I stood there even after he walked past me.
I stood there after he got into his truck and I heard the door close.
I stood there when the engine started up and the shells in the driveway sounded like gravel as his tires backed out onto the road.
I stood there until I no longer heard the engine.
Then I walked up the stairs, unlocked the door, walked inside and crumpled to the floor as sobs shook my body.
It was like this that Rio found me. I didn’t look up at him when he said my name. When he bent down and wrapped his arms around me, I didn’t hear what he said. My sobbing subsided and a numbness began to ease over me. It seemed like a dream when Rio stood me up and walked me back to the bedroom. Once I was lying down, he covered me up and walked out, closing my bedroom door behind him.
The week passed and I managed to pull myself together. Rio had moved into the guest bedroom at some point while I was at work the next day. Hillya had told me to stay home, but I needed to work. Staying home meant thinking. I didn’t want to think. Thinking always led to Saul. It was easier to stay busy.
I didn’t ask Rio about what had happened between him and Saul. I couldn’t say his name and I didn’t want to hear it spoken. I knew though from things he had said that after he found me that he and Saul had a falling out. That was what I didn’t want to happen, but I didn’t have a way to fix it. I hadn’t set this ball in motion. Saul had.
When Sunday came, I didn’t want to take the day off, but Hillya insisted. My distraction came however in the form of my mother. I was brushing my teeth, trying to think of something to do to fill my day when Rio called down the hall. “Uh, Henley, you got company.”
I spit the toothpaste out of my mouth and hadn’t even rinsed it yet when I heard her footsteps followed by, “Why the hell have you not been answering my calls?”
I dried my mouth and turned to look at her. “Hello, Mother.”
“Don’t start with me. You’ve ignored me about this will and forced me to come to this… this place. We have to discuss what we are going to do with the house and you have some guy here with you? Already? Seriously, Henley what has gotten into you?” My mother’s loud, annoyed tone was not for this specific occasion. She spoke this way to me most of the time.
I walked past her and toward the kitchen. “Good to see you too,” I replied.
Rio was eating a bowl of cereal and sitting at the bar when I walked in the room. His eyes went wide when he saw me. I hadn’t heard her come in so there was no telling what she said to him.
“Do not walk away from me. I had to take off work to drive down here,” my mother said as she followed me into the kitchen. Her high heels clicking against the hardwoods.
“You didn’t have to do anything, Mom. You chose to,” I replied and reached for a coffee cup. I had just brushed my teeth, but I needed more caffeine to deal with her and some whiskey would help.
“We have to make a decision about the house and my daughter wouldn’t answer my calls. I had no choice,” she informed me.
I looked at her. “We don’t have a decision to make. The will states the house is mine. Not ours. Mine. Me. It’s mine.”
She glared at me. “And you know what to do with it?” She pointed at Rio. “You move here to do some ridiculous list for my mother and end up shacking up with some guy you just met. That’s not maturity, Henley. It’s foolishness.”
I took a drink of my coffee before responding. “I’m not shacking up with him. That would be disgusting since he’s my brother and all. Remember Rebel, my dad, well, this would be his son.” I looked at Rio. “Rio meet Lyra Warren, my mother. Mother this is Rio March. I’m sure you remember his mother, Manda March. Since y’all once loved the same guy.”
My mother’s face paled. Finally she was at a loss for words. I took advantage of it. “Gran’s list wasn’t ridiculous stuff she wanted me to take to people at her death. No, it was much more than that. Gran led me on a path and along the way I found Hillya, you know my other grandmother, and Rio here.”
My mother looked at Rio then back at me. “You spoke to Hillya?” she asked.
“Daily. I work for her,” I replied then took another sip of my coffee. I couldn’t remember a time in my life I had spoken to my mother like this. But then before now, before this summer, I hadn’t known all the lies she had fed me my entire life.