by Lili Valente
My eyes have already adjusted to the dim light of the hallway, so it only takes me a moment to make out the long shape under the covers on the far side of the bed. Judging by the size of the person, I’m pretty sure it’s Gabe’s father, and from the sound of his even breathing, it seems he’s been asleep for a while. The other side of the bed is empty, the covers still spread up over the pillows.
It looks like he went to bed alone, which means Deborah might be somewhere downstairs…
Stomach churning with memories of that afternoon on the porch, when Deborah made it clear she held me responsible for her son’s death, I ease past the doorway and start down the curved staircase leading to the ground floor. I cling to the side of the stairs nearest the wall, keeping as much of myself in the shadows as I can, straining to hear the sound of someone else moving around in the darkness.
I step off the last step onto the cold marble of the entryway with only the softest squeak of my boot against the smooth floor, but still I freeze. I hold completely still, ignoring the sweat prickling on my lip, and the slam-dancing of my heart against my ribs as I imagine Deborah rushing in from her office, phone in hand, ready to call the police.
I count silently to sixty, and only then do I start across the foyer. I check the large dining room, the study, and the library finding them all empty before ducking into Aaron’s home office to find it equally deserted. I’m about to start back down the hall toward the front parlor and Deborah’s office, when Aaron’s computer emits a pinging sound. I can’t imagine who would be emailing Mr. Alexander at one in the morning, and, after a moment, my curiosity gets the better of me.
I close the office door, sealing myself into the soft darkness. There are only two small windows in the office—both overlooking the garden behind the house—and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I move around behind the desk, patting the area near the computer screen until I find the mouse and roll it back and forth.
The monitor crackles as it stirs to life. My eyelids twitch and my pupils contract as the blue glare becomes a bright white screen filled with several open word documents and a multi-tabbed Internet browser. Aaron’s email inbox is in the open tab, showing one new message from Deborah Alexander.
My chest loosens at the site of Deborah’s name. It’s doubtful that she’d be emailing her husband while they’re both in the same house. Even before I click the message, I’m pretty certain Deborah is out of town, but the first line of her email confirms it.
I can’t believe you left me. I don’t care how long you’ve been waiting for this hearing. You should be here. I can’t do this alone. I can’t sleep and I can’t eat and I can’t stop thinking…
The weight of this is…too much. I need to talk.
If you’re awake, call. I won’t be sleeping anytime soon.
I scan the email three times, my heart beating faster with each repeated reading. Deborah must be with Gabe. She must be! And things must not be going the way she hoped they would. Why else would she sound so upset? If Gabe were dead, there would be no need for her to be stressed out and sleepless. If Gabe were dead, there would be nothing left to talk about.
I’m getting ready to search the rest of Mr. Alexander’s emails—certain I’m on my way to figuring out where his parents have taken Gabe—when the message updates, indicating a response from Gabe’s dad.
My hand turns to stone on the mouse, and my stomach drops.
Gabe’s dad is awake. He’s awake upstairs, and apparently checking his email. Now, I just have to pray he doesn’t decide to come down to his office. If he does, I’ll be trapped. There’s only one way out, and the chances that I’ll make it past Mr. Alexander, through the library, into the dining room, and out the bay doors leading to the garden without getting caught are slim. I’m fast, but Gabe’s dad is in incredible shape for an older man, and has ten inches and at least a hundred pounds on me.
I hold my breath, hand shaking as I click the email, needing to know how Gabe’s father replied to his wife more than I need to ensure my own safety.
I’m sorry. I know this is an incredibly hard time. Try to get some rest. I put the ashes in your office, and I’ve contacted Charlene. She’s taking care of the rest of it.
I’ll call you first thing in the morning before I go into court.
Love you.
Ashes.
The word is a bomb ripping through what’s left of my heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Caitlin
“And if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Ashes.
I shake my head, not wanting to make sense of the word.
Ashes. Rising from the ashes. Smoke and ashes. Ashes to ashes…
Maybe Gabe hasn’t been buried because…
Because…
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
My hand slips from the mouse. I stand, feeling each link in my spine slide into place as I straighten. I’m acutely aware of the way my muscles flex and release to move my feet across the thick carpet, of my heart beating and my blood rushing, of my breath feathering over my too warm lips.
I move through the library and into the hall, feeling strangely ethereal, light and airy, like a ghost haunting the dark belly of Darby Hill. I’m only half in my body, watching myself from a distance as I make the turn into the front parlor and move on into Deborah’s office.
There’s a light on inside. In the corner of the room, a green lamp with a pink bulb casts the surface of her desk in a rosy glow. There is a small silver laptop on the right side of the desk, a stack of personal stationary and an antique fountain pen in the center, and on the left hand side, an urn. It is also silver, but duller, brushed silver as expensive looking as the heavy Rolex watch Gabe wore on Sundays.
He would wear the watch to church with his parents, and then forget to take it off after. I remember watching the heavy band slip around his wrist as he ate his burger at our weekly family burger night, thinking how sexy it looked against his tan skin. One night, right after I’d bitten into his muscled forearm just above the watch, I told him how much I liked him in a little jewelry.
Gabe had laughed, and promised to invest in more masculine decoration, like a thick gold chain to hang around his neck that spelled out his name. I’d suggested “Property of Caitlin Cooney,” instead, but Gabe had dismissed that as being too long. He’d said he’d shorten it to “CC’s” and have the apostrophe formed from jade the same color as my eyes. I’d laughed at the joke, but I’d been touched, too. I loved that he was mine, and knew that he’d have the ridiculous necklace made and wear it just for me if I’d asked him to.
But now…
Now…
I pick up the urn. It is heavy. I remove the lid with one trembling hand. It is full, almost to the top. The ash is fine and gray and smells very faintly of metal. It does not smell of Gabe, of secrets and spice and long summer nights and the best kind of trouble. It does not smell of the place where his neck met his shoulder or his breath after he kissed me every place he could think to kiss me. It doesn’t smell like safety and love and danger and happiness and home. It does not smell alive.
Gabe isn’t alive. Gabe is here in this urn, burned to ash, all the unpredictable, passionate pieces of the man I loved reduced to a few pounds of gray powder. Despair floods through me, a molten sadness so hot it feels like I’m going to catch fire and burn to ash myself, but I don’t.
And I don’t cry.
I put the lid on the urn and set it back on the desk. Then I turn and walk back through the lonely halls of Darby Hill. I don’t bother trying to be quiet, but I don’t make much noise. I don’t think I could, even if I tried. I’m too hollow to disturb the silence in this house, this world, a world without Gabe.
He’s gone. He’s really gone and now there is no hope. I feel it leak away, leaving me heavier than I was before. I am a stone sinking to the bottom of an ice-cold winter river, never to
rise again.
I arm the security system and let myself out the servants’ entrance door. I close it behind me and walk through the garden, not feeling the uneven stones beneath my feet. I climb over the fence into the pasture and aim my body toward where I parked the van on a narrow gravel road two miles from Darby Hill, but somewhere between the pasture, the stretch of forested land on the other side, and the van, I lose time.
I leave my body, but I don’t know where I go. I don’t remember what I was thinking, or when I decided to keep walking and walking, far past the place where I parked, so far down a narrow country road headed east that I’m nearly at the county line by the time I come back to myself.
I slip into my skin as the sun is rising, painting the sky behind the rolling hills a giddy shade of pink. I become suddenly, acutely aware of pain in my legs and hips, and a cramping sensation in my right calf. I shuffle to a stop, my shoes scattering gravel along the shoulder of the unfamiliar road. I pull in a deep breath and let it out, my sigh carried away by a cool morning breeze that sweeps across my face.
My mask is gone, but I don’t remember what I did with it. My gloves are gone, too, and I’ve stripped off my long-sleeved shirt, leaving me in nothing but my favorite green tank top. I’m not wearing a bra, something that usually wouldn’t bother me, but this morning my breasts feel sore and achy. The sensation makes me suspect that I might have been running at some point, but I don’t remember.
I don’t want to remember anything about last night, but I do. I may have lost time between the plantation and wherever I am now, but I remember everything that happened inside Darby Hill. I remember and I hurt, but I still don’t cry. I simply stand there on the side of the road and watch the pink sky blush and burn and the sun come peeking over the mountains like a promise.
There is still light, it says. There is still something to live for.
“Danny, Ray, Sean, and Emmie,” I whisper softly to the sun, their names like a prayer, a rope pulling me from the depths. “Danny, Ray, Sean, and Emmie. Danny, Ray, Sean, and Emmie and…”
My hands come to my abdomen, hovering over the flat place between my hip bones, that almost concave expanse that seems too narrow and empty to contain life, but I suddenly know it is not. At that moment, staring into the sun in the middle of nowhere, I know I am pregnant. I know it the way I know winter nights are long and summer days even longer. I feel it in every thump of my heart, every soft whoosh of blood flowing beneath my skin. I know I’m going to have a baby, and if it is a boy, I will name him Gabriel.
“Gabe.” The sound of his name floating away in the crisp morning air breaks the dam. I finally cry, but I don’t sob. My violent, rage-filled grief passed days ago. These are different tears, silent, hopeless tears that streak down my cheeks in lazy rivulets.
I stand staring into the sunrise, crying until the sun crests the top of the mountains and begins to beat down upon my face. Within moments, the air heats up, becoming thick and muggy, making it harder to draw in a deep breath. Soon, it will be another scorcher, another day to spend inside the house hiding from the miserable heat and humidity of a South Carolina summer.
The thought of going home and shutting myself back inside the house is unfathomable. I don’t want to be there anymore. I don’t want to sleep in my bed where the ghost of Gabe’s touch haunts me. I don’t want to take a bath in the bathtub where he washed my hair, and promised me he’d love me until men are fairy tales and the world catches fire. I can’t. I can’t face those daily reminders without falling apart. I need a fresh start. We all do. Me, my brothers, Emmie…and the baby who is on his way to us.
Decision made, I reach for my back pocket, grateful to feel the slim, hard rectangle of my cell still shoved deep inside. I’m not sure where my shirt, my gloves, or my mask are, but I still have my cell and the keys to the van.
I also have ten missed calls from Sherry, and a few from the landline at the house.
The first call I place is to Sherry, who answers on the first ring. I assure her I’m fine, and tell her the name of the road I’m on, and that I think I’m nearly in York County. She tells me to hang tight and promises to pick me up in twenty minutes. She doesn’t yell at me for not answering the phone all night, or ask how I ended up in the middle of nowhere. Most importantly, she doesn’t ask what I found out about Gabe. Sherry’s been my best friend since we were little. She knows me well enough to hear the despair in my voice, and to understand no news from me never means good news.
I end the call—grateful for Sherry, and for being spared having to explain—and place another call. My dad doesn’t answer on the first ring. He answers on the fifth, with a grunt, and a slurred hello that makes it obvious he was still asleep.
“I want the house in Hawaii,” I say, not bothering to tell him it’s me or to apologize for waking him up with the sunrise. “How soon can we make it happen?”
“Great, great,” Chuck mumbles, followed by a long yawn. “Smart decision, Kit Cat. I thought you would come around. You’re too smart to pass up an opportunity like this.”
“How soon, Dad?” I repeat, hating the happiness in his sleepy voice. “I want to get the kids moved and settled in before school starts.”
Chuck sniffs and clears his throat. “Um…I don’t know. I’ll have to check. Check with the lawyers. They should know. I’ll call them as soon as I get the crust from my eyeballs, and grab a shower.”
I hear a woman’s voice mumbling in the background, clearly irritated.
“After I get a shower and run to the store for Veronica,” Chuck amends. “We’re out of coffee and half-and-half. Can’t call lawyers before coffee.”
“Fine,” I say, knowing pushing him won’t get me an answer any faster. “But let me know as soon as you know, okay? And I want us to file the paperwork for custody of the kids later today. I have everything ready. We both just need to sign, and take the paperwork to the courthouse.”
“Sounds good,” Chuck says in a positively upbeat voice, making it hard to believe he was so set on fighting my bid for custody just a week ago. But I never bought that he cared about being a legal parent to the kids. He just didn’t want to lose part of his check, or transfer ownership of the house.
“So I’m assuming you’ll want to keep your whole check, as well as the house in Giffney?” I ask, needing to confirm my suspicion.
“Well, you and the boys will have that nice rental property,” Chuck says. “That’s three times what you were going to get from me. Doesn’t seem like you’ll need—”
“Fine,” I say, cutting him off. “Assuming everything in Hawaii checks out, we won’t need your check. But I want to talk to the lawyers myself. Text me their name and number as soon as you get the chance.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Chuck says.
I end the call without a good-bye. I can’t stand to listen to his chipper bullshit anymore.
I’ll get the names of the lawyers, have Sherry work her Google-Fu to make sure everything in Hawaii is legit, and then it won’t matter if Chuck thinks he’s pulled one over on me. As long as the kids have a home—a home far away from Giffney, all our family’s baggage, and all this summer’s horrible memories—I don’t care what’s going on in Chuck’s twisted little mind.
I stuff the phone into my back pocket and turn my back to the sun, letting it burn the bare skin of my neck. Working indoors as much as I do, I haven’t had a tan in years. I wonder what it will be like to have time to get out during the day, to take the kids to the beach, to raise Gabe’s and my child in an entirely different world from the narrow-minded small town where I grew up.
Our child. My hands come to my abdomen again, and I swear I can feel the presence of a tiny spark, the surge of a brand new heart beating inside of me. That surety is the only thing that keeps me from bursting into tears when Sherry pulls up beside me, and opens the passenger’s door to her VW bug. Without this part of Gabe to cling to, I wouldn’t be able to handle the pity in her eyes.
“
Do you want to talk about it?” she asks as I slide into the passenger’s seat.
I shake my head. “I want to go home. Start packing.”
Sherry’s eyebrows lift as she turns the car around to head back toward town. “Where are you going?”
“Me and the kids are moving to Hawaii.”
Sherry slams on the breaks in the middle of the narrow road, making my seatbelt lock tight across my chest. “What?”
“Dad inherited a house there,” I say, tightening my sagging ponytail. “He said he’ll give it to me in exchange for letting him keep the house here. Assuming it checks out, we’re moving. Soon. I can’t be here anymore.”
Sherry blinks like she’s trying to wake up from a long nap, drawing my attention to the blue smudges beneath her eyes. It doesn’t look like she slept well last night, which is my fault, no doubt. I told her I’d be home no later than two, and instead I was gone all night and didn’t answer any of her calls.
“I’m sorry for worrying you,” I say. “I didn’t feel the phone vibrate.”
She reaches out, covering my hand with hers. “Don’t worry about it, babe. I’m just glad you’re okay, but I…”
I lift my eyebrows, knowing that’s all the encouragement Sherry needs to keep talking.
“I’m going to miss you,” she says with a self-conscious shrug. “I know it’s selfish of me, but I don’t like the thought of this town without my best friend in it.”
“Then…come with us,” I say, on impulse.
Sherry snorts as she rolls her eyes. “Yeah right.”
“No, seriously. Come. You and I can share a room,” I say, liking the idea more every minute. I don’t like the idea of leaving her behind, either, especially since I just lost my other best friend.
