Chapter 4
LEO
I’m going to murder my sister.
Nowhere in our text messages did Gianna say anything about Ella. She said she had a “friend” who was going through a rough time and needed help with fixing a washer and dryer.
“Did you set this up?” I blurt out, furious at being played.
“What? No? I’m not sure I’m following what you think I set up,” Ella says hesitantly.
I’m trying valiantly to keep my eyes on her face.
Behind her head. On the wall. Wherever. But she answered the door in a fucking robe — the robe I gave her ten years ago — and she looks so goddamn perfect I can barely see straight.
“Is my sister even here, or is this all a trick?” I say through clenched teeth.
Ella’s eyes widen. “She said she was going to get someone to fix my washer, but she never said it was you! I swear, Leo. No games.”
“Leo?” I hear Gianna call, and I push past Ella, groaning when her vanilla scent fills my nostrils. She’s smelled of coffee and vanilla for as long as I can remember: coffee from working at the bookstore, and vanilla from her favorite products.
“What the fuck, G?” I say, then stop dead in my tracks. My sister stands in a bathroom, sopping wet, with a big grin on her face. She’s holding an infant wrapped in a fluffy blue towel, and a child splashes behind her in a tub.
“Watch your mouth, Leonardo,” she snaps, the smile wiped off her face. She points into a room on the right. “There’s the washer and dryer. El said the washer keeps draining, and the dryer won’t heat. Figure it out. As a favor to me.”
Fuck.
I know that tone. That’s the “I might be smaller than you, but I’ll rip your balls off if needed” tone that Gianna has saved for me from time to time.
When my eyes meet hers, she purses her lips at me.
Our weird twin connection thing tells me that she’s even more pissed than she’s letting on, and that Ella isn’t to blame for any of it.
I sigh, then speak to Ella, but I don’t turn around. “Do you have any tools?”
“Not really, no,” she stammers.
What kind of mother doesn’t have tools? How the hell is she supposed to take care of her kids when something breaks? And where the fuck is their father? I take a quick peek at the child in the bathtub. He looks to be around six, but maybe he’s on the larger side? Wait. If he’s older than six …
I whirl around, fury emanating from me in waves. “Is he mine? Is that kid mine?”
Ella’s mouth drops open. “Are you being serious right now, Leo?”
“Jesus Christ, Leo!” Gianna scolds.
Ella’s face reddens. “No, he’s not yours, you asshole. He’s not even mine. They’re both Ember’s. But you’d know that if you didn’t run away from me every time I’ve seen you over the past year.”
Confused, I study her. “Why the hell do you have your sister’s kids?”
“Because she’s dead, Leo. That’s how.” Ella’s eyes fill with tears, and she steps into a room on the left, slamming the door.
A tiny voice pipes up behind Gianna. “Auntie Ella never gets mad. Is she mad cuz I frowed up in her shoes?”
“No, sweetie,” Gianna says calmly. “She’s mad because my brother is dumb.”
“Oh. Okay.” And the child goes right back to playing in the tub, completely unaware that a bomb has just gone off in my life.
“Leo,” Gianna whispers. I turn to find her looking at me with sympathy etched on her face. “I tried to tell you. Every time I’ve brought up her name, you’ve shut me down. Ember died four months ago. Ella is their guardian.”
“But I saw her years ago …” I trail off, remembering every minute detail of running into her in town.
How perfect she looked with a baby. How, for just a second, she looked overjoyed to see me.
And then the walls went up, closing her off to me.
Just like every other time I’d seen her after a breakup.
“You know how close she and Ember were,” Gia says quietly. “The time you saw her was probably when she was babysitting Oliver.”
Oliver. I nod at the little one in Gia’s arms. “And this one?”
“This is Violet. She’s six months old.”
“She was only two months old when Ember died?” I ask softly. I lift a hand, rubbing my forehead. I can feel a massive headache coming on, and I can only hope it doesn’t turn into a full-fledged migraine.
“Listen,” Gianna whispers. “I know you don’t want to be here.
But frankly, Ella doesn’t either. She would never have approved of me calling you.
There’s no one else in town who would be available to fix this tonight, and everyone knows you’re the best at tinkering with things like this.
It’s about to snow, she’s got two kids with the stomach bug, and she’s struggling. We have the means to help her.”
“Alright,” I reply with a nod. I quietly head into the laundry room, looking at the machines.
They’re quite old, not a high efficiency set, but that can be a good thing.
It still has the agitator, and it looks to be in fairly good condition.
Taking it apart, I find that the pressure hose is caked with detergent, but doesn’t have any cracks.
The drain hose appears to be pushed too far into the standpipe, which can make the hose siphon the water out of the basin immediately.
Two easy fixes. I put the machine back together, then fill the basin with water, watching to see if it empties.
Moving on to the dryer, I begin to take it apart.
Usually dryers won’t heat because a heating element has blown.
To ensure it is still tumbling, I remove my sweatshirt, placing it inside.
Turning it on, I hear it immediately begin to tumble.
In a moment of clarity, I look to the left, where the breaker box is inset in the wall.
Opening it, I immediately see a tripped breaker.
Dryers run on two breakers: one for the motor, and one for the heating element.
The breaker controlling the heating element is tripped.
I pop it back on, then run the dryer again. It immediately begins to heat.
Satisfied, I take my time in checking every last element of the dryer, removing all the lint I can see, and ensuring it’ll continue working safely for Ella for the foreseeable future.
I quietly clean up the space, then shuffle out to the main living space.
I find Ella and Gianna quietly talking on the couch.
The baby appears to be napping in Gianna’s arms, and the little boy sits at Ella’s feet, eyes focused on the television.
“Uh, they’re fixed.”
Ella jumps up. “Really? What was it? Both of them? I can do laundry?”
I struggle to withhold my smile. “The washer had a hose that was full of detergent gunk, and the drain hose was jammed too far into the standpipe. Once I fixed those two things, it works fine. The dryer was a tripped breaker.”
Her look of sheer confusion makes me snicker. “I don’t understand. The dryer was working, just not heating.”
“Dryers work on two breakers. The tripped one controlled the heating element. The other one was fine.”
Her eyes close in frustration. “I hate living here. Stuff like this happens all the time.”
“Why live here then?” I blurt out.
“Because it was Ember’s place. It made more sense for me to move in here than for the kids to move in with me. Besides, this is bigger than my place. Not that I can afford it,” she grumbles.
“How many bedrooms is this?” I ask, looking around. It’s a good space. Probably close to fifteen hundred square feet.
“It’s three, but one is tiny.” A loud noise sounds from above, making me wince. “What the hell was that?”
Ella rolls her eyes. “That’s Jeremy. He’s an idiot. Mostly harmless.”
“Mostly?”
“I mean, he’s suggested some things to me, but I shut him down every time. And sometimes he knocks on the door in the middle of the night.”
“Have you called the police?” Gia asks.
“No. I’m telling you, he’s harmless.” Ella stares defiantly at me, arms crossed over her chest, her chin jutted out.
I fight a smirk as I study her. This is the Ella I remember.
The one who had stubbornness as she fought for things, and people, she believed in.
It’s a stark reminder of my past, and my smirk dies as I’m reminded of how different we are now.
She’s a mom, and I’m a fragment of the man I used to be.
“What else is broken here?” I ask curtly.
“Not much, really. Nothing I can’t manage.”
I growl in frustration. “Ladybug, that’s not what I asked you.”
Her eyes widen at the nickname. The nickname I gave her our senior year of high school. She’d been obsessed with finding ladybugs, and they always brought her such happiness. Since red had always been her signature color of choice, calling her Ladybug was fitting.
“I’m sorry —” I begin, but she cuts me off.
“No. You don’t get to call me that right now.
I do not have the headspace to deal with that.
I’m doing fine, Leo. I’m managing. Don’t think you can come in here and be a knight in shining armor.
I know rescuing the little guy has been your life’s mission, but I don’t need rescuing.
” Her eyes shine with a sheen of tears, but there’s fury in her gaze.
Honestly, I’d rather her look at me in anger, then look at me with a dull look of sadness and surrender.
So I decide to poke the bear. “Your fridge is making an odd sound, and your kitchen faucet drips. Multiple cabinet doors aren’t hung properly, and I bet if I looked closer, I’d find wiring problems in the light above my head, because it sounds weird.”
Ella’s eyes narrow. “You cannot tell if a light is wired wrong by its sound.”
I shrug. “Didn’t know you were moonlighting as an electrician.”
“I’m not. Are you?”
“I have more experience than you,” I point out.
“But you’re still not a licensed electrician. I can call someone to fix it if it becomes a problem.”
“For free?” I ask. I feel a hand latch on to one of my fingers, and I look down to find the boy staring up at me. “What’s up?”
“How do you know when a sound means something bad?” he asks.