The Guilt of a Sparrow

by Jess B. Moore

  Me: I'm free whenever. Except Friday, obviously.

  Dominic: Come over for dinner Thursday night.

  I rolled my eyes. I considered texting him that I was rolling my eyes since he couldn't see me do it. I highly doubted this would go well. I had never been to the MacKenna's house before. I knew Denver had inherited it, and that all of them but Joe still lived there. Denver might be there. He would probably ignore me. Beau might be there, and maybe his long-term boyfriend Elliot. I liked them both, but worried they were too extroverted for me. Just as likely those two wouldn't be present, as they had active social lives.

  Cotton. My brain flickered, not up to full working capacity, at the thought of him. Cotton might be there at the MacKenna place. Dominic knew this, and it was part and parcel with the invite.

  Dominic: You don't have to if you'd be too uncomfortable. I'll cook, and I promise everyone will be nice to you.

  Me: Me? Uncomfortable? As if.

  Me: I'll help you cook. I'll bring crates of alcohol.

  If I helped him cook, I would have an excuse to hide in the kitchen. Not that master chef Dominic would need my help, but I was happy to offer my services. I was already a low level of sorry for the way I planned to use strong adhesive and secure myself to Dom's side.

  As for the plan to bring alcohol, it seemed a joke-worthy coping mechanism. I didn't drink often, and when I did I didn't drink much. I had never been interested in getting drunk. My mama threw up when she had too much to drink, and I had listened to her puking too many times to risk it myself. Luke had been a sneering nasty drunk, more prone than usual - which was damn prone - to treat me poorly. I used to lock my door and put on headphones to block out the sounds of my life. Still, the prospect of being in the MacKenna house with multiple MacKennas was enough for my brain to advise alcohol consumption. Not enough to get drunk, just enough that I wasn't on edge and crazy the whole evening.

  Dominic: Magnolia Peach Porter! (What is your middle name, btw?)

  Me: My middle name is not in fact Peach. But I kind of like it better, so I might change my name. Thanks for the suggestion.

  Dominic: Alright, alright. I will aid and abet the alcohol drinking plan. I'll even hold your hair at the end of the night.

  He was joking. I knew full well he was joking. Dominic wasn't aware how my thoughts had just gone to a dark place recalling too many nights of hearing the expulsion of a plethora of mixed drinks from my mama. Still, I cringed at the thought of being in that position, and of Dominic - much less any other member of his family - bearing witness. Not happening.

  Dominic was hilarious and relentless in teasing me. It was fun. I enjoyed him. I chose to cling to the happy side of his playfulness with me.

  Rather than obsess about when Cotton kissed me, his lips searing against mine and his hands greedy to have me, I played at being friends with his brother. It was easier to talk to Dom. I made plans and I kept busy. Who was I kidding? All the while, on a repeat reel in the background, ran the footage of that kiss. Of Cotton, domineering and passionate, kissing me the way I figure all people ought to be kissed at some point in their lives. Of Cotton, panicked and full of his stupid martyrdom, as he pulled away and abruptly ended that kiss. Of Cotton leaving, just leaving me there to put all the pieces of myself back together after he rearranged them so that they fit only with him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Magnolia

  A factor that made it easy to continue living with my mom, was that we got along well and she was easy to live with. Or if I looked at it from another angle, I might say that I was so used to living with her, that I knew how to do so easily. I knew her routines and quirks. When to be in her space, and when to make myself scarce and give her space. We learned to coexist peacefully. That was the way of it, and the way of me. Peacemaker Extraordinaire. At first, when Daddy left, it was tough. The new dynamics of a single mom struggling to make ends meet, an older brother intent on destroying his own life and taking us out with him, and me trying to not rock the boat.

  No. That wasn't it. I wasn't only trying to not rock the boat, because I never rocked the boat. My intent was to calm the already rocking boat. To still the turbulent waters that surrounded the boat.

  It was an insurmountable task, and I became a very quietly anxious child. Sharing a house with Lucian was tremendously stressful for me, and had been as far back as I could remember. I never adapted to it; instead drowning in shame and effort. After Lucian died, it was just Mama and me, and suddenly it was easy. Every day. She was still working too many jobs and we still had to stretch each dollar. But gone was a constant source of worry and stress. I would think how much better it was without Luke around, then my belly would ache for hours as I succumbed to the guilt of being a bad sister. It was hard in new ways, knowing Luke would never step through the door again, and my role as the surviving child a heavy burden. Easy in other ways, with Mama and me able to live companionably with the other.

  From the time I was eighteen, my mama had encouraged me to date. If date was defined clearly by her guidelines. Primarily a steady income and a strong lack of desire to ever leave western North Carolina. My mama had been making me promise not to move away for as long as I could remember. Yet, she was insistent that I couldn't support myself, and needed a man to take care of me, at least financially. She wanted better for me, I knew; she didn't want me to be poor like she had been. One of her reasons for having such high standards for the men I should date was wrapped up in her excuses for keeping me at home. It was a hopeless tangle. No matter, each date had been a dead end, with no attraction on my part. I had stopped dating and declared myself happily single more than a year ago.

  I was happily single. I could say that with a straight face. There was no one I wanted to date of my own choosing. I didn't count the secret and fanatical crush I harbored for Cotton MacKenna. I knew better than to think there was a chance of that becoming reality. I disliked dating enough that I convinced myself I preferred being single. If truthfully, as of late single had become synonymous with lonely. If I was brutally honest with myself, and didn't think about what anyone else thought or wanted for me, I longed for a connection with another person. Specifically one that delved deeper emotionally - as well as physically - than friendship.

  Dominic taking me out had been a loophole. We weren't dating, and none of the standard rules need apply. There was no use kidding myself that I could get away with our only friends bit forever. Hints had already been dropped that it wasn't proper for a girl of my age to become close friends with a boy, especially one with Dominic's reputation. My mama wasn't one to hold back, and she'd put a foot down sooner rather than later.

  The date with Vincent, however, was a date. No getting around telling my mama of my plans, and opening myself up to her ideas of dating in the process. I couldn't imagine her approving of Vincent, at least not when it came to his love for places outside of Fox River, and his propensity for inking his skin. It would be a nod in his favor that he had come home to help his family, and that he had stuck around.

  Thursday rolled around, and Alyssa came by on an afternoon off to check in and catch up. At least until Jacob would be home from work. It never failed to remind me of high school when we shared my otherwise empty house, talking for hours and not noticing the time as it passed.

  “Have you told her yet? It's tomorrow.”

  Alyssa drummed her fingers on the gray swirled laminate countertop. She was small and golden and somehow managed to come across bigger and brighter than she was. I stared past her out the small square window over the stainless kitchen sink. No, I had not told my mama about my upcoming date with Vincent Berry. I was putting it off until the last minute because I was a big dumb coward.

  “No.”

  “I predict she will be excited for forty-five seconds. Until she remembers who Vincent is, that he isn't made of money, that he is prone to up and leaving Fox River, and that he isn't a stuffy boring accountant.”

  I laughed until I
snorted. Her prediction was sadly hitting on the mark, but that wasn't the part I found amusing.

  “Kent is an accountant. I'm telling him you said he's stuffy and boring.”

  “First off, he knows I think that about him.” Her smile was wide and showed a mouth of straight white teeth. Her brother Kent was neither stuffy nor boring, but when he was standing beside his shining sister he could come off that way. “Second, no way you're saying that to him. You clam up when he's around.”

  She waved away my threat. I nodded and quieted my laugh. It was true and I couldn't deny it. Kent was older than us, super cute in a classic clean-cut way, and kind of adorable the way he was still hung up on Olivia Hamilton. Therefore, I couldn't form two words in a row if I was faced with him.

  “Okay, okay, back to my predictions.” She pitched her voice to be mock serious. “Your mama will then put two and two together, because she is a smart lady, and point out that you should not be gallivanting over to the MacKenna's when you are dating another boy.”

  Alyssa had a point. I could see my mama saying that to me.

  “Cross that bridge if and when I come to it.” I couldn't worry about my dinner non-date with Dominic at his house that evening. I was going, it was settled, I was not stressing about my mama's opinion over it. I was stressing dinner enough on my own, over thinking how I would handle being with most of his family at once.

  “She'll cave on you going out with Vincent the one time. So that you are officially back on the market and open to dating. Then she will line up a string of men willing to marry you. Where she finds them, I'll never know.”

  “I'm trying to decide if I'm insulted by what you said.”

  Her head cocked to one side and her eyes squinted as she thought back over her words. The afternoon sun slanted in the window and lit up the room with a golden glow.

  “Oh. No. There are loads of guys that would marry you. Fantastic ones.” She smiled and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like Cotton under her breath, followed by something terribly like Vincent. I ignored her. “I meant, I don't know where she finds all the moderately wealthy scumbags.”

  “I blame you for this. I'm just saying, you set me up and it's your fault if my life is ruined.”

  “You're welcome.” I glared at her false words and wicked smile. “I'm out. I promised Jacob I would make lasagna tonight.”

  “You're going to Bella's and buying a lasagna?”

  “Oh, totally.” She nodded, and we walked toward the front door. “I have an arrangement with Lewis Rossi. He makes it for me, but doesn't bake it. That way I can technically cook it myself in my own oven.”

  Lewis was the fifth or sixth of the eight Rossi kids. They were by far the largest family in number of kids, and all ran Bella's together. The oldest ones already had families with multiple kids each. I could recognize them, with their olive skin and shiny dark hair, but I struggled to keep them apart, as they looked uncannily similar. They only one I sort of knew was Lewis, and that was by proxy of Alyssa.

  “Diabolical.”

  “Right?” She laughed. I hugged her and sighed into her familiar body. “I hate that we're going out of town tomorrow. I won't get to hear all the details until we get back.”

  “I'll text you.” I let her out the door and shrugged my shoulders. We texted far more than we talked on the phone, and it would suffice as a means of information exchange.

  “You can try. I doubt my cell will work. You know how bad service is the more north we go into the mountains.”

  “In that case, I'm coming over Monday night. I'll bring ice cream.”

  “Don't plan for it to go poorly!” She smacked my shoulder.

  “Celebratory ice cream.” I said it like, duh. She didn't buy it, of course, knowing I had already considered my mama's reaction as well as my date a forgone conclusion. One that didn't pan out in my favor.

  “Love you, Magpie.”

  “You too, Lyss.”

  The house to myself, I kept myself distracted until my mama got home by playing loud music and forgetting the world. When given the choice, I had a strong preference for sad music. Townes van Zandt. Joe Purdy. Not sad. Real. Soulful. Troubadours. I put on Anais Mitchell and let her voice warble through the house. I dusted already clean knick knacks in the living room and did not think about what I would say to my mama.

  A tap on my shoulder startled me. I jumped and clutched my frantic heart. The jasmine scent told me it was my mama, and there was no need to panic.

  “You scared me.”

  “If someone can come in the house without you hearing, your music is too loud.” With that my mama turned the dial and quieted the lyrical ramblings carried on my idea of vocal perfection.

  “Uh huh.” I was inclined to agree with her. Lesson learned. I was too busy calming my rapid pulse to argue. “I'm glad you're home. I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Figured as much.”

  “Why?”

  “You were dusting.”

  I learned my “clean away the stress” habit from her, so she would find it familiar. Huh. I would have to come back to that and work out how much it bothered me that I did the same thing as my mama, and that she knew it.

  She went through her after work routine of changing clothes, pulling her hair up off her neck and shoulders, washing the makeup off her face. When she came home, she meant it. Once the bra and makeup were removed, she wasn't going back out again. I listened as she talked about her day, and waited for an opening.

  “I'm starved. What are we doing for dinner?”

  It was an hour before I was to be at the MacKenna's house.

  “I'm going to Dominic's.”

  “Oh, right.” Her eyes narrowed on me for a second, then she shook her head. “In that case, I think I'll do something simple.”

  I helped her pull out what she needed to fill a plate with bits of finger foods. Meat, cheese, olives, pickles, crackers, grapes, berries, anything small that fit on her plate. It was a fairly typical meal for either one of us.

  “I have a date on Friday. Tomorrow.” I blurted the words out. They had been sitting on the back of my tongue for so long I couldn't hold them back any longer. “Alyssa set me up.”

  “Hmm.” She thoughtfully arranged the last items on her plate. Everything in neat rows that spoked out from the center, like sunrays.

  As much as I wanted to urge her to spill her opinion, to get it over with, I gave her a second to process. I followed her to the sofa, where she balanced her plate on her knees. Not a few seconds later she shifted and moved the plate to the coffee table. I endured her direct gaze at me, sat still while she studied me, and I smiled back at her.

  “Give me all the details.” The practiced patience in her voice grated on my nerves, but I told myself I was being too sensitive.

  “I'm going to Bella's with Vincent Berry.” I wasn't sure what to share. There were no details, other than the particulars of our planned meeting. “He works with Alyssa. Sort of. Or she knows him from work. It was her idea to set me up. She thinks I should start dating.”

  For lack of anything specific to say, I rambled and dropped random useless tidbits. My smile had slipped, so I pulled it back into place. She watched me, and I tried to understand the level of worry on her face.

  “What does this Vincent think of your friendship with the MacKenna boy?”

  Nice. Don't even call him by name. Sheesh.

  “I don't know. I haven't talked to Vin much. We haven't gone out yet.” I said it was for Friday, right?

  “Well.” That one word held a whole host of judgment. “You go out on your date, and have a good time. Not too good a time, mind you.”

  I nodded. My teeth didn't want to come apart, so I didn't bother with words.

  “I'll be thinking on who else you might like to go out with, now you're amenable to dating.” Her mouth was a small smile, and her eyes were innocent, but I recognized the sly maneuver for what it was. Someone she approved of rather t
han the guy I had a date with. Not that I could fault her when I knew she wanted me to be happy, and she thought she had my best interest at heart.

  “I'm hoping that I'll continue to date Vincent.” I already worried I was using him. Before the first date. But, no, I did honestly and for the right reasons hope it went well. I just sort of also hoped it went well to keep my mama off my back when it came to finding a proper suitor.

  “Let's not jump the gun.” She tsk'd.

  I nodded. I wanted to say the same back to her but knew better.

  “I need to go. I don't want to be late for dinner.”

  “I'm very uncomfortable with you being unsupervised in that house full of boys.”

  “They're all grown-ups, Mama.” Unsupervised. Please. “I am a grown up. Plus, we're friends, and it's no different than if I go to Alyssa's house.”

  “It's very different, Magnolia. The very fact that you can't see that is what worries me.”

  And on that note, I was officially over it, no longer interested in talking to my mother. I nodded. Again. Like I was incapable of any other response. Her eyes stayed on me, serious and worried, as I got my bag and headed for the door. She seemed to seriously marvel at my guileless trust, like I was walking into a tank of sharks rather than an old farmhouse of boys.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cotton

  I had a decision to make. Did I stay? Or did I go?

  My insufferable brother invited Maggie to our house for dinner. He could have gone to her house. He could have taken her out. He could have done any number of things that in no way involved me. Instead, he was having her over to eat with the family. That's the way he said it, with the family. He made sure to look me right in the eye when he said family.