by Lucy March
“Maybe,” he said. “You’re relying on a lot of ifs.”
“I know,” I said. “Worse comes to worst, I’ll just go with Desmond and be his guinea pig until I figure out something to fix all this. But I can’t … I can’t live the rest of my life looking at you and seeing…”
I crumbled over, weeping into my hands, and Leo was immediately at my side. He pulled me up into his arms and held me, and for a moment, it all felt better.
Until I pulled back and our eyes met, and there was nothing there.
“We can still get married,” he said. “Maybe … maybe I can fall in love with you all over again.”
“Maybe,” I said, my breath catching in my chest. “Maybe not. But this…” I motioned toward him. “This is worse than dying, worse than going with Desmond. My heart breaks every time I look at you. I can’t live a lifetime like that.”
He lowered his eyes. “No. I guess not.”
I took both his hands in mine. “Please, Leo. Please, please. Just take it. I can’t do any of this without you. I used to be able to function without you, but you came back and you ruined that and you can’t leave me now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly.
I looked at him, the sight of him blurring through my tears. “You’re already gone.”
“You have to focus on Desmond,” he said. “We’ll deal with me afterward, but right now you’ve got to stay on task.”
“I can’t focus on anything else while you’re like this,” I said, crying so hard I could barely get the words out. “I can’t do it, Leo. I can’t.”
“Hey, shhh,” he said, drawing me back into his arms. I wept onto his shirt, and he held me, comforting me. I pressed my face to his chest, trying to pretend he was still there, that when I pulled back and looked into his eyes it wouldn’t stab me through the heart.
“Okay,” he said finally, his voice almost a whisper.
“Okay, what?” I asked, sniffling.
“I’ll take the potion.”
I stepped back, my heart racing. “You will? You mean it?”
He looked at me with dead eyes. “I believe in you. You’re so smart. You can fix this, and I know you will.”
I threw my arms around him, hugging him tight. “It’s just inside, in my messenger bag. I’ll be back in a couple of seconds. I don’t have a hypodermic needle, but Cain said it can go through the skin, as long as you don’t wash it off.” I kept my eyes closed and kissed him. He kissed me back, and it was a little cold, a little removed, but I didn’t care. Leo would be back with me in just a little while; I could hold on until then.
I started for the back door, only turning when I heard Leo call my name.
“What?” I said, swiping at my face and sniffling through my smile. “You can’t take it back now. No changing your mind.”
He smiled, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I love you. I may not feel it right now, but I know it. I want you to know it, too. I’m doing this because I know that I love you.”
I nodded, but couldn’t say anything, not while he was looking at me with that dead expression. Not when the spark would be back in a little while. I ran inside to the living room, grabbed my messenger bag, and rushed back out.
Leo was gone. I glanced around, twirling in circles until I heard the old familiar rattle of Nick’s truck starting up. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach, and I ran down the alley between Liv’s and Peach’s houses just in time to see Nick’s truck take the corner onto Main.
Nick, however, was standing on the porch, staring off after it.
“Nick?” I said.
He turned to me, and his expression went from confusion to compassion. “Stace.” In that one word was everything. Sorrow. Pity. Bad news on the horizon.
I forced my leaden feet to move. Nick came down the porch to meet me.
“He made me promise I wouldn’t let you follow him.” Nick took my arm and led me to the porch steps, where I sat with a thud, staring down the empty street. Even the faint rattle of Nick’s crappy muffler was gone.
“He told me to tell you that everything he said was true, and that’s why he had to go. I don’t know what that means, but…”
He trailed off, sitting next to me on the stoop. I couldn’t even get up the energy to sob, or breathe. Tears just welled and dripped down my face as I stared off into the distance.
“Hey.” Nick put his arm around my shoulders. “He’ll come back.”
“No,” I said. “He won’t.”
“You don’t know that. Leo’s a good guy. Whatever happened between you two, he’ll do right by you.”
“I know.” I tried to smile, but my lips just trembled. “That’s why he’s not coming back.”
“Oh.” He tightened his grip around my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
I sniffed and swiped at my face. “Yeah. Me, too.”
We sat there, watching the empty street where Leo had gone, my big brother once again with his arm around me, trying to protect me from the world. Even when he was mad at me, he always loved me first, and the thought made me cry even harder. In response, Nick held me tighter, letting me get tears all over his shirt.
After a while, I pulled myself together enough to look at him. “I’m sorry I broke the Widow and ruined your honeymoon.”
“Hey.” He gave a dismissive wave. “She was broken when we got her. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I was just pissed because I was getting a lot of sex in Spain, and then there’s Mom, staying with us … well.” He shrugged. “It put kind of a spanner in the works, if you know what I mean.”
“Ew,” I said, and swatted at him, then I remembered that Leo was gone and a fresh wave of grief hit me. My eyes filled with tears and I crumpled against my big brother again. He held me there for a while, patting my back, only speaking again once I’d calmed down a bit.
“Hey, you want a steak? Peach took Mom to get some more things from the house, so it’s just you and me. It’ll be like old times, when I used to cook dinner for us. Come on. You know I hate eating alone. Let me fix you a steak.”
Despite myself, I laughed. Nick was like an Italian mother that way. There was no problem so bad that food couldn’t fix it. At the moment, eating was the last thing on my mind. My stomach was a mess, and I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to keep anything down. But Nick showed his love through food, and there was nothing else he could do to make me feel better, so I should at least let him feed me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Can I put ketchup on it?”
“No,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out to me. “What are you? A savage?”
I let him pull me up to standing. “A1 Sauce? Something?”
“You put sauce on crap.” He put his arm around my shoulders and led me up to the porch. “You don’t put sauce on a good steak. You think I would feed you a bad steak?”
“I like the sauce,” I said, then sniffled and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, the way I did when we were little.
“I am going to make you a steak so good, you’ll never want sauce again.”
“But I like the sauce.”
Nick opened the front door and looked down at me, and his expression softened.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “You can have the sauce.”
* * *
I couldn’t eat much of the steak, but Nick was happy with a few bites, and once I’d stopped the breathless hiccuping that followed my sob fest, he walked me back to Liv’s. By the time I crawled into Liv’s guest bedroom, I was almost too exhausted to hurt much anymore. I knew it would come, that there would be days of unbearable pain in my near future, but for the moment, I could sleep.
When my cell phone rang, I was a little disoriented. It was light outside, but I wasn’t sure if it was still light because the sun doesn’t go down until nine thirty in June, or if it was morning. I was still trying to figure that out when I answered the phone.
“Yeah?” I grumbled.
“Sta
cy?” It was Peach. I glanced at the clock: eight thirty.
“Is it night, or morning?” I asked, blinking.
“Night,” she said. “You okay?”
“No,” I said. “What’s up?”
“It’s your mother. We brought her out here to her house to pick up some of her things, and then a whole bunch of people came by and she started in on a sermon, talking about some kind of ultimate sacrifice or whatever, and now … well, she’s glowing.”
“Fuck.” I sat up straight and shook my head to help wake myself up. I stuffed my feet into my sneakers and grabbed for my messenger bag. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Yeah,” Peach said. “It’s pretty bad.”
“I’m on my way.”
I ran down the stairs two at a time. Liv and Tobias and Cain must have been out back, because I didn’t see them, and I didn’t take the time to find them to explain where I was going. I got in the Bug and zipped through town until I pulled up in front of my mother’s. The lawn was full of people, and the Widow was on the porch, her arms outstretched.
“It is through sacrifice that God showed His love for us,” she said, “and through my sacrifice, I will show my love for you.”
“Oh, Christ,” I said, and a woman near me turned around and said, “Amen,” and then looked back at my mother.
Peach met me at the side of the house.
“Please tell me she doesn’t have any sharp objects up there with her,” I said. “This sacrifice talk is making me nervous. There’s no chance there’s a goat staked out back or anything, is there?”
“No sharp objects,” Peach said, “but no goat, either. I have no idea what the hell she’s talking about.”
“Yeah, well if it’s any comfort, I don’t think she does, either.”
Peach touched my arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do. It just happened, and all of a sudden it was out of control.”
“None of this is your fault,” I said. “Go back home, be with Nick, and stand by the phone. If we’re in the hospital again tonight, I’ll call you. If we’re not in the hospital tonight, I’m gonna kill her, and you don’t want to be an accomplice.”
“Okay.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “We are going to have a lot of drinks when this is over.”
“It’s a date,” I said. Peach left and I pushed my way through the crowd to get to the porch. I touched the Widow’s arm.
She looked at me, smiling. “Stacy,” she said warmly. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Turn off the lights, Widow,” I said under my breath, and then I turned to look at the crowd. “Show’s over, people! Go home!”
The Widow closed her eyes and shut down the glow. The crowd began to grumble with disappointment, but the Widow waved her hand and silenced them.
“You may stay,” she said. “The time for my sacrifice is now, and there must be witnesses.”
“Widow,” I said, but just then the crowd parted and there was Desmond, walking through the throng carrying a wicker basket full of little purple vials.
“For my lady,” he said loudly, making a show, “I bring my offering.”
He lifted the basket up above his head and she took the handle, fawning over it as though it were flowers.
“Thank you so much, Desmond,” she said. “I’m ready to make my sacrifice.”
My heart pounded as I finally understood what she was talking about. I grabbed her arm.
“I don’t want to be the one to discourage you from doing something unselfish,” I said. “Everyone should have every experience at least once, but … you’re not going with him.”
She set the basket of vials on the bench behind us and put her hands on either side of my face.
“This may be hard for you to understand,” she said, “but it’s what I must do. It’s the only answer.”
Desmond moved closer, and I put out a warning hand, letting all of my emotion flow, and the air around my palm started to dance with heat.
“Don’t you move,” I growled. “She’s not in her right mind, and if you take one step closer, I swear, I’ll set you on fire.” I looked back at my mother. “Go inside. Lie down. You’re not going with him.”
“No,” the Widow said. “I’m not.”
For a moment, just a moment, I was relieved. And then, I looked again at the basket of vials in her hand. Purple vials. Not the cure, but the continuation, the stuff that would keep the magic going. I lowered my hand, not because I was releasing my threat on Desmond, but because the shock made it impossible for me to hold up my arm on my own power.
“Mom?” I said, my voice warbling.
She smiled at me, her eyes filling with tears. When she spoke, she spoke loudly, so that everyone within a country mile could hear my mother betray me.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,” she said. “And I so love you all, that I give my one and only … daughter.”
She motioned for Desmond to move closer, and he did. I just stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
“Desmond and I have talked,” she said, “and he’s promised me that I can continue my ministry, my work, my sacred calling. He’ll keep me stocked with all the potions I need, and I can make sure that Ms. Troudt and the little checkout girl get what they need, too. In return, all he wants is you.”
I heard Desmond’s footsteps coming closer behind me, but I didn’t even bother to look at him. I just stared at her.
“I’m a grown woman. You can’t give me away to someone. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Well, one of us has to go,” she said, “or he won’t give us the formula. Isn’t that right, Desmond?”
“That’s about it, yes,” he said.
“See?” She focused back on me. “Deidre Troudt and that checkout girl don’t have the kind of power we have, so it must be one of us. And it can’t be me. I have my flock.” She motioned out at the crowd, all of whom were still watching.
I motioned to my face. “Do you see this? Just last night, this guy hit me in the face. He split my lip.”
“Oh, darling.” She reached up and gently touched the bruised side of my face. “Do you expect me to believe you didn’t provoke him?”
It took me a moment to realize that she’d actually said what I thought she just said, but still, all I could choke out was a raspy, “Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on. You know how you get when you’re angry.”
I knew what was coming. I knew it. And yet, I couldn’t stop myself. “No, Widow,” I said, my voice thick. “How do I get?”
She blinked twice as though shocked I would even have to ask, and then she said, “You’re ugly. Vicious. Mean. Maybe Desmond can help you with that. The good Lord knows I couldn’t, but we all have our failures.”
How that could take the breath out of me, how that simple statement I’d heard a thousand times before could break the last of my will, I’ll probably never understand. But it did. I could feel it. All the fight just drained out of me. I’d been fighting so hard to change things, to make them different, to save my mother, to keep Leo … and none of it mattered. Nothing ever changed. There was no winning.
It was over. Leo was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. My mother was hateful, selfish, and incapable of loving anyone, and she was never going to change. I’d miss Liv and Peach and Nick and Tobias, but they had one another; they’d be okay without me. And if I went with Desmond, he’d give the cure to Deidre and Clementine. I could see to that much, at least. I wasn’t needed here anymore. I could just … go.
It was insane how comforting that was, that act of just letting go. As awful as everything was, the idea of not having to fight anymore was so welcome. Acceptance flowed through me, and suddenly my stomach was calm, my shoulders unclenched. This was it; this was my life.
I didn’t have to fight anymore.
I turned to look at Desmond. “I won’t go with you until you’ve given the cure and the formula to make more to my friend
Cain. You have to give him both.”
There was a flash of surprise on Desmond’s face, as if he hadn’t been expecting it to be so easy, and then he looked from the Widow to me, and there was almost an expression of compassion there.
“Of course,” he said.
I nodded, then turned to the Widow.
“Well,” I said. “This is it.”
She smiled. “Don’t be so maudlin. It’s just for a little while, until Desmond gets his proof published. We’ll see each other again.”
“No,” I said. “We won’t.”
I turned to Desmond. “You ready?”
He pushed up off the railing and held out his arm, motioning for me to go first. I started down the porch steps, keeping a few steps ahead of him, my eyes focused on his silver car. About halfway down my mother’s walk, he took my elbow to guide me.
I allowed it.
* * *
I stared out the window at the darkening sky as Desmond drove. He had the good sense to remain silent for most of the trip, until we pulled up at the B&B.
“Did you need to go home, get some things?” he asked as he pulled my door open for me. “We’ll be leaving tonight.”
“Nope.” I got out and patted my messenger bag. “What I don’t have in here you can buy me on the road.”
Desmond raised a brow, but wisely didn’t say anything else. On numb legs, I followed him into the B&B, feeling somewhat out of my own body. The day had been so full of loss and pain and betrayal that it was like my entire soul was bruised beyond the point where I could feel anything. I followed Desmond mutely through the back entrance, the kitchen, up the stairs, to the hallway …
Past the half-moon table in the hallway. I stopped and stared down at it, blinking as though coming out of a fog.
“Everything all right?” Desmond asked, stopping at his bedroom door.
“Mmm?” I glanced up at him. “Oh. Yeah. I’ll wait out here.”
He skillfully lowered his eyes, approximating an affect of shame he didn’t feel at all, although I had to wonder why he bothered. He took a few steps toward me, and I took a step back.
“I am truly sorry,” he said. “I get … difficult when I’m thwarted. But now that we’re working together, of our own free will, I’m hoping we can put that unpleasantness behind us and be … well … if not friends, then friendly.”
