When he told me I’d slept past breakfast and lunch, I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t slept so long in years, and I hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time for the last week. Coming here had been the right decision.
I’d arrived after midnight last night, arms laden with heavy duffel bags. I parked at the bottom of his long driveway, so I could escape unnoticed if I changed my mind. I leaned against my car and took a good look at the house. It was dark, but I could make out the porch swing, the hummingbird feeder, and the window box—devoid of flowers as always. Why did he have it if he never intended to plant anything in it? I took a slow breath, filling my lungs to capacity and willing myself to calm down. I was in a testy mood, and I’d had a pounding headache the entire flight here. Scratch that. I’d had a headache for an entire week. Crying always made my head throb, as if it was stuffed too full.
I pushed off the car and walked up the driveway. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I knocked on the door. Mom didn’t like to talk about Grandpa, and my own memories were fuzzy because I hadn’t seen him since I was eight years old. Still, my gut had told me to come here, so here I was.
As I placed my foot on the lowest porch step, the light flicked on. By the time I was on the fourth step, the door was open and my grandfather stood inside, on the oval rag rug, wearing slippers and a flannel bathrobe with the warm light of his foyer was at his back. The dark night was at mine.
He stared at my swollen, red-rimmed eyes a long time, but thankfully didn’t ask if I’d been crying. He stared so long, I felt compelled to gesture to them and say, “Drank too much on the plane.” It was a lie. I hadn’t had anything but water, and I don’t know why I said it. I couldn’t find explanations for a lot of the things I did lately.
I waited for the judgment to pass across his features. It didn’t. Instead, he grabbed both my shoulders and pulled me to him. Relieved, realizing I’d been afraid he wouldn’t recognize me, or wouldn’t welcome me, I let my bags thump onto the porch floor and I put my arms around him. Emotion filled my throat as he squeezed me to him. I accepted his hug, and let my hands rest on his back. He was thinner than I thought he’d be. As a kid, he seemed larger than life. Full of muscles and knowledge and big words. Now we were the same height, and I could feel his spine through his bathrobe.
We didn’t talk much last night. Instead, he led me to the bedroom I’d once shared with my mom, the same flowery bedspread on the big bed, the same navy blue spread on the twin sized mattress on the floor in the corner. “Sleep,” he’d said. “We’ll talk in the morning.” I’d slipped under the covers of my mother’s old bed, making the choice deliberately, wanting to feel close to her.
I lay there and tried to ignore the painful knot in the center of my chest. It was the size of a fist. It was a fist, and it kept hitting me, knocking me out, battering me. It was hard to sleep while taking a beating.
When Grandpa woke me this afternoon, he’d knocked softly and entered carrying a mug of black coffee. I sat up, the flowery bedspread falling to my waist, and took the proffered mug gratefully.
“Where on earth is your chest hair?” Grandpa asked, his voice laced with a familiar teasing lilt.
I smirked over the rim of the mug. “I suppose it’s in a landfill somewhere. They made me wax it for my last movie.” All humor drained from me as I thought of that movie. That movie ruined my life and took my best friend from me. Put it away, I told myself. Enough.
“No one could ever make me wax my chest hair. It may be thin and gray, but it’s mine.”
“Would you do it for fourteen million dollars?” I asked, my voice bitter and cold.
Grandpa didn’t respond to the question, obviously able to tell it was directed at myself, not him. There’s a lot I would do for fourteen million dollars, including waxing my chest. But if I could take back that last movie, I would in a heartbeat.
Grandpa patted my leg and nodded slowly. And that’s when he’d said the thing about working with my hands and quieting my mind.
I had to focus on my driving to navigate this stretch of road. It was so narrow, every time a car passed going the other direction, I was certain we were both going to slide off the sides. Somehow we didn’t. I kept looking left and right, because Grandpa had said to watch for deer, and the thought of hitting one added another level of despair to the already deep pit inside me.
Finally, the faded sign for Alden Caverns appeared on the right. I should repaint that for him, too. I didn’t know how long I’d be here, but at this point I didn’t want to think about going back. Focus on where you are. I repeated my grandfather’s words over and over, whispering softly to myself, until I felt a little more steady.
I drove past the cavern and up the long driveway, and parked Grandpa’s truck in the garage. I walked around it to retrieve the paint cans, opening the passenger door, thinking maybe I’d get a truck of my own.
Grandpa showed up at my elbow, paintbrushes in hand, and took one of the cans from me. “So you want to paint something.”
It’s what I had suggested when he asked me what I wanted to do. We carried the cans outside, and stood a minute looking at the beauty of the sunset. Pinks, oranges, and purples swirled the sky, and everything smelled green. “Remember that time when I was six, and we painted the fence around the side of the property? The one that separates the business from the house?”
“Sure I do.”
“It looks like it needs painting.”
“It hasn’t been done since you last did it.” He smiled at me, the loose skin around his eyes crinkling up. “Let’s get to it, then. There’s not much light left.”
I’d taken a long time getting the paint. At the hardware store, I felt people’s eyes on me. Someone in an aisle whispered my name as I stood at the cash register. It was too much. Even in this tiny town, I couldn’t have a break. So I’d driven around for a couple hours. I spun that truck around curvy back roads and up huge hills and past algae covered ponds. With the window down and the music blaring, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts.
But now the day was about gone. We traipsed across the wide yard, and set our supplies down by the fence. The grass was well-maintained, and the weeds were trimmed around every post. “You still do the mowing?”
“Of course I do.”
I opened a can of paint and we set to work, him on one side of the fence and me on the other, just like last time. My brush caught drips his left behind, drips he couldn’t see, and I knew he was doing the same thing on the other side. I remembered that from the past, too.
We painted in silence for a while. Grandpa usually had a million stories, but he was holding them in. Maybe he could tell I had some stories that needed to spill out, and was giving me space for them. I couldn’t do it, not yet, so I pasted on a smile and spoke about an easier time. “Last time we did this, I was so carefree.”
Grandpa’s brush stopped moving. “You weren’t carefree, Jesse. Nobody is.”
“I was six.”
“Not even six-year-olds are carefree.”
I stood up straight and met his eyes. “They should be.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Life’s a mix, isn’t it? Heartache and joy. Love and pain. That’s what it is to be human. Even six-year-olds feel those things. Since it’s always been that way, and it’s that way for everyone, maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
I looked away, uncomfortable. Grandpa always could see into my soul. Even over the phone, when I’d call once or twice a year, one word from me and he knew what I was feeling. I hated it. I needed it. It’s why I was here.
And he was right. Life had been tough then, too. We moved in with Grandpa when my dad left us. He drove away with a few members of his motorcycle club, and Mom and I stood in the parking lot of our apartment building and watched him go. She was crying, her fingers threading through the hair on my head, and we stood there until we couldn’t hear the engines anymore. Then she knelt down and said we’d go see Grandpa.
Apparently G
randpa’s house was where a person came when they’d suffered a blow—when they needed a place to regroup, to recharge, to figure life out again.
Even then I’d known it should have been Mom who left, not Dad, and she should have done it much earlier. Their fighting was intense, and sometimes she had bruises she refused to talk to me about. When we came here, I’d been relieved. Mom and I stayed for two years, until I was eight. Until she decided it was time to return to California, because Dad wanted us back.
There’d been fighting that night. The shouts still echoed in my memory, because I’d never heard Grandpa raise his voice before. He told her, “I lost you to California once, I can’t go through it again. I wasn’t going to say this, I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I told you not to go with him the first time, Poppy. And you did go, and look what happened. Look what he did to you. You can’t make the same mistake again.”
That’s when I ran out the back door and down to the woods bordering the property. I stayed there until it was dark, until Grandpa found me and brought me back to the house. We left the next morning, and I hadn’t been back until now.
Grandpa was right. My six-year-old heart had its troubles.
While I’d been lost in thought, Grandpa was watching me. When I met his eyes, he said, “Your heart is broken, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Is it your mother?” His voice was shaky and his face was pale. The question cost him. We never talked about her, not on any of our phone calls through all the years.
I quickly shook my head, relieving him of his fears. “Mom’s fine.”
His shoulders dropped with relief, but then his eyes found mine again, concern and love within their depths. He didn’t ask why my heart was broken, and I didn’t offer it up. The words would come with another round of tears, another round of wracking sobs and deep anguish. If I didn’t say the words, I would be okay.
I dipped my brush in the paint and squatted down to resume my work. “The boards are thirsty. They’re soaking up the paint. I should have gotten a primer.”
He dipped his brush as well, eyeing me through the slats in the fence. “It’s fine. We’re not painting to save the fence. It’s getting replaced this fall.”
Chapter 3
Cat
I pulled into the small parking lot at Alden Caverns, taking my usual spot at the back, eager to start the day. Never in my life had something retained its wonder for as long as these caves. In her bid to get me off to college, Mama told me I’d tire of them eventually. Maybe I would. But I hadn’t yet, and couldn’t imagine it.
I hopped from my car and stretched, enjoying the cool morning air. My eyes snagged on a flash of white to the west. A man was painting the fence that separated Otto’s personal yard from the business. He wore a white T-shirt and jeans, and, without my permission, my gaze found his tan forearm, which moved back and forth as he smoothed white paint over the slats of the fence. Who was he? His back was to me, so I could only see his head of dark brown hair. Even so, I would have recognized him if he were anyone from town. I watched a moment longer to see if he’d turn around, but he stubbornly kept his attention on his work.
Giving up, I crossed the parking lot and pulled open the door to the cavern gift shop. The familiar murky scent of earth and water hit my nose. I put my backpack in the drawer beneath the counter and pulled the elastic off my wrist to tie my hair up.
Otto shuffled through his office door and into the gift shop, smiling at me.
“Why is someone painting the fence?” I asked without preamble.
“Good morning to you, too.” He bent down so I could reach his cheek, where I placed my daily kiss.
“Good morning, Otto. Why are you paying someone to paint the fence when you’re going to have it torn down and rebuilt at the end of the summer?”
“I’m not paying him. He’s painting it to keep his hands busy.”
“Oh.” I understood the need to keep one’s hands busy, but the waste of paint seemed frivolous. A person could keep his hands busy without using a resource. “Who is he?” I asked the question that had been niggling at me since I saw him.
Otto’s mouth split in a wide, proud smile. “That’s my grandson.”
“Oh.” I blinked, stunned. I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Otto, that’s wonderful.” And it was. It was truly wonderful, nearly a miracle, but for some reason my heart had dropped into my stomach and tears stung my eyelids.
I pulled away and turned toward the register so Otto wouldn’t see the feelings on my face. I’d been told that one look at my expression was as good as getting a full confession, and I didn’t want Otto to see what this news was doing to me. Why on earth was I reacting this way?
His grandson was here. His grandson, whose absence caused a gigantic hole in Otto’s chest, was here. Otto was certainly over the moon about this fact, and I should be, too. Why wasn’t I? Ignoring the mix of emotions building in me, I pasted on a smile. I wouldn’t be the one to ruin it for him.
But the thought came anyway, without my permission. I was only his pretend grandchild. That man out there painting the fence was the real thing.
One summer day when I was eleven, Audrey and Valerie came into my room speaking strange words in a strange cadence, adding beeps and clicks to the mix in a pattern I couldn’t figure out. I’d smiled, and asked what they were doing, hoping they’d let me in on the game. They responded in their strange language, not answering me in a way I could understand. This continued, me trying to coax the secrets of the language from them while they refused to include me, until I got angry. I told them to get out. As they left, laughing, Valerie said, “It’s just what twins do, Cat. You wouldn’t understand.”
Her words were a punch to the gut. She’d voiced something I’d felt since the twins were born when I was two years old. We were all sisters, but they were somehow moreso.
That day, I thumped down the stairs and fled the house, not even stopping to tell Mama where I was going. For a moment, I felt bad, knowing she’d worry, but I felt too hurt to do anything about it at that moment.
I ran and ran and ran, tears streaming down my face. I turned down one back road and then another until all my tears ran out. Out of breath, dying of thirst, and uncertain where I was, I saw a red sign ahead. I limped toward it, even though my legs were fine—I needed my inner pain to be evident on the outside. Alden Caverns, the sign said. I would come on a field trip here next school year. All the sixth graders at Alden Middle School did.
A building that looked like a log cabin, but was actually a business, stood next to the rocky hill. I walked to the front door and pulled it open. The wash of cool air hit my face and I felt better immediately. I saw I was in a little gift shop, and it was empty. There was an opening to the back of the lobby, a curved arch in the rock wall, and beyond it was the cavern.
I tiptoed to the archway, feeling as if I were doing something illicit, and peered through. A gasp escaped me. The cavern was huge. It was so high, I could barely see the ceiling. I walked to the center of the space, which was bigger than my bedroom. It was dim, but the lights on the walls cast enough light that I could see openings on the far side, some big enough to walk through. An urge overcame me, and I tipped my head up and let out a sharp yelp. To my delight, my voice came back to me, echoing around my ears. I tested a few different noises—some chirps, a bark, and then my full name. All of them reverberated throughout the cavern before falling down around me.
Sensing I shouldn’t be doing what I was doing, and that I was about to be in trouble, I made my way back to the gift shop to peer into the glass cases where fossils and other fascinating items were displayed.
“That’s a real wooly mammoth bone,” said a deep voice.
I jumped, and looked into the face of an old man. It was familiar—I’d seen him around town, but I didn’t know his name. My dad knew the name of everyone in town, and I was trying to do the same. “What’s your name?” I asked.
He
smiled. “Otto Rutledge. Call me Otto, not Mr. Rutledge. What’s your name?”
“Catherine Sparrow. Call me Cat, not Catherine.”
He nodded sagely. “Hello, Cat. Was that you making the echoes in my cavern?”
My eyes widened. Here came the trouble. Best to stand up straight and let it come. “Yes, sir.”
“I do that first thing every morning,” he said, a chuckle escaping his lips.
“You do?”
“Yes. I never tire of it.”
Relieved, I peered at the unidentifiable stony lump in the display case. “It’s really a mammoth bone?”
“It’s a vertebra. Emily found it. That was my wife’s name. Emily. She found these caves, too. Anything worth finding, Emily found.”
I squinted at the vertebra, wondering how she found it, and looked up to Otto, the question on the tip of my tongue.
But Otto glanced around the lobby and walked to the door, his eyes passing over the parking lot. I realized, a burning in my chest, that he was probably looking for my parents, wondering why I was here alone. I was small for eleven. I lifted my chin, trying to appear taller, and put my hands on my hips. I said the words as they formed in my mind. “I’d like a job here, Otto.”
He tilted his head to one side, and brought a hand to his chin, tapping it thoughtfully. “What skills do you have?”
“I’m good at finding things, too, just like Emily. We go to the creek behind my house, and I find tons of crinoid fossils. I have a whole jar full. I could find some for your displays. I bet people would buy them.”
He smiled wide. “That would do nicely, I think. What are your rates?”
“My rates?”
“What should I pay you?”
The question startled me. I gave it serious thought. I figured people would pay a dime for one good crinoid, and Otto had to make a profit from the deal. “I’ll sell them to you for a nickel per crinoid.”
Broken Hollywood (Sparrow Sisters Book 1) Page 2
