The Spider & the Storm

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CONNECTICUT, PRESENT DAY

A wife. Luke has a wife.

Had , I reminded myself amid the shock.

The initial emotion that bowled over me was anger. He had been married—in prison, no less—and I'd had no clue. I felt betrayed, lied to. But that anger was quick to dissolve as I almost immediately reminded myself that he'd done nothing wrong by living what little life he had left. It was my fault for forcing a divide between us with all of that time and distance. It was my fault for not coming back, the way I'd said I would. The way I'd promised .

So, after hanging up with the police officer, I allowed myself a few minutes to lean against Stormy and cry—again—through every bit of regret and sorrow I held in my beaten heart. I cried harder than I'd ever cried before in my life, until my throat was raw, my head ached, and there was nothing left to cry. And after, when I knew there wasn't anything else I could do, I asked Stormy to give me a ride.

Initially, it was a long shot—I knew that when I'd suggested it—but now, as I stared out the window of her car, I realized that my uncanny intuition had been right yet again. But that didn't mean it wasn't fucking with my head to stare out at the house I'd grown up in—the house Luke and I had unwillingly allowed to fall apart and then abandoned—and see this clean, painted, well-manicured home with a car in the driveway and a toddler's tricycle on the lawn.

And I thought, No way. There's no fucking way , because denial was somehow an easier pill to swallow than the truth. That my brother had married someone with a kid—or was the kid his ?—and that wife and kid were now living their lives in this house I still paid the taxes on. Cleaning it up, fixing it up, making it a home.

Respectful squatters .

“This was your house?” Stormy asked, following my line of sight.

I cleared my throat past an uncomfortable swelling of emotional distress and said, “Yep.”

“What are you going to do?” Stormy asked in a hushed tone, looking out at the house with wonder and disbelief.

“I don't know.”

“You can't just kick your brother's wife out.”

I glanced over my shoulder at her, sitting behind the wheel. “Did I say I was going to kick her out?”

“No, but you look like you want to.”

I huffed an irritated sound. I wasn't lying; I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't even know who this woman was— if that was who was living here in the first place. The cop hadn't provided that much information—just in case I wasn't who I had claimed to be, he'd said, to protect the privacy of a seemingly innocent woman.

Would she feel so protected if I just rang the doorbell right now?

I didn't want to scare her. I just wanted to ask a few questions. I wanted to know who she was, if the kid was my brother's, if … if …

If he forgot about me.

“I'll be right back,” I said abruptly, opening the car door.

“You want me to come with you?” Stormy asked, already opening the driver's side, but I shook my head.

“No, not yet. Stay here. I'll come back if I need you.” I always need you. But I needed to do this alone.

She hesitated for a moment but eventually replied, “Okay. I'm not going anywhere.”

I hardly acknowledged her as I shut the door behind me. I couldn't help it as I slowly made my way from the curb to the driveway, eyeing the freshly painted mailbox, where Tommy had once left a pile of dog shit. The place at the end of the asphalt, where he'd spray-painted a death threat, now gone, like it'd never happened. I foolishly wondered if the bloodstain was still in the hallway, if the crimson handprints had been wiped away from the walls and my parents' bedroom door, knowing damn well that they were long gone, just like the peeling paint on the siding and doorframe.

God, even the door itself is different , I thought as I carefully climbed the steps to the front stoop. Feeling an awful lot like a stranger to a place I'd known since birth.

I didn't belong here anymore. And I didn't know why that hurt the way it did, but … God, it really, really did. It had been my choice to walk away, to abandon this place until I was ready to return, but somewhere along the line, it had stopped being mine despite my name on the deed, alongside Luke's.

Standing in front of the door, I tried to peer through the frosted glass windowpane, but the image was too distorted to make out anything but a couch and a TV in places they'd never been before. I reached out to the doorbell and hesitated, wondering if I should just leave and continue to live my life in ignorant bliss, the way I'd been for the past five years. But … how blissful had it been when I couldn't stop thinking about my brother and what he was doing? This was my chance to get answers. This was my chance to know how he'd spent his last years alive, and didn't I deserve that? I mean, I might not have deserved much, after all of my wrongdoings and broken promises, but I deserved this . I deserved closure.

Without another thought of doubt, I rang the doorbell. And I waited.

Footsteps approached from where I knew the staircase to be. A muffled voice called out, saying something I couldn't hear, but it wasn't meant for me, I realized, as another voice answered. The footsteps came closer, and with every single one, my heart rate escalated. This was it. This was the moment when I'd meet the woman who'd married my brother while he was incarcerated.

God, who the hell marries someone while they're in prison with little chance of getting out? I pulled in a quivering breath, waiting for the door to pull open. Who the hell marries a murderer ?

The distorted figure of a woman came into view, and the locks were undone. I clenched my fists at my sides, urging my feet not to run back to Stormy's car. The front door was pulled open, and my heart stopped all function as a head of strawberry-blonde hair and a pair of sparkling blue eyes were revealed to me. She startled at the sight of me, as I did at the sight of her. Her gaze roaming over my tall frame before landing on my face, hands clinging to the doorknob and doorframe, staring at me and blinking away the paled-face impression that she'd somehow seen a ghost.

Then, as if happening in slow motion, the air was forced from my lungs as she launched her body against mine, her arms wrapping around my neck and mine around her waist.

She trembled as she held on tight. Her tears wetting my neck, down to the collar of my sweater, her gentle sobs filling my ear.

“Charlie,” she whispered, digging her fingertips into my shoulders.

I exhaled and finally gave myself permission to cry with her as I whispered, “Melanie.”

“You came back.”

I couldn't help but laugh, waterlogged and warbled. “So did you.”

She didn't laugh with me. She only cried harder, louder, burying her face into my shoulder. I breathed her in, filling my senses with the memories of my youth and the one thing—the one person —who had always made things good at a time when nothing was good at all. And I couldn't believe she was here , couldn't believe she was in this house, couldn't believe she and Luke had …

God, what had happened?

“ Why are you back?” I asked gently, my cheek moving against hers.

Reluctantly, she let go, stepping back and away, but not before pressing her palms to my cheeks and smiling despite the tears still cascading over her face.

“God, look at you,” she whispered, shaking her head, bewildered. “Luke would be so happy. He'd …” She pulled her lips between her teeth, her face crumpling all over again. “God, I'm so sorry, Charlie. I'm so, so sorry. I thought about you all the time. I wanted to find you. I just … I didn't know how, and—”

“It's okay,” I said, taking her face between my hands and brushing her tears away with my thumbs.

“No, it's not.” She held my wrists and forced a smile. “But I guess it has to be, right? You're here now. You're back .”

“Yeah.” I nodded and pulled in a deep breath. “I'm here now.”

***

Melanie welcomed me into the place where my parents had brought me home from the hospital nearly thirty-nine years ago.

“There's so much I have to tell you,” she said, and I agreed.

There was so much I needed to hear—and so much I had to tell her too.

But first, I returned to the car to retrieve someone she needed to meet.

“What's going on?” Stormy asked, her eyes trained still on the house and the open front door.

“I want you to meet someone,” I said eagerly, grabbing her hand and pulling her from the car.

Stormy eyed me suspiciously as she climbed out. “You know who she is? Is she your brother's wife?”

I wiped my hand against my forehead and looked over the car at the house, reality resting against my shoulders with a strange but comfortable weight. As if an old puzzle piece had been found and put back into place. As if everything—well, almost everything—was once again right .

“It's Melanie,” I said, shaking my head with disbelief.

“Melanie? Your brother's ex-fiancée?” Stormy sounded as shocked as I felt. “They got back together?”

“I … I have no idea. I mean, obviously, but … I don’t … she was going to tell me everything, but I came to get you first.”

I held her hand as I began to walk back to the house, but she stayed put. I turned to find an unsure expression on her face, her brows pinched and her teeth digging into her bottom lip.

I tipped my head and asked, “What’s wrong?”

She shrugged before replying, “Are you sure you want me here? It's … so personal, and …”

“What do you mean?” If I wasn't mistaken, she seemed uncomfortable. “Why wouldn't I want you here?”

“Because this is between the two of you. You're family , and she's so … she's so special to you—”

“There is nobody on the planet more special to me than you,” I assured her, squeezing her hand. “And after I just spent the past few days with your family, I want nothing more than to welcome you into what's left of mine. Please. I don't want to go in there alone.”

Her chest dropped with her exhale as she looked up to my eyes and nodded. “Okay, Spider. Let's do this. Introduce me to your family.”

***

The living room had been rearranged, the carpet had been ripped up to reveal the hardwood floor hidden beneath, and the walls had been dressed up with a fresh coat of paint. But otherwise, the ground floor of my childhood home had remained the same, and that was both a comfort and a curse.

Everywhere I looked, I saw Luke. I saw myself. I saw our childhood, and I saw the years alone. I saw the blood I'd dripped to the floor that Halloween night five years ago, and I saw Tommy's unconscious body being removed on a gurney. Melanie and Stormy could sense it, too, as I eyed every corner with apprehension and cautious nostalgia. The two women hadn't even shared formal introductions yet, but as if by an unspoken agreement, they said nothing while I slowly walked through the living room, sweeping my gaze overhead as I approached the dining room.

“I tried to keep things as much the same as I could,” Melanie finally said as I ran my hand over the stone mantel above the fireplace, where I wasn't sure my parents had ever burned a fire.

I knew I hadn't.

“It looks good,” I said and meant it, even if the melancholy in my tone made it seem like a lie.

“Are you sure? Because I didn't know if I—”

I glanced over my shoulder to see her standing by the couch, timid and eyeing me warily. “Melanie, this is your house. You don't need my approval.”

She dropped her gaze to the area rug beneath the coffee table and shook her head. “No. It's not. I … well, Luke and I … we always assumed I'd live here for a while, but we didn't know for how long. And if you … when you came back, you'd want to move back in, and we'd find a new place to live, so …”

There were so many questions to ask, and I didn't know where to start. So, as I stuffed my hands into my pockets and turned to face her, I asked the first one that came to mind. “Who's we ?”

Melanie swallowed, her gaze volleying between Stormy and me. It dawned on me then that she was a stranger to me now, and I, to her. We shared a history, we shared an old, mutual love, and those memories and emotions would outlast both of us. But I didn't know who she was now, and she couldn't predict how I'd react to … well, anything.

She's scared of you. You're a killer now.

Yeah, well, she married one too.

I shook my head, unable to stop my incredulous chuckle at the thought. God, I couldn't believe she and Luke had been married. After all this time, after everything …

“What?” Stormy asked softly, taking a step toward me.

“I just can't believe any of this is happening,” I said, unsure I ever would.

Melanie nodded. “You know, why don't we sit down, and I'll just … start from the beginning?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That's a good idea.”

I turned first and headed toward the dining room because as much of a stranger as I might've been to this house, it had been mine once. The table—the exact one—stood exactly where it always had, and from behind me, I heard Melanie and Stormy quietly introducing themselves to each other as I envisioned countless dinners, countless birthdays, countless hours of homework and conversation and arguments. I envisioned Luke and me, alone. Envisioned that last time he'd asked me to do something with him, to go to the movies, and I swallowed down the pain of wishing I had just gone. It wouldn't have killed me to just go, so why hadn't I? I couldn't remember, and that was the worst part of all.

I took a seat in the chair Luke had always sat in, somehow feeling closer to him by doing so. Stormy sat beside me, where Melanie always had, and Melanie sat across from us, in the exact chair I'd always chosen as mine. Our roles had been oddly reversed; Melanie was suddenly the third wheel, and it seemed both right and unnatural at the same time.

“So, did you meet each other in Salem?” Melanie asked, pouring three glasses of iced tea from the pitcher in the middle of the table.

I realized that the only way Melanie would've known where I'd been was if Luke had told her, and I wondered how often he'd talked about me. Had he thought of me as often as I'd thought of him? Had he missed me?

“Yeah,” Stormy replied, accepting one of the full glasses. “He had saved me, so I repaid him by giving him no choice but to go out with me.”

Melanie flashed me a pair of teasing eyes as she passed a glass to me. “So, still as antisocial as always, I take it?”

“Honestly, worse,” I said with a gruff, self-deprecating chuckle. “But I'm getting a little better with it, I think.”

Stormy bumped her arm against mine. “You are.”

Melanie lifted her chin as she watched us, took in the way Stormy looked at me and the way I looked at her, and said, “This is all he ever wanted, you know.”

I turned to her and furrowed my brow. “What?”

She shrugged as her eyes flooded. “Luke. All he ever wanted was for you to find someone. That's all. He never cared about himself. He figured he’d get out in a couple of decades or so, and he knew we'd be okay one day … or, you know, as okay as we could be. But you …” She bit her lip to stop it from trembling as she wiped at a tear before it could slide down her cheek. “He was so afraid of you being left alone, Charlie. He didn't want you to be alone. He'd talk about it all the time, about how he hoped you had finally found someone up there and that you weren't just … holing up wherever you were.”

My lungs fought for air as Melanie spoke, and my gaze dropped to the table, to where Stormy's hand was holding mine. Quietly, gently, like a hushed winter's snowfall, pieces fell into place, ones I dared not speak out loud. Ones I dared not acknowledge to anyone. But my heart thudded, and my leg jounced beneath the table, and I wondered … I couldn't stop myself from wondering …

I cleared my throat and blinked the thoughts away as I said, “So, um … what happened? How did you and Luke get back together? I'm guessing it was after—”

“Actually,” Melanie interjected with a nervous laugh, “we had started writing letters shortly after he was convicted.”

And just like that, I was angry. “Are you serious? And he didn't tell me?”

Her eyes reflected her apology as she said, “I guess he didn't think he could. You were so …” She sighed and looked away. “You were having such a hard time, and Luke never wanted to rub it in your face that, despite everything, things weren't so bad for him. He didn't blame you for it or anything, and he wasn't really intentionally hiding things from you. In both of our defense, we didn't know what was going to come from being pen pals.”

I wanted to find it in me to stay mad, but she was right. I'd been focused on nothing but myself and the circumstances of my everyday life. There were times I hardly allowed Luke to get in a word during our brief visits, and when he did speak, I barely listened. I guessed I’d just assumed nothing of note would be happening to him. After all, he was the one behind bars. But little had I known, it was when he’d been made a prisoner that he was finally set free.

“So, then …” I wiped my hand over my mouth, working the timeline out. “When did you get back together?”

“Right before you left,” she replied without a second thought. There was a hint of regret in her tone. “We had arranged a private visit. I didn't want the first time I saw him after all those years to be in the visitor center, surrounded by so many people. I needed time to get used to things, you know, seeing him like that. But then … the rest was history.”

From the corner of my eye, I watched Stormy's lips spread into a smile. “And just like that, you took him back.”

Melanie laughed and rolled her eyes. “I guess Charlie's told you about us.”

Stormy nodded regretfully, and Melanie dismissed the apology.

“We were so messed up back then. He was so messed up.”

“Yeah, he was,” I agreed as a barrage of drunken nights came back to me. The fights. The hangovers. The countless fuckups.

“But, honestly, as insane as it sounds, he was the best version of himself when he was at Wayward. Sober, attentive, honest, healthy …”

It was all true. I had seen it myself, and I nodded along with every word.

“I had never stopped loving him,” she admitted, addressing me fully. “And I tried moving on. I really did. I had a couple of boyfriends I kept around for a year or two, but … it wasn’t the same.”

My heart ached, and my shoulders dropped as I nodded. “He never stopped loving you either, Mel.”

“I know.” A rueful expression fell upon her face as she fiddled with the rings on her finger. “That first time I visited him, he asked me if I still had my engagement ring.” She laughed incredulously, like she could hardly believe it all herself. “I told him I did, and he said, 'Then, what the fuck are we doing, Mel? I love you; you love me. Let's just cut the shit and get fucking married.’”

I fell back against my chair, my chest heaving. “Wait. You were engaged before I left ?”

Melanie nodded, the regret heavy in her gaze. “I'm sorry, Charlie. I asked him why he didn’t tell you that day, when you told him you were leaving, but he just … he didn't want to stop you. He didn't want to give you any other reason to change your mind. If you had stayed, we would've told you, of course. But then you left, and we just …” She pulled in a deep breath and met my eyes. “I want to tell you that we were miserable. I want to tell you that we only ever spent what time we had missing you and—”

I surprised her with my abrupt laugh. “ Why?! ”

“Because I don't want to make it sound like we never missed you!” She was laughing with me despite the tears that flowed freely down her cheeks. “We did, Charlie. God, we did, so much. We talked about you all the time. We wondered where you were and what you were doing … but we were so happy . Those years …” She pulled in a deep breath and lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “They were short, and there weren't enough—oh my God, it wasn’t enough —and they were so fucking hard, but they were ours . We—”

Just then, the sound of footsteps descended upon us from the stairs. Melanie turned her head suddenly, a look of surprise on her face, as if she’d forgotten momentarily where she was. She stood from the table, wiping her hands over her face and smoothing her shirt down. I looked at Stormy, who glanced curiously at me, and I wondered what other surprises were in store.

“Mommy?” a little voice asked, accompanied by the sound of small, pounding feet against the hardwood floor. “I want snack.”

Melanie’s gaze met mine for a brief moment as she asked, “Um, sure, yeah. What—”

“Oh! I didn’t realize you had company.”

The startled sound of an older woman’s voice drew my attention, and I turned to look into the weathered eyes of Melanie’s mother. I hadn’t seen her in years, but I’d recognize her anywhere. Her hand was flattened to her chest as her eyes squinted, studying me as she approached with uncertainty.

“Mom, you remember Charlie, right? Luke’s younger brother?”

And then her mouth fell open as recognition settled upon her. “Wait, Charlie? Is that really you?”

I nodded, swallowing against the need to break down yet again. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Oh my word.” That hand remained against her chest as she shook her head, taking a few steps closer. “Stand up so I can take a good look at you.”

I did as she’d asked. She was standing a foot from me, her eyes still squinting as she studied my frame. It occurred to me then that her mother’s eyesight had begun to fail her in her older age.

“You certainly grew up, didn’t you?” She laughed, smiling with affection.

“People do that,” I said, chuckling.

“And who’s this?” She peered around me to eye Stormy with curiosity.

“This is my girlfriend,” I said, then made the introductions just as not one, but two little boys entered the dining room.

It struck my heart with joy and a desperate, horrible ache to see how much they both looked like Luke … and me .

They looked like us . Like they’d been plucked out of a picture from the past and were dropped in my present to stare at me with wide, uncertain eyes.

The smaller of the two came to stand beside Melanie and wrapped his little hands in her sweatshirt. “Mommy,” he said in a quiet voice. “Who dat?”

Melanie looked down at him with an affection I remembered only from my own mother as she smoothed his floppy, dark hair away from his forehead, leaving her hand there against his crown. “This right here is your uncle Charlie,” she said in a soothing tone, looking back at me, her eyes glistening with tears and a happiness I hadn’t expected.

Uncle Charlie. Uncle. Charlie.

The moment seemed too surreal to be happening. But it was, in fact, happening. I was an uncle, a title I never in a million years thought I’d hold, but there it was.

“Uncle Charlie?” the older boy asked, wandering in to stand beside his grandmother. “But Uncle Charlie is a little kid.”

Melanie’s laugh blended seamlessly with a sob, and she held a hand over her mouth as she contained her emotions. “That was in the pictures I showed you, from when Daddy was a little boy too. But Daddy got bigger, right?”

Daddy . The word pierced my heart with a flaming hot arrow, and I struggled to take a breath.

God, Luke … you’re a daddy . A father. And I’m only now finding out about it, and you’re not here.

The little boy nodded slowly, working things out in his mind. “Yeah …”

“Well,” Melanie said, ruffling the hair of the boy at her side, “so did Uncle Charlie.”

I lifted my hand to wave at the two little boys, acting every bit as awkward as I’d thought I would be as an uncle. “Hi,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“This is Danny,” Melanie said, looking down at the smallest boy. Then, referring to the one who couldn’t quite keep his skeptical gaze off of me, she said, “And that’s Lucas. LJ.”

I pushed my mouth to smile as I nodded. “How old are you guys?”

“LJ is four,” Melanie’s mom said, “and Danny is three. Little Man is upstairs, asleep.”

I looked at Melanie, surprised. “There’s three?”

She sucked in a deep breath before jittering her head in a nod. “The baby … he’s just a little over twelve weeks old.” Her bottom lip protruded for a moment before she pulled it back in and forced a deep, controlled breath. “His name is Charlie too.”

Twelve weeks. Just a little over three months. He was a baby, an infant , and he would never know his father outside of whatever pictures there were of Luke. And it hit me then how much loss had brought us all here, to this moment. My parents. Stormy’s friend, Billy. Ritchie. Tommy. Luke. God, if any of them had lived to this day, what would have changed? Hell, would any of this have happened at all?

Was it possible that, in some alternate universe, my parents were still alive, and we—all of us—were gathered here, in this dining room, having a casual family dinner, unaware that somewhere out there, I was forever mourning the family I’d spend the rest of my life without?

But I have them , I thought, sweeping my gaze around the room. My eyes met Stormy’s, and she wrapped her arms around one of mine. I have her .

And that was something , wasn’t it? I wasn’t alone. I was so far from alone, and beneath the cover of grief that I knew I’d carry for the rest of my life, I knew I was happy. Truly, truly happy.