by Raven Snow
“You know Roland Davies?” asked Rowen, certain that he did. Roland spent enough days hanging outside of their building. Not even Edward much cared for him, seeing as an irate hick was generally bad for business.
“I haven’t seen him around lately,” said Edward, shrugging. He seemed a bit uncomfortable with where she might be going with this. His forced smile appeared to be requiring more and more effort on his part.
“Well, he was nearly killed today,” said Rowen, trying to gauge Edward’s reaction. Tina gave an audible gasp, but Edward only crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to continue. “I walked in on it actually. I chased his attacker into the woods. The police think it’s the murderer they’ve been chasing.”
“Oh, wow,” breathed Tina. “Geez, I hope they catch him. That’s so scary, you know? I haven’t been able to sleep knowing that there’s some maniac out there.”
Rowen wished Tina would be quiet long enough for her to get a response from Edward. He seemed more awkward about all of this than she could have anticipated.
“I hope they catch him,” Edward said, parroting Tina. “Did you get a good look at the guy? Do the police know who it was?”
“They might,” said Rowen. “I got some video on my camera phone. I handed it over to them. They seem optimistic.”
Edward shifted back on his heels. He crossed his arms then lowered them to his sides. He seemed to be entirely uncertain as to what to do with them. “That’s good,” he said, taking a step away from the table. “I really need to be getting back to work, though. It was nice seeing you guys.”
“Good seeing you, too!” Rowen called after him. She looked back to Eric and Peony and raised an eyebrow. “He seemed a little weird, didn’t he?” Rowen asked lowering her voice.
Peony nodded. “Definitely.”
Even Eric, who had been giving her something of the silent treatment, had to concede that. “He could just be sick, but… yeah. He seemed a little squirrelly.”
“I can’t believe that,” Tina said, gaping at Rowen.
Rowen had just about forgotten she was even there.
“You seriously caught the murderer?” Tina asked, her eyes wide, impressed.
“Well, caught is sort of an overstatement,” Rowen said, leaning back in the booth. “I interrupted him in the middle of a crime.”
“And then you chased after him?” asked Tina. She shook her head in disbelief. “You took a video of him?”
Rowen nodded. “Well, yeah. I couldn’t just let him get away.”
“That’s really brave,” said Tina. “And not so long ago you exposed the police chief for what he was. I mean, that’s really impressive. Did anyone nominate you for that most influential person in Lainswich thing?”
Rowen stared at Tina, disarmed by the compliment. “No,” she said, instinctively, since there had been no nominations in the first place.
“That’s good,” said Tina, exhaling in palpable relief. “I would never win over someone like you.”
Chapter Eight
In the end, they did have to interview Tina. All things considered, she led a pretty boring life as an assistant librarian. She had a sizable pool of friends, but that seemed like an exaggeration on her part. To Rowen, it seemed like she just had a bunch of acquaintances and an over-inflated ego. She wasn’t a bad person or anything. Rowen just didn’t see how she could possibly believe she was the subject of their article for so long.
Tina was just a narcissist she supposed which made her compliment all the more surprising. It hit her again when Eric told her he would be spending the night in the trailer.
“It’s not safe to be alone, is it?” Rowen asked, waiting for him to stop being difficult and just do the smart thing.
“Probably not,” said Eric. “But that doesn’t seem to stop you, does it?”
Rowen doubted it was all that unsafe to stay alone in the trailer. She didn’t much want to share a bed with him if he was set on being mad at her anyway. She didn’t make it a point to argue. “I trust you know what you’re doing,” she said instead before heading inside. She didn’t look back, but she had a feeling that annoyed him more than much else likely would have.
Aunt Lydia was throwing a fit inside. She marched right to the door and drew Rowen into a bear hug when she entered. “You could have been killed!” she said, squeezing her even tighter. “Why didn’t you call us and tell us what had happened. We had to find out from David of all people. He just dropped it casually during dinner like the whole family already knew.” She shook her head. “Someone should have told me.”
“Sorry, Aunt Lydia,” Rowen said with a sigh, hugging her back a bit awkwardly.
“Don’t tell me that,” said Lydia. “Go tell that to your mother. She’s been worried sick.”
Rowen cringed. She had almost forgotten that her mother was even here. She genuinely hadn’t planned on her being terribly upset about what had happened at Roland Davies’ trailer. Her mother hadn’t been interested in the rest of her life. She would have been there for it if she had been. “Where is she?” asked Rowen. If they were going to be sharing the same house for awhile, it didn’t make sense not to at least try and be civil with her mother.
“She’s out in the herb garden,” said Lydia. “You go on.”
Rose had entered the house shortly before Rowen had. She was hovering nearby now looking sheepish. As Lydia’s daughter there was no doubt that she had already gotten an earful about their activities today. Lydia wasn’t angry. She was anxious, and that was worse.
Rowen didn’t stick around to watch Rose try and console her mother. She headed toward the herb garden. It had been Grammy’s for the longest time. The rest of the family had kept it up since she had gone to prison.
It was a nice herb garden. Grammy had really kept it up for all of Rowen’s life. They had used that garden for everything from spells to home cooking. Lydia and Nadine didn’t quite have the green thumb that Grammy did. Rowen and her cousins had tried to keep it up, but they were so busy with the paper that they forgot to tend to the garden sometimes.
When Rowen went out the door in the back, out to where the herb garden was - she found her mother leaned over a table of herbs. She was whispering to them, her hands cupped to either side of them. It gave Rowen pause. It was something that she had seen Grammy do before. It was too soon to know for sure, of course, but it looked like the plants out there were already beginning to perk up a bit. Did Tiffany have Grammy’s touch when it came to cultivating plants? Rowen wasn’t sure. It had been so long since she had seen her mother. She couldn’t really imagine a time in which she had even seen her puttering around a garden.
Tiffany noticed Rowen and looked up. She took a step toward her then hesitated. Rowen thought maybe she wanted to give her a hug and had thought better of it. “I heard you had an exciting day,” Tiffany said instead.
“I have a lot of those here in Lainswich,” Rowen said, closing some of the distance between them. “This is a deceptively exciting little town.”
“Apparently,” Tiffany laughed. She shook her head. “That blows my mind. Back when I was your age, everything seemed so boring around here. It was like there was never anything that happened.”
Rowen resisted pointing out that she had been here. Raising her should have been exciting enough, she would hope. Instead, she just changed the subject. “I got some footage of him on my phone.”
“I heard,” said Tiffany, smiling.
“Yeah, the police are hopeful that they can find him using it,” Rowen said. That was a bit of an exaggeration. There was a very good chance they wouldn’t be able to find anything from it. Rowen certainly hadn’t seen much in the way of evidence, and she had not only watched the video several times - she had been there in person! Still, it was oddly difficult not to brag in front of her mother.
Tiffany’s smile widened. She looked at her daughter with an unmistakable fondness. “I’m so proud of you.”
“That’s nice to h
ear,” said Rowen. “Lydia is mad I didn’t tell her earlier, and Eric is outright mad at me.”
“Well, that’s just the way that Lydia is. She’s always blown everything out of proportion,” said Tiffany, waving a hand. “Eric is mad at you? Why?”
Rowen hesitated. She had mixed feelings about sharing her private life with her mother. “He thinks it was needlessly dangerous,” she said, finally. “He doesn’t think I respect his opinions.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes at that. “Men,” she said, knowingly.
Rowen felt oddly defensive. She might be annoyed with Eric, but she didn’t care for others bad mouthing him. They didn’t really know the situation. “He was worried about me.”
Tiffany nodded. “That’s sweet,” she said. “But, in my experience, that’s always how it starts. They act like they’re concerned. After that they get more controlling. Then they just never leave you alone.”
“Well, I don’t necessarily want him to leave me alone,” Rowen pointed out. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I love him. I don’t want to lose him like our family always seems to.”
“Oh, Rowen.” Tiffany couldn’t resist anymore. She came over and pulled her daughter into a hug. “You love him? Oh, that’s wonderful.”
“Not really,” Rowen grumbled, reluctantly hugging her mother back. “It’s really frustrating right now.”
Tiffany drew away. “That’s just what love is like,” she said, her smile growing a bit dreamy, like she was remembering her own past. “It’s frustrating. Endlessly frustrating. You just want to kill them sometimes.” Tiffany leaned against the table just behind her. “I remember this one guy I dated. He seemed to change the way he felt about me at the drop of a hat. One minute he loved me. The next he hated me. Most of the time, it was like I didn’t even exist to him, and that was the worst. The last guy I dated- Oh, I just adored him. He was that naturalist fellow. You remember. Very into solitude and entirely too possessive when I decided that just wasn’t for me. Oh, and your father, too. That man was horribly needy. It was like I couldn’t even get a full breath of air around that man.”
Rowen had heard enough. Whatever pleasant conversation they had been having was stopped dead in its tracks by talk about Rowen’s father. So, he had been needy, huh? Rowen wondered if he would have wanted to be a father to her. She could have grown up with at least one parent. She tried not to give him too much credit. After all, he hadn’t exactly hunted her down in the intervening years. “Maybe it’s our own fault,” Rowen mused aloud.
“Hmm?” Tiffany had gone back to the herbs while Rowen stood there musing. She glanced up when Rowen spoke. “What’s that, dear?”
“I was just thinking,” said Rowen. “We aren’t really easy to get along with. We treat this business of people not liking us as romantic partners like it’s a spell or something. What if it’s not? What if we’re just hard to get along with? What if we teach each other bad habits?”
Tiffany shrugged. “I guess it could be that,” she said, like she wasn’t terribly concerned either way. “We also have our own sets of priorities.”
“Like what?” asked Rowen.
“Like family,” said her mother.
Rowen couldn’t bite her tongue this time. “You always put boyfriends before family, though,” she pointed out.
Tiffany looked at her daughter, eyes wide. “I have not,” she said.
Rowen wasn’t going to argue with her. “Well, I had a long day. I think I’m just going to head off to bed.”
Tiffany took a step after her. “Wait,” she said, before Rowen could head back into the house.
She didn’t want to, but Rowen stopped. She faced her mother and waited.
“Do you really think that of me?” asked Tiffany. “You think I put my boyfriends before family?”
Rowen shrugged. She considered denying it, telling her mother that she had been a decent parent growing up. Rowen couldn’t bring herself to lie, though. Besides, it wasn’t like her mother wouldn’t just ignore the parts of anything Rowen might say that she didn’t like. “Yes, I think you did.”
“Why?” asked Tiffany, which was a rather baffling question. She wasn’t a stupid woman. More than a little self-absorbed and narcissistic, sure, but not stupid.
“You didn’t even raise me,” said Rowen, taking care not to raise her voice. “You dumped me off on Grammy when I was still a little kid.”
“Your cousins were here,” Tiffany pointed out. “They were like your sisters growing up.”
“Yeah,” Rowen agreed. “But they had their mothers here. I mean, Margo didn’t, but that was just because her dad was off in another country. You might as well have been. You didn’t exactly come and visit.”
“I lived here most of my life!” Tiffany insisted, motioning to the Greensmith house and land around them. “I always came back to check in on you. I never left for too long. When I came back, I would settle down for a few months. If anything serious had happened, I would have been back in a flash. I was only ever a phone call away.”
“Serious things did happen!” Rowen realized she was shouting. She struggled to lower her voice again. At this point, the damage was probably already done. It was exceedingly likely that the whole house had already heard them. “I was growing up. I needed a mother. There was a lot of stuff I was going through back then. You grew up here. You know. People don’t like us. Growing up was hard enough as it was without the whole town disliking me.”
“The whole town didn’t dislike you,” Tiffany said with a sigh, like Rowen was just being overly dramatic. She was trying to shift the subject a bit. Well, Rowen wasn’t going to let that happen. Tiffany was the one who had pushed the subject. If this was what she wanted to talk about, it was what they were going to talk about.
“The only people I had to look up to were Grammy and my aunts,” Rowen continued. “If anything, Grammy was more of a mother figure for me growing up than you were. Heck, even your sisters had more of a positive impact on my life.” That felt harsh to say out loud, but it was the truth.
For awhile, Tiffany was just silent. Rowen thought she had been struck speechless for a moment which would have been a first. Finally, she spoke. “That’s not fair,” said Tiffany, which was, perhaps, the silliest thing she could have said right then and there.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s fair,” said Rowen, genuinely surprised that she had to point that out. “That’s just the way it is.”
Rowen had had enough of this and headed back inside. This time, Tiffany didn’t stop her.
Aunt Nadine and Aunt Lydia were waiting just down the hall. They stood side by side, frowning, brows creased in unhappy expressions. “Can we have a word, dear?” asked Aunt Lydia.
Rowen cringed. She knew someone would have overheard her talking to her mother. She really wasn’t in the mood for this and made an effort to communicate as much. “I’d really prefer to just take a shower and go to bed,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
“That was a rhetorical question, dear,” continued Lydia. “Come sit and talk with us or we’ll both be upset.”
Aunt Nadine spread her hands in way of a halfhearted apology. “We made tea.”
Aunt Lydia headed into the den. When she realized that Rowen was still rooted to the spot, she motioned for her to hurry it up. “It’s like pulling off a Band-aid,” she said. “The sooner you just do what we want, the sooner you can go about your business.”
“I’m not sure you followed that metaphor through to the end,” Rowen grumbled. She followed anyway, dragging her feet.
There was tea set out on the coffee table. Nadine and Lydia sat on the love seat together and fixed her a cup. “It’s lemon honey,” said Nadine, arms extended, willing Rowen to take what she was offering her.
Rowen sat in the recliner and took the cup with a sigh. The steam wafting off of the mug carried a familiar smell. It reminded Rowen of happier unhappy times - like when she was sick in bed with strep throat. One of her aunts had a
lways made her tea when she was sick. That and soup. They really looked after the kids when they were sick. Granted, they were still just as likely to baby you when you came down with a fever. Just last week, Rowen had come down with a cold and woken up to find Aunt Lydia doing some sort of odd healing ritual off in the corner. “Thanks,” said Rowen, making a point to smile at them before she took a sip. They might both be total weirdos, but they meant well.
“We heard you talking to your mother in the herb garden,” said Aunt Lydia, getting right to the point.
Rowen sighed. She didn’t want to disappoint her aunts, but she couldn’t force herself to just humor them either. “I know it might have seemed harsh, but I can’t apologize to her for telling the truth and I won’t take it back. I meant what I said.”
Aunt Lydia raised a hand like she had heard enough. “We don’t want you to apologize. You don’t have to do anything.”
