Chapter 28 #2
He scoots back. I curl up next to him on his twin bed, fist tucked beneath my chin.
“What did Mom tell you?” He sounds too weary for fifteen.
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed yet, but Mom says a lot of out-of-pocket shit. I don’t really care about what she told me. I want to hear from you.”
He buries his face in his arm. I stroke his messy mop of hair, my nails snagging on a tangle which I delicately unknot for him. I swallow the lump in my throat. If he’s not ready to talk, I need to be. Even if I’ve never been good at this.
“Riv,” I start slowly, hoping the right words come to me—something insightful. Something beautiful, impactful. Something warm. Instead, what I land on is, “Our family’s kind of shitty, isn’t it? I hated living here when I was your age.”
It floors me, how reckless this honesty feels. But it’s necessary. Our family has always been the perfect picture of midwestern stoicism. We simply got up and moved on with our lives instead of acknowledging the tender spots, the ones that bled. We never let anyone kiss them better.
“Explains why you left,” River mutters to his elbow.
I was barely nineteen when I made that choice. I was young and caught up in my own world and wasn’t thinking about anything but how much happier I was in Dallas. I never imagined leaving River here would end up like this. “I’m so sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Except it does,” I say quietly, still brushing through his hair. My pulse drums in my ears and I muster up the courage to ask, “Was it really an accident?”
He looks up at me, one skeptical eye peering past his forearm. For six raging heartbeats he’s silent. Then his gaze lowers, his brows pinch, and he shakes his head.
And I break.
I crumple over him, tears sliding down my cheeks as I tuck his head beneath my chin and squeeze him in my arms. It doesn’t add up in my brain, the goofy little boy I remember being swallowed by so much darkness.
“I wish you had told me,” I sob. “Told me what you were going through, told me you needed someone. I would’ve started driving immediately. I would’ve stayed on the line with you the whole five hours. I would’ve done anything, Riv.”
I suck in a quivering breath.
“You matter. So fucking much. Not just to me—to everyone. To people you haven’t even met yet.
I know things feel shitty right now, but I promise you they can get better.
I’m proof of that. I’ll remind you every single day if I have to.
I never should’ve left”—my voice breaks— “I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry. But I’m here now, okay? And I’m not going anywhere. ”
Muffled against my shirt, he sounds so young and fragile as he asks, “You’ll really stay? Here?”
It carves out a chunk of my heart. I don’t hesitate for a second before answering, “For as long as you need.”
I have no idea how to tell Charlie I’m not who he thinks I am.
I’d been so hungry for a fresh start, not tainted by all my baggage. I didn’t want to be someone he felt sorry for, didn’t want to offer up my family to be judged by someone who would never understand where I came from. I didn’t lie to him, but I wasn’t fully honest either.
And to explain to him why I have to stay here for River, I have to explain everything else too.
Ever since our first kiss, he’s always felt a little too good to be true. Over time, I stopped waiting so fiercely for the other shoe to drop, but the impulse remains, simmering underneath.
What if this is what ruins his image of me? What if this is what breaks us?
A steaming mug of stale black coffee sits next to me on the back porch as the line trills and my foot bounces in the grass. I don’t know what I’m going to say, but I have to tell him something.
Charlie picks up on the second ring. “Hey. You finally called.” My pinched shoulders soothe; it’s so good to hear his voice. “What happened last night? Is everything okay? You’re back in Kansas?”
I visor my hand over my eyes as late morning sun cuts across the field. “Yeah, I am. Sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye. It happened so fast.”
“What did?”
My stomach seizes and I falter. “I—uh. Just some family stuff. We’re fine.”
“What stuff? What’s going on, Winnie? I’m losing it over here. I’ve been worried sick about you.”
It feels like a needle is stitching between my ribs, sewing me up tight. All the work I’ve done to open up to him, reversed, just like that. This is still too raw to share. My animal instinct kicks in, telling me to run.
“Just family stuff,” I snap. “I’m taking care of it. It’s fine.”
“Will you not just talk to me?”
“Maybe you’d be happier with someone less private,” I sneer, echoing his mother’s words.
“You heard that?”
“Yeah.” I sniffle. “And you barely fucking defended me.”
It’s a red herring, nothing more.
But it works.
“It wasn’t like that, I—”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“What is going on? This isn’t like you. We never fight like this. I don’t get—”
“Will you just give me some space?”
“Space. As in . . . you packed a bag in the middle of the night and drove across state lines without even telling me, and the only reason you’ll give is family stuff? That kind of space?”
“Yeah. That kind of space.”
“Win—”
“I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” I hang up the phone and drop it in my lap.
I split my life in two when I left Kansas for good that Christmas—a clean demarcation between who I was here and who I was becoming in Texas.
But now, the boundaries are fuzzing and everything’s blurry, and as I sit, watching the sun rise in a place I swore I’d never return, I don’t know how to fix it.
But what I do know is River needs someone in his life who won’t shrink him. And it’s not going to be our mother.
It’s the dead that finally brings my baby brother back to life.
I’ve been back in Kansas for weeks trying to support River however I can, but I finally see the spark reignite in his eyes when he asks if I believe in ghosts and I say no.
He insists he can prove they do if I drive him to the abandoned sugar factory at the edge of town.
It’s the first time I get him to leave the house for something other than school.
When he asks if we can go back again the next night, of course I say yes. It’s the best I can do since our mother refuses to take him to therapy, insisting he’s fine.
He can’t talk to our mother about anything real, which is exactly why I have to stay. I have no idea what I’m doing, or if I’m even really helping, but being here for him is better than not.
Even if I hate this place. Even if I miss my husband—the life I left behind. Even if the only way I can stay sane when River’s at school is by pushing through the pain at my old dance studio, and picking up hours at the local grocery store to pocket some cash.
My brother is worth the cost of staying.
Except everything changes in late January when an email comes through—a response to an interview I went to months ago for an assistant dance teacher position at Winslow High School. They offer me the job.
Back in Dallas.
I’m accepting the job. I’m moving back. I’m taking River with me, come hell or high water.
But what on earth do I do about my husband?
I pace the backyard, wearing a path across the cold, dead earth, ready to chew my own ankle off to find a way out of this mess. All the texts Charlie has sent me that I haven’t responded to haunt me.
Can we please talk?
It’s been weeks.
Any news?
Everything okay?
I love you. I’m here for you. We can work through whatever is going on together. Please call.
Can we work through this though?
If all goes according to plan, I will be leaving Kansas with legal custody of my little brother.
It’s not that I don’t trust him. It’s not that I don’t think he can handle it. It’s that he deserves so much more than being tangled up in my family drama.
A weight’s been lifted off of him since he finished grad school.
He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to even think about having kids for several more years.
Committing to raising a teenager is a massive responsibility to take on overnight.
He wants to enjoy his newfound freedom; I won’t ask him to sacrifice it over a decision I made.
Because I know if I did, he would. He’d give it all up. For me. But I could never live with myself if I let him.
It’s simple: I love him too much to put him through this.
I dial his number. It goes to voicemail.
I’m taking the coward’s way out, and I’m disgusted at my own relief.
“Hey, Charlie. It’s me—Winona. You must be working.
I—” I swallow back the knot in my throat.
“I know you deserve to hear this in person, but I don’t know when I can make that happen.
But I . . . I can’t do this anymore, Charlie.
I’m so sorry. You deserve so much better than I can ever give you.
I love you. Please take care of yourself. ”
I end the call. I sit in the dead grass where a patch of wildflowers always grows in the spring, curl my knees to my forehead, and cry.
I pull myself together, go inside, and wash my face.
I knock on River’s door and tell him the good news: I’m bringing him home with me. No matter what.
I wait for one of Mom’s good days and come prepared to fight; I’m not taking no for an answer. After being back here for months, I’ve seen the way this house has become my brother’s prison, and our mother’s unpredictable moods the warden locking him in. No way in hell am I leaving him here again.
After dropping River off at school, I find my mother in the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee. I take a deep breath, steeling myself as I cross to her. She starts to say good morning but pauses when I slide the manila folder on the counter.
“I was offered a job,” I say casually.
Smiling, she pours herself a mug. “That’s exciting. Doing what?”
For a brief moment, guilt hitches in my ribcage. On her good days, my resentment feels cruel, but the calm never lasts for long.
“Teaching dance. At a high school back in Dallas.”