by Devney Perry
Bless that kid.
And fuck my life.
When dinner ended and we walked back to the hotel, I was strung tight, ready to say good night and hit the pavement for another punishing run.
“Temecula is nice,” Clara said as we reached the hotel lobby.
“Huh?” I’d been too busy staring at her ass in those goddamn shorts because I was an asshole. A complete motherfucking asshole.
“The city. It’s nice,” she said as August pushed the button to call the elevator. “You get away from the shi—bad neighborhoods where we grew up and it’s actually sort of charming with the Old Town wineries and hot air balloons.”
We’d seen three balloons over the course of the day and each had enamored Gus.
“In another life, I would have stayed here,” I said. “It is a nice town.” But history tainted even the best of places.
“What made you leave? You said you always remembered Elyria. Was that why you moved?”
“No. I left because I didn’t have to stay anymore.”
“Have to?”
I gave her a sad smile as we stepped into the elevator. “For my mom.”
“Oh.”
“That’s another discussion.” I nodded at Gus. He didn’t need to hear the gory details about the end of my mother’s life.
The elevator carried us to the fourth floor and we all stopped in the hallway outside our rooms. Clara opened her door, letting August inside. “Thanks for dinner. And for your patience today.”
“Do you want to go with me tomorrow? No judgment if you don’t.”
“Yeah.” She seemed steadier now, like she’d conquered her fears. “I’d like to go tomorrow.”
“Okay. Meet you in the lobby at about seven.”
“Perfect. Good night, Karson.” She turned to disappear into her room but the curiosity from earlier at the pool came rushing back and I shot out an arm, brushing my fingers along her elbow.
The shiver running down her body was visible.
The fire racing through mine was not.
“Why didn’t it work out with August’s dad?”
Clara’s eyes closed. Her chin dropped. For the second time I’d pushed this subject. When was I going to learn to let it go?
“Sorry. I’ll leave it alone. Good night, Clara.” I dug the key from my pocket and unlocked my door. It was only after I’d taken one step inside that she whispered my name. When I turned, she had tears in those beautiful brown eyes.
“He wasn’t you.”
One sentence and she destroyed me. Then she rushed into her room, leaving me with the answer that I’d wanted to hear.
And the answer I had to forget.
Chapter Thirteen
Karson
“I know I don’t really understand what it was like for you back then, but I just wanted to tell you that I’m here if you need to talk,” Holly said.
Because she was a good woman. And I didn’t deserve her. “Thanks, babe.”
“Call me later? After your meeting?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you coming home tonight?”
I glanced over at Clara and August, standing beside the Cadillac. “I don’t know. I was thinking I might stay another night, hang out, then take them to the airport.”
“You should. Spend time with them. Relax. You’ve been working so hard. And we don’t know when you’ll see them again.”
If only she knew what she was suggesting.
But I couldn’t go home. Not yet. Not after Clara’s confession last night. Today was likely my last chance to get some answers, and I couldn’t let her go, leaving me to wonder for the rest of my life.
“I’ll let you know,” I said.
“Okay. I love you.” Holly had been saying I love you for months.
I hadn’t said it back.
Maybe because I needed this closure with Clara. If I was going to move forward, I had to let this part of my life go.
“Have a good day at work. Bye.”
“Bye.” There was a hint of hurt in her voice. I suspected she’d cover it up with a smile, like she normally did whenever I didn’t reciprocate those three words.
I raked a hand through my hair and over my bearded jaw, then shoved my phone away and walked to the car.
“Was that Holly?” Clara asked.
I nodded. “She just wanted to check in.”
“She’s very nice.”
“Yes, she is.”
I had a nice girlfriend. And because of it, my soul felt like it was being ripped in two. But now was not the time to deal with this. First, we had a job to do.
“All good?” I motioned toward the yard.
“I’m ready.” Clara nodded and followed me to the gate.
The air was cool this morning as I unlocked the heavy chain. A breeze lifted the scent of rusted metal to my nose as I shoved the gate open wide enough to walk inside.
Clara followed close behind with August in tow. Her shoulders were pinned straight. There was determination in her gaze—yesterday’s fears weren’t going to stop her.
“This is a junkyard?” August shook his hand loose of hers and walked ahead of us both, turning in a circle to take it all in. Then he shrugged. “It’s dirty.”
I chuckled. Leave it to Gus to break the ice.
“Wow. Look at that.” Clara walked past us, heading toward the side of Lou’s shack. Her focus was on the green vines creeping along the exterior wall. “I didn’t notice it yesterday.”
The plant’s roots stemmed from a black five-gallon bucket. A bucket I’d helped Aria fill with dirt years ago. Whatever vine she’d planted had not only survived under Lou’s care, but it was growing wild. The far wall of his shack was nearly covered.
The plants had been here when I’d visited Lou, but over the past couple of years, they’d taken on a life of their own. With Clara running a fingertip over a leaf, it was beauty amidst the chaos.
“I’ll be damned.”
“Quarter.” August marched up to me, hand out.
Digging a dollar bill from my pocket, I smacked it in his palm. Just yesterday he’d earned another one from me. I didn’t realize how much I cussed until there was a kid to collect on every swear word.
“Aria is going to freak.” Clara took her phone from her pocket and snapped a string of pictures. Then she held out a hand for August. “Your aunt Aria planted this a long, long time ago.”
“She’s a good planter.”
“Yes, she absolutely is.” Clara giggled, and with that musical sound, I was blasted twelve, nearly thirteen years into the past, when living in this junkyard had been hard. But damn, it had been good too.
Whatever tension I’d felt this morning after another sleepless night melted away. We could do this today because we were together.
I could do this today because Clara was here.
“Shall we?” I jerked my chin toward our end of the junkyard.
She nodded, giving August a smile, and then the three of us set off on a path that had once been as familiar as walking down the hallway in my own home. There was the large stack of old hoods that we passed first. Then a line of engine blocks that Lou had arranged by size. Then two stacks of tires, three rusted trucks to round and then . . .
“It’s still there,” Clara whispered.
The tent that Gemma had built was nearly unchanged.
The canvas tarp that had acted like the front door was pooled on the dirt, dusty and matted from years of enduring the elements. But the walls were intact. The sheets of metal and the tarp roof were still pitched together and solid.
“Wow.” Clara surprised me, taking the lead and rushing for the doorway.
“What’s in there?” August asked, dashing around her.
His curiosity lightened the mood. He saw it like a child, as a fort and an adventure. He saw it for what we’d once seen it for too.
Clara was close behind him as he ducked his head through the door. She nudged his shoulder and the two of them be
nt to step inside. I crouched and joined them, dropping to a knee to take a look around.
The air was stale and smelled of earth. The common room was the same. The paintings that Katherine had done in her bedroom were there, nearly as perfect as they had been because the walls had protected them from rain.
Clara took a picture of them too. “I don’t know if she’ll want to see them, but just in case.”
She didn’t take a photo of Gemma’s room—the space that I’d taken after the girls had set out for Montana. The room where Clara had been mine. She wouldn’t even look there. She wouldn’t look at me either.
Was she thinking about those precious nights? Was she remembering? They were as fresh in my mind as yesterday. The softness of her lips. The sweet scent of her hair. The delicate touch of her hands.
No. Stop, damn it. Stop remembering. I shot to my feet and went outside, shaking the past away. These fucking memories were killing me.
So were the words she’d said to me last night in the hallway.
We hadn’t talked about it this morning. We’d spoken politely over breakfast, both of us counting on August to carry the conversation. Then we’d driven here in silence, and I’d stepped away to take a call from Holly.
“Now where?” August asked, bursting out of the tent.
Clara didn’t answer her son. She just took off on the narrow path to where the Cadillac had once rested.
The hole where it had been was noticeable. Other parts and pieces had been pushed aside, probably to make room for the crew to haul it out of here.
I studied Clara’s expression as she stared at the space. I’d give anything to know what she was thinking. To know if she was picturing two teenage kids staring up at the stars.
She gave me no insight before continuing down the path, her graceful steps a sharp contrast to the wreckage around us. Clara had always been too good for this place, but today, she especially stood out. Maybe it was the white dress she’d worn. Or the colorful flowers embroidered on the front that trailed from the neck to the hem that hit midthigh.
Did she always wear white? Since she’d come here, I’d only seen her in light colors.
I lingered behind her and August as they made their way down the path. I knew exactly where she was headed, and I didn’t want her to feel rushed because I was crowding her.
Funny how I’d needed her to come inside this place. But now that she was here, she didn’t really need me. Not when she had August.
I’d never seen a mother-son duo like theirs. Maybe it was because she was his only parent—I assumed she was his only parent—but they had this bond. It was like a string tied between them, visible if you looked hard enough.
When I caught up to them, Clara was standing at the back of the delivery van, staring at the closed door.
August had left her side and was bent over the rusted can that Aria had once used to water her plants.
“Want me to open it?” I asked.
She sucked in a deep breath, nodding as she blew it out. “Yes.”
The latch was rusted and stiff but after a hard tug, it sprang free. The scrape of metal on metal echoed across the yard along with an ear-splitting squeak as I lifted the door.
I hopped up into the back, surveying the space. Then I held out a hand to help Clara up so she wouldn’t get that dress dirty.
She didn’t let my hand go as she looked around. Her grip tightened when she saw the wreckage of old books and blankets shoved against the far wall.
An animal had gotten in here at one point and had turned the pages and cloths into shreds. A bed of its own.
Clara bent down, picking up something from the floor. The dry-erase marker. The one they’d used to track their countdown on the wall. She held it up, inspecting it for a moment, then tossed it into the mess. “It’s small.”
“It all feels small.”
A place that had once felt so vast, like a continent of its own, had been reduced to its three acres by time and age and reality.
“I’m not taking a picture of this.” She spun away, ripped her hand free and was on the ground before I could blink.
I took one last glance, wishing it hadn’t been like this for Clara’s sake, and left it behind, not bothering to close the door. Then I jogged to catch them on their way to the shop since I had the keys.
Going in first, I flipped on the lights. “I’m surprised so many work.”
The smell of gasoline and oil was thick from years of sitting. I had no idea if the equipment would work, but I’d let someone else deal with that.
I checked my watch. It was nearly eight. “I’d better head out front to meet the developer.”
“We’ll come with you.” Clara backed away from the shop and we all walked toward Lou’s front door. “Did you decide what you want to do with it?”
“Sell it.” Now that I’d come here and seen it again, there was no reason to hold on to an old junkyard. “I’d like to go through Lou’s shack. Make sure there isn’t anything inside to keep. But there’s nothing for me here.”
“Not quite.” Clara looked up at me with a sad smile. “There was something here. I think that’s why Lou left it to you. Because he knew that you needed to come here and be the one to put it to rest.”
I almost tripped over my own damn feet. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say what I’m feeling but haven’t figured out how to articulate.”
Her eyes softened. “I’m glad we came here.”
“Me too.”
We rounded the corner just as a large white truck pulled up behind the Cadillac. A man in a nice pair of jeans and a button-down shirt hopped out, raising one hand to wave while he held a notebook in the other.
“Would you mind if I went into Lou’s?” Clara asked.
“Not at all.” I handed her the keys, then winked at August before going to shake the developer’s hand.
I spent the next thirty minutes taking him on a tour of the junkyard. He told me about his plans for the neighborhood and the park he’d be adding on this section of land. Maybe it wouldn’t happen, but I liked the idea of this being a place for kids to play. A safe place for future generations, like it had been for me.
“There’s a lot here,” I told him as we walked back to his truck. “I don’t have the time or energy to sift through it all. So I’ll sell it to you, as-is.”
“How much?”
“Make me a fair offer based on the valuation of the land.”
He nodded. “I’ll have my realtor draw it up today.”
“Great.” I shook his hand once more, waited until he was gone, then headed for the shack.
August was sitting at the same table where I’d once sat with Lou. He looked bored out of his mind with one hand holding up his head. When he spotted me, he sat up straight. “Can we go now?”
“Soon,” I promised. “Where’s your mom?”
“Back here,” Clara called.
I found her in what had been Lou’s office. Or library. Or notebook-hoarding room. “Um . . . whoa.”
There were spiral-bound notebooks stacked against the walls in towering columns. Some almost as tall as me. Three bookshelves against the wall were so overloaded with books and binders that the shelves sagged in the middle beneath the weight.
“What’s in these?” I slid a notebook off the top of a stack and opened it to the first page. It was a series of numbers on the left side with a sketch of a car’s grill that took up the center. It had the make, model and year of the car it would have belonged to. At the bottom was a location. Zone 4.
“I think he had this entire place cataloged.” Clara had a few notebooks open on Lou’s desk, flipping through them. Page after page was more of the same. “I bet he knew what and where every single piece was. These were his treasures.”
I shook my head, unable to believe all that I was seeing. Lou must have spent years in here, detailing every scrap and every part on this property. I put the notebook back on t
he stack, then left the office, wandering deeper into the shack. Lou’s bedroom was at the rear of the building, and unlike the rest of his home, it was clutter-free.
Everything was filmed with dust, but the emptiness of the room was utterly shocking.
A bed rested in the center of the space, pushed against the far wall. On either side were two nightstands. One held a box. The other a framed photograph. The picture drew me in, and I skirted the bed to get a closer look.
It was of Lou, barely recognizable as a younger man, seated with a woman wearing a yellow polka-dot dress. His wife. He had a smile on his face. He looked happy. He’d been a different man.
In a different life.
“When he lost her, he lost his way.” Clara had snuck up on me and was peeking past my shoulder. With a sad smile, she went to the other nightstand, running her fingertips over the dusty box. Then she flipped the clasp to lift the lid and gasped at whatever was inside. “Karson.”
“What?” I rounded the bed to her side, the photograph of Lou and his wife still in my grip. There wasn’t much to save here but this picture was definitely coming home.
“It’s a letter. To you.” She lifted it out, then narrowed her gaze at whatever else was in the box. “Wait. There are more.”
She pulled out a stack of letters, sifting through them. Each had one of our names on top. Six letters for the six kids who’d lived here. There was more in the box, but my focus was on Lou’s neat and tidy script and the envelopes in Clara’s hands.
“Oh my God.” She rifled through the stack again.
“I can’t believe it.”
She nodded. “He even spelled Londyn’s name right. With a y. I didn’t know he actually knew our names.”
I blinked, unable to process what I was seeing.
“He left them for you to find,” she said. “He put all of his stuff in the other rooms, but this one was clean because he wanted you to see this box and that photo.”
Lou. I wished I’d known him better. I wished I’d come back again before he’d passed. “He noticed more than he let on, didn’t he?”
“I think he noticed everything.”
I tore my eyes away from the letters and met Clara’s gaze. We were close. Too close. My chest brushed against her arm. Her hair, left long, draped between us and the ends tickled my forearms.
