Before and Ever Since (9781101612286)

by Lovelace, Sharla

  That reminded me. “Did you know that Cass and Josh were engaged?”

  He frowned. “They are?”

  “They were. She broke it off that night. There’s a ring and everything.”

  “Well, he’s there—”

  “Because he’s determined to get her back,” I said, realizing I sounded like a cheerleader for Josh.

  “I thought you weren’t crazy about him,” Kevin said.

  “I wasn’t,” I said, crossing my arms for warmth. “But the last few days, he’s surprised me.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, sounding like the old Kevin.

  “Kev.”

  He stopped himself and ran a hand over his face. “Okay. I’ll give him a chance.” He walked slowly around the swing toward the gate, and stopped halfway there, gazing up at the stars again. “I can’t speak for what goes on in Landry’s head. But for what it’s worth,” he said, turning his body partially back to me, “he’s a moron if he walks away from you a second time.”

  I watched his figure retreat into darkness and heard the gate click closed, then sat back down and pulled the blanket around me. I longed for Ben, ached for Cassidy, and sent a small prayer of thanks up for at least Kevin’s—something. I don’t know if it was forgiveness. Maybe just acceptance. Something other than hatred. He had hugged me back at least.

  And he was vowing monogamy with Sherry. That had to be a plus to come out of this, right? Yeah, don’t push it.

  CHAPTER

  19

  I WALKED THROUGH MOM’S FRONT DOOR THE NEXT MORNING, determined to have a good outlook. Josh and Kevin were speaking to me, so there was improvement, but the two people that I needed the most were still on the fence. Or maybe not even on it. They might have been skipping on the other side of it for all I knew.

  First thing I’d noticed was the absence of Ben’s truck, but that was okay. He deserved a day off. Sounded reasonable.

  “Hey, we’re almost ready,” Mom said, emerging from the hall. “Come get you some coffee and sit a second.”

  Mom looked ready to me. “We meaning Aunt Bernie?”

  She winked at me. “Eye shadow.”

  “Ah.”

  “So, how was Cassidy last night?” she asked.

  I tilted my head. “Ignoring me, but I think she had a good talk with Kevin.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, he came over last night,” I said, climbing onto a stool and letting my mother fix me a cup like I was little. “Seems he doesn’t wish me dead.”

  “Well,” she said, giving me a look. “It’s not like he’s all purity and light.”

  I stirred the creamer in. “No, but even he didn’t deserve this, Mom. He loves her.”

  “I know he does, honey.” She studied me a second. “What about our Ben?”

  The concrete in my chest shifted a little. “I don’t know. Trying not to think about that. Next?”

  She patted my hand. “The house is being shown this afternoon.”

  I felt a weird little pang of sadness. “Really? By who?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I’m just glad it’s getting closer to being ready.”

  “You anxious to hit the road?” I asked, feeling a silly separation anxiety over the thought of her leaving.

  Her expression changed. She looked conflicted. “I was. At first.”

  I leaned forward, my elbows on the bar. “Change of heart?”

  She shook her head. “No, not really. I still want out from under this wooly mammoth,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m just not all up on the leaving part. Not now, after Cass’s accident.”

  “She’ll be fine, Mom.”

  “I know, but I just—you know there’s still furniture that has to be moved—maybe Ben—oops, sorry.”

  I smiled. “It’s okay.”

  “Anyway, there’s still things to do. And I don’t want to leave Cass right now. I don’t know,” she said then, in her I’m done voice, popping her hands on the bar. “Spending time with that girl has been a blast, too. I’m not ready to leave that, either. She’s been a big help. She got you those two boxes of books, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing my face that I didn’t bother fixing. I didn’t see much point. “They’re still in my car, actually.”

  “Probably stay there till you sell it and they’ll go in the next one.”

  I chuckled. “Probably.”

  “Girl, those have been here since you moved back in. Sell them or something, it’s deadweight.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “They’ve been all over this house,” she said, washing her cup out. “I think I finally moved them out of your room when your Uncle Tommy needed a place to sleep for a couple of weeks. Moved them to the hall closet, then I needed that for something and I moved them to your dad’s office for a while.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know how they made it downstairs to that closet.”

  “Dad’s office?” I asked, as memory dawned. “They were in Dad’s office?”

  “For a while,” she said, looking at me funny. “Why?”

  I got goose bumps. “Oh, my—hang on.” I was off that stool and out the front door in seconds, hitting the remote on my keys for the back trunk. “Damn it,” I muttered when of course it didn’t work. I opened it with the key and stared at the boxes.

  Pulling one open, I was greeted with multiple titles of all genres and colors and authors.

  “What are you doing?” Mom asked, coming down the front porch steps, looking at me like I was crazy.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I also didn’t know how I would explain it, but I couldn’t worry about that yet.

  I pulled books out, three and four at a time, and set them on the driveway, going back for more. Some I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager, since I probably boxed them up to move away from home and they never got unpacked.

  “Emily, have you lost your senses, girl?” my mother asked me. She looked around. “Mr. LeBoeuf is gonna start talking stories if you keep this up.”

  “Let him talk, he needs entertainment,” I said, emptying one box completely. “Hmm. Okay, well maybe not.”

  “Maybe not, what?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Let me look in here.”

  “Lordy, can I put these back in?” she said, gesturing to the empty box and the pile on the ground.

  “Sure,” I said. “Did Cass look through these?”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “We opened them, and I recognized them right off. I’ve shuffled them around enough, I ought to.”

  Three layers down, and my fingers hit metal.

  “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Mom said, looking alarmed.

  I looked at her, feeling tears come again. I swear, I was going to dehydrate. I dug down to wrap my hands around the edges and pulled it up out of the books, sending them tottering askew. I didn’t care. It was the box.

  Mom and I both looked down at it. “What’s that?”

  My chin quivered. Your house’s final gift to you. “It’s Dad’s box.”

  Her eyes shot up to mine. “Dad’s—what?”

  I just nodded.

  She shook her head. “But—why would—how do you know that?”

  “I just do,” I said. “Come on.”

  I left everything there in the driveway and carried the box in the house, Mom following on my heels like a confused puppy.

  “This makes no sense, Emmie,” she said as I laid it on the bar. “Why would he put it in a box of your books?”

  “Because they were in his office,” I said. “And Uncle Tommy saw him take it out of the real hiding place behind the poster, so he hid it temporarily so Tommy wouldn’t come steal from it. And then he died.”

  Mom
stared at me like I’d just spoken in tongues. “You need to take a nerve pill.”

  “I can’t explain it all right now, Mom. But it’s true, so open it.”

  She shook her head, looking frazzled and a little annoyed. Until she flipped the latch and lifted the lid, the hinges crackling with years of not moving.

  It was exactly how I’d seen it in my vision. A stack of money, and a stack of scribbled notes on various slips of colored paper. She might have questioned the origin of the money, but there was no mistaking her own handwriting. Her hands shook a little as she touched one and picked it up.

  “What does it say?” I breathed.

  I heard her breathing get a little faster, and she sniffled and laughed before dabbing at her eyes. She picked up another one, and another. “It’s all the little notes I’d leave for him now and then. X marks the spot—” She laughed again. I chuckled to myself, as I couldn’t tell her I knew what that meant.

  “And this—” She picked up a small flip notebook, with listed items, clearly in my dad’s handwriting. “Oh, sweet lord,” she whispered. “Charles.”

  “What?”

  I walked around to read it with her. It was a ledger of sorts, dated with dollar amounts added and taken away, over the decades, with little comments next to them.

  One day we’ll see the pyramids!

  Skipped coffee with the guys for one month

  For The Grand Canyon

  Minused for Tommy . . . will repay

  There were years and years and years of them, and way too many Tommys.

  The last one showed the $500 withdrawal, on May 7, 1998, with a balance of $11,450.

  I picked up the bundle of green. “Oh my God.”

  Mom was full-out crying by then, and I put an arm around her. “He gave Tommy money the night he died.”

  “I’m guessing he never repaid it.”

  “Of course not,” she said, sniffing. “He never did. Then he went and died the next year, the mooch.”

  I laughed, and she did, too, in spite of the tears still flowing. The knocker banged, and we looked up to see Holly come in.

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s—what’s the matter? What—is Cass okay?” she asked, her face going scarlet with worry.

  “Yes—Cassidy’s awake,” I said, calming that fear. “We’re going over there in a minute; what are you doing?”

  “Coming to see if Mom wanted to go up there with me, and I saw your car.”

  I smiled at her. “Come see this.”

  She set her purse down and looked over my shoulder. “Holy shit, where did all that money come from?”

  “Dad’s box,” I said.

  She head-jerked at me. “Seriously? This is the box? There’s really a box?”

  “I told you,” Mom said, wiping her face. “I knew there would be.”

  “Where was it?” Holly asked.

  “How did you know where it was?” Mom asked then, turning to me. “How did you know it was in your books?”

  “What?” Holly exclaimed. “Somebody tell me!”

  I bit my lip. “I dreamed it.”

  Mom gave me a raised eyebrow. “Emily Ann, don’t you lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying,” I said, and decided to deflect. “Mom, look at this.” I picked up the money again. “You can go anywhere you want now.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “You don’t have to ride around in a big blue gas guzzler to travel. You can go somewhere amazing.”

  Mom touched the money and smiled as tears rolled down her face. She shook her head slowly. “It wasn’t about the places, honey. It was about seeing them with your dad. Without him, they’re just thumbtacks on a map.”

  “I can’t believe he saved all that,” Holly said.

  I thought about how much more there would have been if Uncle Tommy hadn’t mooched it. But still, over eleven grand was nothing to sneeze at.

  “Jesus, Charles,” my mom said. “What I could have done with that kind of money.”

  “It wasn’t there for that, Mom, he wanted to take you somewhere special.”

  “That’s pretty damn special,” Holly said.

  “Have you priced trips for two to Egypt?” I said.

  “Not lately,” she countered.

  “Girls,” Mom interjected. “It doesn’t matter.” She picked up the bundle of money and counted off a few thousand. She put that back in the box with the notes, and put the rest of the bulk in her purse like it was grocery money. “But I know a little girl with that same wanderlust that still has her special guy to share it with.”

  • • •

  CASSIDY WAS INCLINED A LITTLE IN THE BED WHEN I WENT IN, and her face—the part that wasn’t black or purple—wasn’t as pale as before. She had a cup with a straw that she was sipping from. She looked up when I came in, and although she averted her eyes to the muted TV attached to the ceiling, at least she didn’t just close them and go to sleep.

  Josh looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

  “Hey, I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “Mind hanging for a little bit while I run home and change clothes?”

  We’d already had that conversation, so I knew it was a show for her benefit, and the look he ignored from her would have disintegrated a lesser man.

  “I’ll be back in a few, baby,” he said, kissing her hand.

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice scratchy, but the sarcasm came through just fine.

  He smiled at me on his way out, and I winked at him.

  “Subtle,” she rasped.

  I didn’t say anything as I sat down on a tall-backed stool I assumed was for the doctor. “He’s a good guy, Cass.”

  She coughed and gripped the railing as the pain from that ripped through her. “Now I must be dying,” she said through her teeth.

  “No, we’ve just had some conversations since you decided to drive like an idiot down a dark road.”

  She closed her eyes. “Can we save this for another day?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. Her attitude had sucked the coddling right out of me. “You want to be upset with me, fine. But feeling sorry for yourself is beneath you. Going off like that, hurting a guy who loves you unconditionally, risking your life, and terrifying everyone who loves you—and then being a jerk about it afterward? That’s not who I raised.”

  “Who did you raise, Mom? Kevin’s kid or Ben’s?”

  “Did you suffer?” I asked, leaning toward her. “Was there ever a time that you didn’t feel absolutely over-the-top loved?”

  The anger in her eyes fizzled a bit.

  “We were once young, too, Cass. We haven’t always had the answers, sometimes we’ve had to wing it. I was your age when I got pregnant. How smart would you be?”

  She focused on the cup in her hand and played with the straw. I decided to go for broke and talk to her woman to woman. “Ben was my best friend. Unlike anything I’ve ever known. And he picked me up every time Kevin cheated on me, and finally I was done with it. It was a couple of weeks later that Ben and I finally crossed that line. And changed everything.”

  “But he didn’t stick around?”

  I licked my lips and took a cleansing breath. “He saw your dad beg me to come back to him, and being young and impulsive, he took off, thinking I’d say yes. He didn’t stick around to hear the no.”

  Her eyebrows knitted together over her nose. “You told Dad no?”

  “Yes, I did. And then I found out about you. And it was like a Lifetime movie—I knew it could be either one of them, but Ben was gone without explanation, and I was scared, and then your dad was there every day, winning me back. Making me promises.” I looked her dead-on. “I wanted to believe him. And I buried my head in the sand about who made you.”

  “Until I was
born.”

  I nodded slowly. “There was no doubt,” I said softly. “But Kevin was in love with you, and I couldn’t take that away.” I took her hand, and the fact that she didn’t pull it away gave me courage. “Baby, I’m not justifying what I did. I probably did everything all wrong, but you’ve had a great dad that loves you over the moon and back.”

  “I know.” She was quiet for a moment, appearing to process everything. “So that’s why you freaked out when Ben showed up back in town?”

  I sighed. “Just a little.”

  Her eyes teared up. “Josh asked me to marry him.”

  “I know.”

  “How do I know it’s right?” she asked. “You and Dad weren’t right. He wasn’t even Dad.”

  “Yes, he was,” I said. “He earned that title, Cass. And as far as being right goes?” I gestured around the room. “Who’s been here? Josh hasn’t left your side in three days, he’s barely eaten. He’s the real deal, honey. If that doesn’t tell you something, then I don’t know what you want. You need to make that right.”

  She hit the channels on the remote, sending the TV into a silent surfing frenzy. “So does everyone know now?” she asked.

  I inhaled deeply and let it go. “Pretty much. Ben giving you blood because we didn’t qualify was quite the train wreck.”

  She frowned. “That’s how Dad found out?”

  “That’s how they both found out. With me standing in between them. It wasn’t my finest moment.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No—I mean, I’m sorry, Mom,” she said, two big tears spilling from her eyes. “I’m sorry I caused all this mess.”

  I squeezed her hand. “You didn’t cause it, doodlebug. I kept this secret. The chain of events to unravel it kicked into gear the day Ben came back into town. It was just a matter of time.”

  “What about Ben?” I blinked and she looked down. “What does he think about it?”

  I fought the tremble in my mouth. “He’s—pretty devastated. But he’s so proud of you.”

  “Is he still here?”

  I shook my head. “He left last night. He needed to get things sorted out, I think.” Or get the hell away from me. I pushed a small smile. “Like somebody else I know.”