“She wasn’t half as dangerous as what I’m talking about now. Promise me you’ll stay away. Just until I say it’s safe again.”
He puts the Jeep in idle as we pull up to the school, and I can’t fight the feeling that once again, in asking me to stay away, he’s pushing me away.
“You know,” I say with more than a little bit of intended snark as I get out of the car, “you guys really should have thought about the danger that all your extracurricular activities would pose to the tenants who rented your cabin.”
I turn on me heel, slamming the door behind me as I go.
“Is that a promise then?” he calls after me through the open window.
“Fine,” I answer, turning around so he can see the way my eyes. “I promise I’ll stay away … again.”
“Have a good day at school,” he says, an infuriating smile spreading across his face before he drives off. “There won’t be too many more weeks of this. Soon, it’ll all be back to normal.”
A few more weeks of this?
Back to normal?
I could scream. I could cry. Instead, I just stamp my foot against the cracked pavement of the sidewalk.
“Screw you,” I mutter under my breath. I’m not really mad at him, at least, not any angrier than I have been lately at being constantly shoved aside. It’s just that feeling angry is easier than feeling sad and abandoned.
A feeling I have to fight, alone, for the rest of the week.
Jess, Aimee, and even Tom just nod at me when I sit down with them at lunch, their eyes flickering over to the empty table across the cafeteria once before launching into what feels like an interrogation. This time, the prodding doesn’t stop after the first day.
But the annoying interrogation they put me through at lunch isn’t nearly as bad as the pitying “we knew this was going to happen” looks that they keep giving me when they think I won’t see.
That’s the part that I really can’t handle, because it makes me wonder if they’re right.
They think the boys are abandoning me, one missing school day at a time … and even when once again Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb return to school and let me know the danger has once again passed for a couple weeks, I can’t help thinking that perhaps they’re right.
11
Rory
As soon as I get back to the house, the first thing I do is hunt Kaleb down.
I find him downstairs in the garden, his hands digging into the snow-packed earth as Lydia stands watch a few yards away, calling out reminders for him not to destroy the roots of whatever it is she’s having him transplant.
I have to stop myself from accosting him right away.
I won’t do it in front of Lydia, at least, not today. Not when I can help it.
She glances over at where I’ve skittered to a halt under the porch. The yellow light from the kitchen spills out over my shoulders, the brightest light on this overcast day. The scent of food, rare meats and exotic cheeses, wafts out from the spread laid out on the kitchen counter. The others will be arriving soon.
And I need to get a word in with Kaleb before they do.
Kaleb must sense me, because I catch him glancing back at me from over his shoulder. The sight of me shifting impatiently on my feet, my gaze glaring him down from across the lawn, does nothing to urge him faster.
In fact, if anything, he moves slower.
Lydia, ever able to sense my own mood before I even know it, moves to stand beside me. She mimics my posture, arms crossed over her chest and feet planted shoulder-width apart, but she does it with far more grace. Where I look impatient and surly, she looks the opposite.
She tilts her head to the side, glancing over to where I’m staring Kaleb down in the garden.
“You’ve not been yourself lately,” she says, quietly. She keeps her eyes trained on her youngest son as he turns the white, snow-covered ground black with frozen dirt. Not that you could tell from the way his hands dig it from the earth. “Is everything alright?”
I should be used to Lydia’s questions by now. This sort of thing has become normal ever since Sabrina’s arrival. We never needed her to check in with us before. Never needed a watchful eye carefully measuring the shift of emotions in the air.