by Cora Brent
Stephanie was interested. “It’s a beautiful home. I always loved that neighborhood. So many gorgeous unique houses.” She smiled. “But yours definitely stands out the most.”
“Thank you,” I said, wondering if that was even the correct response when someone compliments your house. “My grandparents designed it.”
“And they still live there?”
“I’m afraid not. They’ve both passed away. It’s just me living there now. My aunt would love to sell it although I keep putting her off. My grandparents left the house to me and my uncle. It seems we’re the only ones left in the family now, aside from his wife and son. No one’s heard from my mother in thirteen years.”
“Oh,” Truly said, more a noise of distress than a word.
Everyone else was looking at me with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity. They were polite people and certainly wouldn’t have pressed me any further. Not even Kellan jumped in with a flurry of questions. This wasn’t a topic I talked about. Even Sam and Ric understood to tread lightly on this subject although of course they knew the whole story. At least they knew as much as I did, which wasn’t much at all.
“My mother had problems,” I said. “She tried rehab but never stuck with it. I was lucky that she left me with my grandparents. The more time that went on the worse she got. She and my grandparents had terrible fights because they wouldn’t give her any money after they figured out she’d only use it to buy drugs. When I was little I used to fall asleep on a living room armchair because it was close to the front door and I wanted to be the first to hear her when she came home in the middle of the night. And then one day she walked out and never came back. I don’t even know if she’s alive or not.” I stood up so suddenly I knocked my plate on the floor. “Excuse me, may I use your restroom?”
The remains of my dinner were now on the ground. Kellan silently leaned over to pick it up while Derek rose and took my elbow.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you where it is.”
I didn’t say anything to him as he led me inside the house to a small half bathroom in the hallway beyond the kitchen. I closed the door and sank down to the tile floor, staring blankly at the beige walls for a moment before I crept over to the toilet, opened the lid and stared down at the empty bowl.
She’d missed my birthday again. She always missed everything. My grandma ordered a special purple and yellow unicorn cake from the bakery and she lit the seven candles before singing Happy Birthday with my grandpa, Uncle Ryan, Aunt Maddie and cousin Jonathon. But I was still mad that my mother didn’t feel like being there and so when I made a wish I wished that she’d know how it felt to be sad like this.
The next day she was waiting in my room when I came home from school. She gave me a coloring book with a ninety-nine cent sticker on the cover. She kissed my cheek and called me her big girl but I twisted away because she smelled like garbage. I told her so. Her brown eyes were still pretty even if the rest of her looked awful and now her eyes filled with tears. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. I didn’t mean it. But before I could say anything else she jumped up and tore the coloring book apart. She was always doing stuff like this. She didn’t know how to be nice for very long.
“Why don’t you just go away for good?” I shouted and now my grandma was coming because of all the noise.
“Sara,” she hissed when she saw the mess my mother had made of the coloring book. “Stop it. She’s your daughter.”
But my mother wouldn’t look at me. She savagely ripped another section out of the coloring book. “Paige just told me to go away. So that’s what I’m doing. She never has to worry about seeing me again.”
“Sara!” my grandmother shouted but my mother only pushed her out of the doorway and ran off. A few seconds later the front door slammed and my grandmother looked down at me with such sadness.
“Mommy!” I wailed. “I’m sorry!”
But she couldn’t hear me because she’d left the house.
She couldn’t hear me because it was already too late.
I choked down a sob, stuck my finger down my throat, gagged twice and then vomited into the Gentrys’ toilet, expelling every bit of the tasty dinner I’d eaten on the back patio. When I was done I flushed, splashed my face with cold water at the sink, rinsed my mouth out and took twenty deep breaths until my skin looked noticeably less splotchy.
The rest of the family was still outside but Derek was sitting alone in the living room. He stood up when I entered the room.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I looked around. “Have you seen my purse?”
Derek found the black hobo bag where I’d left it beside the couch. He handed it over and I searched through it, finding a pack of spearmint gum and popping a piece in my mouth.
“Want one?” I asked.
“Sure.” Derek chewed and his blue eyes watched me. I was afraid he was going to ask me questions. Questions about why I was puking in his bathroom, questions about why I’d decided to give a long, depressing speech in front of his family. I didn’t know why I’d done that. But in the end he only asked me one question so I didn’t have to explain a thing.
“There’s a rumor about some chocolate cake in the fridge,” he said. “Want to go check it out before my brothers devour it all?”
I nodded with relief. “Yes, I’d like that.”
Chapter Eight
Derek
Paige cheered up when we sat in the kitchen together, sharing a giant slice of cake and trading stories about high school, both because it seemed like a safe subject and because we knew a few of the same people. I wasn’t sure how much she knew about me but she didn’t ask a single question about prison. That was fine because my time in prison wasn’t something I enjoyed discussing.
My mom found us in the kitchen and seemed pleased to discover that I was doing something harmless like eating cake with a nice girl. I hadn’t realized that she’d get the wrong idea about me bringing Paige home but it was too late to do anything about that now.
Before we returned to the back patio I watched Paige lick the last of the frosting from her fork. I liked looking at her. There was nothing exotic about her features and in a crowd she might have blended in with a hundred other girls. But up close I found myself staring at her face and wondering when I’d seen anyone prettier. Paige couldn’t be just a hot hookup though, not with everything that had happened to her. And I didn’t know how to be anything more than that.
Nobody in my family said a word about Paige’s outburst and it reminded me of how much I appreciated them. Sometimes I forgot that not everyone had this; devoted parents and an extensive tribe of loyal people who would always have my back. Not that it had stopped me from fucking up my life and hurting them in the process but I was trying to make up for that.
Uncle Creed and Aunt Truly took off soon after that, with my aunt folding me into another crushing hug and making me promise I’d be more careful because I was one of her favorite nephews. She hugged Paige again too, which might have seemed like a weird thing to do if we were talking about anyone but Truly. Paige didn’t seem upset about getting slathered with affection from a near stranger and she rewarded my aunt with one of her stunning smiles.
Kel and I cleaned up all the dinner garbage even though my dad told us to just leave it for him. When we were done in the kitchen we found our folks and Thomas and Paige all hanging out in the living room while my dad was making everyone laugh by repeating some of the best excuses his students came up with when he called on them to explain why they didn’t have their assignments done.
“And then he looks me right in the eye and says, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Gentry. I couldn’t deal with school stuff last night. My girlfriend was pissed at me because I didn’t text her back right away so she thought I was cheating with the cashier at Dairy Queen, which I wasn’t because I had to get my brother’s car out of a ditch after I got high with Aiden Rico and we decided we wanted buffalo wings but then there
was a thunderstorm and a coyote ran in front of the car so that’s when I skidded right into the ditch and after all that I was pretty fucking tired.’ ”
My dad knew how to tell a story. The room erupted in laughter and I saw Paige giggling into her hand so hard her face became flushed, which only made her even cuter. Kellan saw where I was looking and snorted with a knowing smirk. Sometimes he noticed more than I wanted him to.
Before my mom allowed us to leave she extracted a promise that we’d show up for Thomas’s championship game this week. She didn’t need to bug me about it. I wouldn’t miss seeing my little brother in action. The kid was crazy talented and watching a crowd of people cheering him on made me proud. I hoped one day I’d do something to make him proud.
“I like your family,” Paige said when we were back in the car.
“We like you too,” Kellan said from the backseat.
“I’m really sorry I unloaded all my personal baggage in your backyard.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know what made me do that.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I told her, wanting to reach out and touch her hand or something but not knowing if that would be crossing a line because she’d suddenly grown shy, twisting her purse strap in her fingers and staring out the window.
“But thank you for inviting me tonight,” she said, so softly it was almost a whisper.
“Thanks for coming,” I said but I wasn’t sure she heard me. She kept staring out the window as the dark residential streets passed by.
When we pulled up to her house it was pitch black. She must have forgotten to turn on the exterior lights. I could barely make out the outline of the home’s unique shape and in the darkness it looked like a forbidding place. Paige must have thought so too because she didn’t make a move to get out of the car.
I switched the engine off. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your door.”
When she turned to me a curtain of brown hair had fallen over her face. She pushed it aside. I thought she’d blow off the suggestion and insist she was fine on her own but she didn’t. She swallowed. “All right.”
Kellan opened his door. “It’s dark as shit here. Know what? You go ahead and walk Paige to the door. I’m gonna take a walk around the back and make sure there’s no one lurking in the shadows and looking for trouble.”
He thought he was doing us a favor, giving us a moment of privacy to talk, but his words struck a nerve with Paige. She froze and her big brown eyes grew wide as her hand flew to her mouth. Not quite twenty-four hours had passed since she was attacked by a maniac with a knife so she probably didn’t appreciate the suggestion that there might be some creeper hanging out in her bushes. I also recalled what she’d said earlier about how she hadn’t slept last night, and the fact that she lived in this huge house all alone. She was scared. She was scared to be alone right now. And from the sound of things she had no one else.
I turned on the flashlight app on my phone to light up the stone pathway to the front door. There were some small scratching sounds coming from the shrubbery but they were so light and quick they likely only belonged to a lizard or a rabbit. I directed the light there just to make sure but could see nothing unusual.
Kellan made all kinds of noise opening up the gate to the backyard when the squeaky hinges shrieked but he shouted, “All’s well,” and disappeared into the darkness.
“There used to be a security system,” Paige said, fumbling with the keys while I tried to shine the light directly on the lock. “Someone tried to break in when I was a kid so my grandfather installed cameras and an alarm but it’s been offline forever and I’m sure it doesn’t even work anymore.”
She got the door open and I could see that inside the house was as dark as it was outside.
“I should have turned on some lights,” she grumbled. “This feels like we’re walking into a cave.”
I didn’t want to just dump her at the door and take off so I followed her in while she started switching on lights. The interior that had looked cozy in the daytime with lots of dark wood and old fashioned furniture gave off more a grim vibe at night. I couldn’t help but notice the absolute silence inside the house. Our footsteps echoed on the wood floors but otherwise there was nothing. If I had a tendency to get spooked easily this big empty house might do the trick.
Paige had finished turning on every light she could find and stood in the middle of the spacious living room with her arms crossed over her body as if she was cold. I wondered if she’d thought about getting a dog or something. Any friendly living creature would make this a nicer place to come home to.
There was a loud thump against the house and then a pattern of knocks that made Paige jump.
“I think that’s just Kellan,” I told her.
“Right,” she said, exhaling and looking behind her. “He’s probably at the back door.”
I pointed. “This way?”
“Yeah, through the kitchen and down the hall.”
Kellan was standing at the back door with his face pressed to the glass.
“Nothing there but the dead gecko I accidentally stepped on,” he declared when I opened the door. He craned his neck to see if Paige was around and when he saw she wasn’t in sight he lowered his voice. “Is she okay?”
I frowned and glanced in the direction of the living room. “Not sure. She’s nervous as hell. I don’t know if it’s just because of last night or if something else is going on.”
Kellan nodded, his face serious. For all his sarcasm he could be surprisingly sensitive. “Let’s make sure she’s all right before we go anywhere,” he suggested.
“Agreed.”
Paige was still in the living room. She was folding that ugly blanket from earlier and she looked up with a smile when we walked in.
“You didn’t have a pet gecko did you?” Kellan asked, taking a seat on the couch.
She was confused. “No. Why?”
“Because I managed to step on one when I was poking around in your backyard.”
“You stepped on a gecko?”
“Either that or a very convincing toy complete with green lizard guts.”
She grimaced. “Ew.”
“You want me to go turn on the lights upstairs?” I asked her.
She hugged the blanket to her chest and smiled again. “That would be great, thank you.” Then she sucked in her lip and made a face. “Wow, you guys must think I’m some kind of pathetic coward, being afraid in my own house.”
“I don’t think that at all,” I said.
“I don’t think, period,” Kellan said with a straight face.
There were a lot of rooms on the second floor. I turned on all the light switches I could find in the hallway and flipped on a few inside the rooms for good measure. The third floor contained only a large attic and a small bedroom with adjoining bath. I was guessing Paige didn’t come up here too often because it smelled unused, slightly musty.
When I got back downstairs Kellan was telling Paige that he wasn’t looking forward to trying to sleep tonight because one of our neighbors was having a huge party.
Kellan yawned. “And it sucks because I’m tired as fuck.” He gestured at me. “After all, this guy kept me up late last night with all of his ‘I’ve just been stabbed’ drama.”
I raised an eyebrow at my brother, wondering what he was up to. I hadn’t heard of any such party. It was Sunday night plus half the place had probably emptied out with everyone leaving for spring break.
“You’re welcome to stay here,” Paige offered. “There are plenty of extra bedrooms and as you can tell, silence isn’t a problem.”
“Wow, you wouldn’t mind?” Kellan asked excitedly as if it was the greatest suggestion he’d ever heard.
Paige shook her head. “No, not at all.”
I opened my mouth to say that we didn’t want to intrude on her privacy. The whole idea was a little funny. Paige had to realize that if we really had a problem with going back to our apartment then we could have just stayed a
t our parents’ house two miles away from here. But then I saw how she was looking at me, with a touch of anxiety mixed with eagerness. She wasn’t asking for anything crazy. She just didn’t want to be alone. And there was no way I’d have the heart to refuse her.
So I played along.
“That would be really great,” I said. “I sure could use a night of peace and quiet.”
Even to myself I sounded kind of corny and I had little doubt Paige knew we were all playing a part. However she seemed genuinely delighted, showing us the quaint little unused bedrooms and encouraging us to pick which one we wanted to stay in. There was one at the top of the stairs with two twin beds that looked right out of an old black and white sitcom. Kellan said he wasn’t sure he wanted to listen to my snoring all night but I told Paige the room would work just fine for both of us because I didn’t want to make more trouble for her than necessary.
Paige apologized for the fact that the beds hadn’t been aired out in a while, as if I would be able to tell the difference. She pointed out the bathroom next door and told us her room was just down the hall if we needed anything. She said we were welcome to any food we could find in the kitchen downstairs. I was starting to feel like we were staying in a bed and breakfast.
“I really appreciate this, Paige,” Kellan said, making himself comfortable on the bed farthest from the door. He was still acting like she was doing us one hell of a favor by letting us stay here tonight. I freaking loved the guy for that.
I waited until Paige left for her own room before I said anything to my brother.
“You know something? You’re all right, Kel.”
He kicked off his shoes and yawned. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Kellan stripped down to his boxers and went right to sleep. He hadn’t been lying about the fact that last night had been shit for sleeping. By the time I got home from the hospital it was after three a.m. and then Uncle Cord had started banging on the door at eight. After I visited the restroom I stretched out on the flowery bedspread and stared at the dark ceiling.
