready to—literally—burn things to the ground later that night. But it was way too many drinks, especially for a kid.
“I was upset, and I wanted to do something drastic. But I think I wanted to get caught too—so my dad would get caught.”
That’s probably why I picked the prank victim I did. Why I would ever choose to go after someone as grumpy and unforgiving as Edna. She didn’t live in the hedgerow back then. She and her husband still had their farm before they sold it to her nephew. It was on the outskirts of town, right on the edge of nowhere with only a few neighbors scattered here and there.
“We had some fireworks left over from the 4 th of July, so I went over to Edna’s house”—I pause as Alice gasps—“and I blew up her mailbox.”
She gasps again, clamping her hands over her mouth. “Charlie, that’s a federal offense ,” she whispers between her fingers, and yes—yes it is.
“I didn’t know that, but Edna works at the post office. So she definitely knew.”
I can still remember how angry she was, how Edna grabbed my arm like a murder-hawk and dragged me into her house. Her husband was gone on a hunting trip with his brothers, and it was just the two of us.
“She told me she knew something was up with me. She said if I didn’t confess, she was turning me in, that her neighbor had probably already called the cops. So I told her everything.”
About my dad and my drinking. About how horrible I felt for keeping that secret from my mom, and how much she was going to hate me if she ever found out. How much Carl and Roxie would hate me.
“When the town sheriff got there, she told me to stay in the kitchen. Then Edna went outside and told him she’d done it herself. That she’d gotten a new mailbox, but she wanted to give her old one ‘a Viking funeral.’”
Alice cracks the tiniest smile, and the warmth of it eases through me as I keep going. “People still don’t know the truth about that mailbox. I’m not even sure if she told her husband.”
If Edna was the Victorian, if the Old Birds had anything to do with that scandal sheet, the whole town would know about that night. The Victorian reported on plenty of my other misadventures, but that last one and everything that came after—all those tiny details that only Edna knew—stayed a secret.
Well, for the most part. Except for the stuff she told my mom.
“Edna took care of everything with the cops, and she handled the stuff with my dad too. She called my mom and told her everything herself, so I wouldn’t have to. And when she got there, my mom wasn’t mad at me like my dad swore she would be. She just hugged me and told me she was sorry. She said she was mad at herself for not noticing what was happening, and she promised me we’d fix it together.”
Mama Roscoe is a woman of her word. She called things off with my dad that Friday night, filed for divorce on Monday, and by Tuesday when we had our first “family meeting breakfast” with Carl, she’d already enrolled me in rehab.
“Edna found a teen substance abuse center for me in Cascade Canyon. I was in and out before summer break ended, and no one ever found out about that either. She and her husband even footed the bill for anything insurance wouldn’t cover.”
She did more than that, though. When I got out of rehab and the kids at school still wanted me to be Old Charlie—when they started pressuring me and giving me a hard time about cleaning up—Edna never judged me for dropping out. She just drove me to the community college down the mountain so I could get my GED; she helped me study.
“She’s been looking out for me ever since,” I tell Alice. “When I dropped out of art school and came back for good, she even started dragging me to any events she could: book clubs, bingo nights, the works. She made me feel like I belonged here when most people were just disappointed I came back.”
If it wasn’t for Edna, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me. She’s saved my life a dozen times.
“There’s no way she would write about me the way the Victorian has. She wouldn’t do that to me.”
I’m not sure what I expect Alice to say after all that. I’m not even sure if I expect her to believe me, but when I finally glance at her on the stairs above me, she looks like she’s trying not to cry. And that scares me a little.
I said too much.
I scramble for a way to backtrack, a way to joke around and save face. She’s standing too close, two steps away on the staircase, and maybe it’s my turn to bolt.
Before I can, she does the simplest, smallest thing. But also the biggest.
She moves down one step, so she’s just barely above me. Then she hugs me. “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she whispers. “And I’m so glad Edna was there.”
Me too.
That moment overwhelms me, her reaction. No girl has ever hugged me like this before, so calmly and sweetly for that long. It feels like a remedy, like her touch is trying to heal something inside me, so I let it.
Sometimes, healing looks like a doctor’s visit. It’s rehab and therapy and getting whatever medications you need to feel well again. But sometimes it’s holding a perfect girl in your arms and knowing she doesn’t think you’re a bad guy. It’s telling her everything and realizing she doesn’t hate you afterward.
It feels good to hold Alice close. To notice the care in her embrace and the soft thump of her heart against my chest. If I never had to let her go, I wouldn’t.
If I could hold on to Alice Kilpatrick forever, that would be just fine by me.
I need to get us out of this house. I need to get me out of this house. Luckily, our to-do list has us covered. The perfect escape is ready and waiting, item number three.
Make a wish.
Alice works on her book until lunch. After we eat, I tell her I have something planned, and then I ask her one simple question: bus or gondola.
Her eyes light up. “ Gondola .”