The first act of war. Maybe I cared more than I’d thought I did. Maybe I wasn’t going to just roll over and let her mess things up between me and Kai. Maybe I needed to level the playing field.
I dialed the city hall directory.
“Mrs. McMichaels? Do you know where your granddaughter is living?”
23
I LIKE A LOOK OF AGONY AND TERROR
That night, I couldn’t sleep. It was almost midnight when my phone lit up beneath my covers. I stared at the screen, thinking of the words that had glowed that afternoon: photo deleted. Like you could delete a relationship with the push of a button.
It was Kai. Mrs. McMichaels came by tonight. Another message popped up. Someone told her Emma was living here.
I hesitated to answer him. I didn’t need to; he’d think I was asleep. But I didn’t want to hide anything from him. When we’d talked on the phone, Mrs. McMichaels told me I’d done the right thing. She said she’d take care of everything, that she’d take care of Emma. And that Emma should be with her family. And, of course, she should be with her family. I just wasn’t sure Kai would see it that way. My thumbs hovered over the keypad. What could I say? I did it for her own good? That would be a lie. Instead, I wrote: Is Emma at her grandmother’s now?
Kai recorded a message and sent it to me. I played it softly, one eye on Blythe, where she slept holding one of our dad’s old sweaters. “Dude, it was crazy. Mrs. McMichaels showed up at our door when we were cleaning up from dinner holding a bouquet like she was taking us on a date. She kept apologizing, as if Emma were squatting at our place instead of us inviting her to stay. Emma tried to say no, but it was obvious she had to go with her. She and my mom talked in the kitchen, and when Mrs. McMichaels dragged Emma out, she was yelling at her that she was going to file for sole custody of Emma in the morning.”
I bit my lower lip. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I wrote: That is really crazy. He wrote back: I feel horrible. I can’t sleep. Then: I wish you were here. I hesitated, my thumbs over the keys. I should tell him it was me who called Mrs. McMichaels. But instead, I wrote: Me, too.
On Friday when I came home, it wasn’t to the sound of hammering and the rev of the circular saw, but to shouting. There was a slam, and the scuffle of gravel, then Charlie’s voice, rising in pitch. I hurried up the driveway and into the garden, toward the voices. He was yelling: “No, absolutely not!”
“I advise you to take this immediately!” I turned the corner to see Mrs. McMichaels, her gardening hat in place, staring Charlie down. A pile of deadheaded roses was at his feet, and a pair of clippers in his hand. On the ground was a big bag of new gravel—maybe that was the slam I’d heard. When I got closer, I could see she was waving an envelope at him.
He shook his head, brandishing his clippers to keep her away. “Not without my attorney present. You turn right around and walk away.”
“You are an attorney, Mr. Parker. You should have understood that November fifth wasn’t a negotiable date.” Mrs. McMichaels’s tone was as sharp as Charlie’s clippers, and I wondered if she used that tone with Emma.
“I didn’t suggest it was, Bernie. But there are protocols that must be followed. My attorney and the attorneys of the Mission Project must be here for me to accept any—”
“Don’t try to talk fancy to me, young man.” Mrs. McMichaels stamped her walking stick into the ground, and I realized that was the resounding thud I’d heard before. “Magnolia Blossom is the most illustrious, oldest house in Thornewood. This house must conform to neighborhood-approved dictates or you will not keep this house, not for longer than a single—”
“Keep the house?” The words were out before I thought them. Mrs. McMichaels whirled, faster than I’d expect a woman of her age to move. Charlie looked to me then back to Mrs. McMichaels, still clutching the shears.
“Is that a twin?” Mrs. McMichaels gave me a cursory glance. “Which one are you? The unkempt one? Or the one with the boots? Oh, I see. Boots. Well, Boots, the city takes taxes, fines, and shrubbery very seriously.” She turned back to Charlie. “The fines stand, whether you take the letter or not.”
“Sabine, go on inside and find your mother.” Charlie kept his eyes on Mrs. McMichaels as he spoke. “Mrs. McMichaels was just leaving.” But I didn’t move. I was finding out what was going on.
“I’ll have you know I’ve brought this to the council. We have serious doubts about the historical accuracy of your renovations, you’ve disregarded the stay order on your zoning, and there’s no excuse for building a rental unit without approval, even if it wasn’t on your watch. Now that the fines are in excess of the property value, you have—what is the expression? No leg to stand on? No house to live in is more like it.” She turned, taking me in with a head-to-toe look before turning back to Charlie. “But rest assured, when the house belongs to me—to the city—it will be a tribute to Thornewood.”
“Don’t go shopping for wallpaper samples just yet,” Charlie said. “There are banks to call and people to consult. We’ll see where we are in a few weeks.”
Mrs. McMichaels jabbed the envelope. “You don’t have weeks. You have days. Next Wednesday you will vacate unless the fines are paid in full.”
Charlie laughed, but it was high and pinched. “You can talk until your face is blue as your hair. But know this—if you don’t give us more time and an interview with the council, I will tie this house up in so much legislation you’ll die before it’s so much as a dot on a Historic District map. Wrongful eviction is my specialization.”
“My father is one hundred and eight, Mr. Parker.” There was a long silence as Charlie eyed her, and she eyed him. I wondered if he might stab her with the clippers to speed along the process. I stepped out of the shade of the house and between them.
“Mrs. McMichaels?” I said. “What if we were ready to sell you the house?” Charlie narrowed his eyes at me, but I kept my eyes on Mrs. McMichaels. “Could we still make a deal?”
She turned to me and smiled like we had a secret. “Well, now that the fines are so high, a sale would no longer be in the financial interest of the city.”
I glanced between them. “What do you mean? You said the fines would be forgiven if you bought the house.” She shook her head and dropped the letter at my feet.
“This letter informs you that you are in violation of so many Thornewood edicts that we practically own the house already. Why would we buy it now?” Mrs. McMichaels tapped her hat down.
The letter stared at me from the ground. I stepped back, stumbling over loose gravel. I’d wanted to leave from the moment we moved here. I’d wanted to put our family back the way it had been. To have a house that I could call home. But—one week’s notice to move somewhere else? No money from a sale? I thought of Emma’s dad’s van and pull-out couches. I swept my thumbnail over my lower lip. “I like a look of agony. I like a look of agony—of agony, anger, agony, terror, mirror, terror, mirror.” Charlie stared me down as if he knew whose agony I was talking about. As if he knew what mirror I was looking into.
“Happy eve of All Hallows’ Eve.” Mrs. McMichaels strode down the brick path and out the wrought iron gate. When she was gone, I looked back at Charlie, an apology on my lips.
“It’s my fault,” he said, and picked up the envelope. “Those Historic District rules were as long as the Bible and just as hard to interpret. I tried. Oh, Mick, I really tried.” My chest tightened. Hearing my dad’s name on his lips . . . I didn’t know how it made me feel. Uncomfortable, but something else, too. What was it? Not angry, but . . . sad. So deeply sad.
“Can we pay the fines?” I stepped closer as Charlie opened the envelope. He held it up, flapping it in the air. Then he held it out, and we looked at it together.
Thornewood Historic District Violations. The first line item was zoning infractions. It was over two hundred thousand dollars. An Emily Dickinson manuscript—in quill i
nk. Wonder Woman’s original boots. Blythe’s MIT tuition. Charlie shook his head and turned the paper over. He pointed to another figure. “You don’t happen to have six hundred thousand dollars, do you?” I almost coughed my soul out.
“Charlie?” My mom’s voice carried through the garden. “Charlie! Where are you? I got your message!” She hurried around the corner and almost knocked into us. She put a hand on my arm to steady herself. “Tell me it’s not what I think.”
He lifted the envelope. “She found out about the renovations on the garage apartment. Mick worked so hard to keep that quiet, but . . .” Charlie shook his head. “It’s a few days’ notice on the fines.”
“It’s my fault.” She covered her face with her hands. “We should have approached the city council sooner. You told me we needed to, but I didn’t listen.” Way too much blame was being thrown around, and none of it mine. I tried to remind myself that it wasn’t me who’d moved us here, and it wasn’t me who bought number six in the first place. But . . .
My stomach heaved. “Mom, I have to tell you something—”
“It’s going to be okay,” Mom said, and pulled me into a fierce hug. I deserved comfort less than I ever had, but I took it. “We’ll sort this out.” She pulled away and pointed at Charlie. “Call our lawyer. Get him to city hall,” she said. “Call the Mission Project. And I want to talk to the head of the neighborhood association. What’s his name? Mr. Cade? Call him, too.”
“Should I call the evening news as well?” Charlie asked. Maryann Interiors looked like she was considering it. “Don’t answer that,” he said. “Coffee first.” He took her arm and they walked inside. I followed them out of the garden, but I didn’t go inside. Instead, I sat on the warm brick steps and tried to breathe. The evening wind came up and found the open places in my clothes. I hugged my backpack to my chest.
I was still there ten minutes later, when Blythe walked up, hunching under the weight of her backpack. She stopped when she saw me. “Happy now?” I squinted up at her. She held her phone, lit with messages from Emma. “Emma said she helped you sabotage the house. You told Mrs. McMichaels about the illegal apartment?”
I swallowed. “I’m not the one who built an illegal apartment.”
“Emma says her grandmother is planning to kick us out,” Blythe said.
I dug my thumbs into my hips, poetry burbling in my mind. “It’s not as if my plan was to get us kicked out.” I stood up. “Mrs. McMichaels said she would buy the house from us. I thought we’d move and—”
“No, you didn’t think.” She glared at me. “Just like you didn’t think when you hooked up with Kai.” I wanted to tell Blythe that Kai and I were not just hooking up. I wanted to shout at her that he got me in a way that even she sometimes didn’t. This past week, Emma had been leaning on Kai through the crisis of her grandmother’s house, and I’d felt like I’d only gotten his full attention at night, when we messaged each other.
“Emma is fine,” I snapped. “You haven’t even heard my side. You promised to help me with the house, and you—”
“And I might have.” She crossed her arms. “But you sabotaged it without even talking to me. Without thinking about our family.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could think: “Charlie’s not my family.”
“But I am. Didn’t you think about me?” She shook her head and started to walk inside. She stopped at the door and turned back to me. “You know, if you hate us so much, Sabine, maybe you should leave.” She slammed the door so hard the glass rattled in its pane. I stared after her for a beat. I wasn’t wrong. But I wasn’t sure what I’d done was right, either. I picked up my backpack and heaved it over my shoulder.
Inside, I stepped as quietly as I could, wanting to take sanctuary someplace—anyplace. I got through the hallway and halfway up the stairs before—
“SABINE!” My mom sounded like she was about to send back a rug. She hated sending back rugs. I left my backpack on the stairs and followed the sound of anxious voices into the living room. Charlie was on two phones at once, and my mom was buried to her elbows in paperwork. When I walked in, my mom held up a finger to silence me and beckoned Charlie.
“What did he say?” she asked.
Charlie shook his head. “That it’s all perfectly legal. We’ll need to beg the city council for an audience and hope they grant one.” She nodded, then flapped a hand, dismissing him. He walked off, already dialing again.
Blythe walked in with a fresh cup of coffee for Mom. “Maybe the Historic District neighbors would reconsider the vote?” She asked. I narrowed my eyes at Blythe. Suck up. Maybe she should go door to door and ask our neighbors for a recount.
“Sure,” Mom said, but her eyes were on her phone. “Blythe, can you give me a minute with Sabine?” I glared at Blythe as she floated away. She’d ratted me out. I could feel it in the air. I would have to tell Mom that I’d done it for the good of the family. “Sit.” Maryann Interiors put her phone down, and I slumped onto one of the new divans, waiting for my punishment.
She set her mug down with a clunk. “Charlie says you’re going on dates.” All activity stopped, including my heartbeat. “With Mr. Thompson’s son? Kai, is it?”
“Uh . . .” I looked at the paperwork, scrambling for new excuses. “Yes?”
“So you’re seeing him . . . like a boyfriend?” When I nodded, unsure what else to do, Maryann Interiors’s eyes went wide as if someone told her she’d missed a sale on Marimekko’s new fabric line. “I wish you’d told me.”
“I’m sorry?” I shifted on the divan. I felt prepared to talk about fines and neighborhood votes and why we needed our own place, but not about whether Kai and I were ready to update our relationship status.
Mom shook her head. “I have no idea what’s going on with your lives. And I should.” She picked up her mug again, took a long sip, then twisted it in her hands. She still wore her wedding ring.
“It’s fine,” I said. This wasn’t the mom I wanted to talk to. I wanted yelling or jazz hands. But not this.
“Will you tell me what you like about him?” She tucked her feet beneath her and leaned forward, and I was reminded of how she once sat when she used to read to me. Blythe liked to read to herself, but I’d always loved being read to. It was more intimate, like the words would saturate into me and become part of me only if I could hear them. “I don’t know,” I said, but she kept staring at me, and I couldn’t help thinking of Kai singing “Love Song” to me the other day. “He’s funny. And he likes poetry. Well, he likes song lyrics . . . which are kind of poetry.”
“But you’re still not happy here.” Her jaw set, and I knew: this had only been the warm-up. “Blythe says you sabotaged our inspections. She said you found out how the inspections could go wrong, then helped them along. Do you hate it here that much?” She stared at me, her eyes darkening, and I knew what that returned rug felt like.
“Mom, I don’t hate it.” I glanced up at the rehabilitated chandelier shooting diamonds of sunlight around the room. There was something about number six Magnolia I’d always kind of loved. “But I hate that every time I see Charlie, I feel like my life with Dad was fake.” She stared, waiting for me to go on. “I hate not having a real home. Even once we’re in college, I want a place to come home to. I don’t think it’s too much to ask. It could be an apartment. Or something small, like the cottage.”
“It’s not like this is what I wanted,” she said. “Do you think I married my college sweetheart hoping in twenty years he would die and leave me this ridiculous house and Charlie?” It was clear she was not looking for an answer. “I’m doing this because your dad and I agreed. We loved each other enough to make a polyamorous relationship work, and to fund this dream slowly. We didn’t know your dad would die so soon. It was . . .” I waited for the words that would explain my life. The words that would make everything make sense. The words that would st
op me from poeting when I was nervous. “A fluke.”
I ground my teeth. “You should have told us everything. And you should have sold this house.”
She set the mug down and leaned toward me. “I would have told you everything. And I’d planned to sell the house. But even if Charlie had agreed, what then? I couldn’t afford our old house on my own. And we don’t have family to help us. Combining our resources seemed like the best idea.”
“So now we get to live here with a bunch of strangers.” I was so mad at her for keeping Charlie a secret, for keeping this house and everything it meant to Dad a secret. And then I realized, it wasn’t her I was mad at. It was my dad. I crossed my arms. “Can’t we figure out selling? Don’t you want a place of our own?”
She shook her head. “I can only deal with one problem at a time.” I couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t answered either question.
“So . . . am I grounded?” I shifted on the divan, shoving my hands under my legs to keep myself from poeting at the thought of not attending the dance. When that sewing machine showed up, all my grandmother’s long-ago lessons in sewing came tapping back to me, and I came up with an idea for a costume for the dance. Nothing to compete with Emma and Kai, but something I could feel proud of. And if I didn’t get some time alone with Kai soon, I was afraid I would implode from the weight of my crush. “See, there’s a dance tomorrow night, for Halloween, and Blythe and I and some friends and—”
“You can go,” she said. I waited for the but. “You’ll think of a way to make this up to me and Charlie, I’m sure. If nothing else, there’s gravel to spread in the yard.” I grimaced and waited for her to list other menial tasks for me to do, but she didn’t look up from her papers.
I slipped upstairs and into the empty sewing room. It was dark, and the only light was from the setting sun. The sun’s rays shot through the street trees, turning the bare branches hot pink and canary yellow. I sat down at the sewing table and flipped the machine on, illuminating the room. I pulled out the feathered fabric I’d found in one of my mom’s future décor boxes; it had been a modern throw blanket, but now I was trimming and stitching it into a short, feathered skirt. On the table were a white tank top and three of Blythe’s best Sharpies. And my book of Emily Dickinson poems.
Wider than the Sky Page 17
