“It doesn’t make sense, does it?” she said, glaring at me.
“N-no,” I stammered, my face burning.
“That’s what I keep thinking too. It doesn’t make sense. Yet here we are. My son is dead, and you’re standing here,” she said, her voice acidic.
Everyone was staring.
My heart was racing, my body sweating. I felt as if I would pass out.
My father spoke, his words calm and in control. “We are sincerely sorry for the loss of your son. We pray for him and you both daily.”
“And what about yourself?” Brenda said, her word laced with venom. “Do you pray for yourself?”
“Yes,” my dad answered kindly, scooting me out of the way to block me from Brenda.
“That’s good, Paul, because from what I hear, you need it.”
In a flat tone, Phil stated, “You should probably go, Paul.”
My father nodded. “We’re all heartbroken by Thomas’s death.” He turned, ushering us between his arms.
After we were away from the crowd, he scooped up Avi and carried her to the car.
The car unlocked as we approached it. He opened the back door and slid a crying Avi inside. Lisieux slipped in behind her, and Dad shut the door.
“Get in,” Gigi commanded.
I did as she instructed, and she shut the door behind me. Then she got in and shut her door. Dad started the engine and drove the back way out of the parking lot.
“You shouldn’t have made us come,” Lisieux said. “You definitely shouldn’t have made Avi come! Why did you, anyway?”
“We thought it best,” Dad said in a gentle tone.
“No, you didn’t,” Lisieux retorted. “You didn’t want us to be there any more than we did. Gigi made the decision, and you didn’t want to go against her. Just like you’ve been doing every second since Thomas died.”
The car became silent; all that could be heard was Avi’s soft sobbing. I put my arm around her and held her against my chest. Lisieux placed an angry hand on Avi’s leg. The three of us had survived loss before; we would survive it now. The car made its way safely through the snow-covered streets. Our gates swung slowly open. The wind and snow had covered the tracks we’d left earlier. There was no longer a difference between our driveway and the yard around it. Both appeared exactly the same, yet Dad never veered from the path.
Four
Dad opened the garage door and pulled inside. Jason’s rusted jeep sat in the spot where Gigi’s car typically was. It was there at Gigi’s insistence. She’d told them to take her place in the garage because she wasn’t going to drive in the snow, so they may as well keep their car free of snow and ice. Sam and Jason refused her offer for the first few days they lived with us, but Gigi’s stubbornness eventually won out. Her car now sat on the side of the driveway, covered in several inches of snow. The dry jeep reminded me that they had intended to go to the funeral today. It was the reason they were home on a weekday. Would their presence there have made things better? Probably not, but having Luca beside me would have.
We went into the house, and Gigi closed the door behind us, blocking the cold of the garage from the warmth of the kitchen. The delicious smells of roasting turkey, sweet potato casserole, and homemade rolls brought me joy—until I remembered I didn’t deserve joy. Instead, the mouthwatering aromas brought additional guilt. I shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy such good things, not so soon after Thomas’s funeral.
Sam stood at the counter where she had been making salads. Jason was stirring a pot on the stove. Lisieux was sitting at the table, legs crossed, furiously pumping her right foot up and down, teeth gritted.
“How did it go?” Sam asked as we entered.
“The service was as nice as it could be,” Gigi said plainly.
Sam said, “I suppose it was good we weren’t there?”
Still fuming, Lisieux exclaimed, “None of us should have been there!”
“I don’t think it would’ve mattered if you were there or not,” Dad said, sounding exhausted.
“It was that bad?” Sam asked, coming around to where we stood, placing a hand on Avi’s back as she clung to Dad.
Sam loved Avi, perhaps not as much as a mother loved a child, but certainly as much as an aunt loved a niece, and Avi felt the same for Sam.
“It was what I expected,” Gigi answered, her voice void of emotion.
“You expected that?” I asked with frustration.
“They’re hurting,” Gigi stated.
“That doesn’t mean they can be so cruel,” Avi said, startling all of us with the loudness of her voice. Between bouts of crying she said, “Why … are they … so mean?”
Jason loved Avi as much as his wife did. “Honey,” he said to Avi, “when people are hurt, they hurt others. I’m sorry you have to learn that so young.”
There was a time—many times, if I was being honest—when I used to wonder what Sam saw in him. She was smart and beautiful, with her naturally blonde hair and joyful air. Jason, in contrast, wasn’t particularly attractive or educated, but now I understood. He is definitely one of the good ones, as Luca’s mom would say.
“Jason’s right,” Dad said, squeezing Avi and placing her feet on the wood floor while keeping an arm around her. “Hurt people lash out. Brenda’s deeply hurt. I didn’t expect her to lash out like that, but I should have. Maybe we shouldn’t have gone today. I thought it was the right thing to do, but thinking about it now …. Brenda must see us and wish over and over that we’d done more and were somehow able to stop him.”
“I wish the same thing,” I said.
“Thomas did what he did. None of you can change that,” Jason said. “It’s the way the world works. People do awful stuff, and the rest of us have to deal with it. Doesn’t make it right or fair, just the way it is. Thomas’s parents—they have to deal with what their son did. That’s the way it is. And you all are gonna have to deal with people blaming you. Not right or fair, just the way it is.”
Dad lowered his head, his hand resting on Avi’s back. “Yes,” he said. “It is what it is. With time, Brenda will heal and her hatred for us will fade.”
I crossed my arms, my heavy coat still on, offering the smallest amount of protection. “She wasn’t calling all of you murderers, she was calling me one.”
“Avila,” Dad said, “why don’t you go into my office and play on your screen for a little bit.”
She replied, “I heard what Thomas’s mom said.”
“There’s no point in trying to keep us out of it,” Lisieux said. “You made us go today. You made us be in the center of this whole awful thing.”
Dad groaned in frustration.
Sam went to the microwave and pushed a button. “If you’re going to stay in here, you might as well have some hot chocolate. I have it ready to go. I figured you’d need some warmth when you got home. Avi, let go of your dad and sit beside your sister.” The microwave beeped. She opened the door and took out two mugs of cocoa.
Avi released Dad as Lisieux scooted over to let her in beside her at the table.
Dad exhaled audibly and hung up his coat on a hook by the door to the garage.
Sam placed the hot cocoa in front of Avi and Lisieux.
“Thank you,” Lisieux whispered as she held the mug but did not attempt to drink it.
“Would you like some, Siena?” Sam asked kindly.
“Hot chocolate won’t fix being called a murderer,” I said softly.
“Sit down,” she said, leading me to the counter stool. “I’ll make you some anyway.”
I sat without thinking.
“How’d they get the idea Siena killed Thomas?” Jason asked, removing the saucepan from the stove.
Dad said, “It wasn’t literal.”
Lisieux sat up straighter in her chair and said, “His mom said Siena broke Thomas’s heart, so he killed himself.”
“Thomas didn’t care a thing about Siena,” Sam said, then met my eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but it
’s true.”
“Don’t be sorry for the truth,” I said, holding the hot mug that Sam had placed in front of me. Its heat was burning my frozen fingers.
“Brenda seemed to acknowledge that as well,” Dad said, sliding into a spot at the table beside Avi.
“Problem is they got half the story,” Jason said, “and without the other half, the story don’t make sense. ’Course, with the other half, the story ain’t believable, so either way, his death isn’t an easy one to explain or accept.” Jason was taking the wrapper from the stick of butter, preparing to butter the rolls that would soon be out of the oven.
“No, his death is certainly not easy to accept,” Dad said, his back slouched against the back of the seat.
Jason put down the butter and gripped the side of the counter, leaning forward. “Seems to me, all this stuff with Thomas’s parents and whoever else is a distraction.”
“A distraction?” Lisieux said.
“A way to make you all fight with each other. If you believe in evil—which I guess by now we all do—then you gotta believe it isn’t random. It’s thought out. It sounds like your church is being torn apart by all of this, with people hating each other. Seems like instead of people praying for Thomas’s soul people are fighting. If you ask me, that means evil’s winning a second time.”
Sam went to him and slid an arm around the small of his back, giving him a quick kiss on his scruffy face. “One of the many reasons I love you,” she said.
“I thought you married me for my good looks,” he teased.
She kissed him. “That’s another of the many reasons.”
“Where’s Luca?” I asked.
“In his room,” Sam said.
“He was cold,” Jason said with a chuckle.
In a sarcastic tone, Lisieux said, “How unlike him.”
Sam said, “It took me five winters before I stopped shivering.”
“Yeah. She used to get the fire so hot I’d be stripped down to my underwear and still sweating,” Jason said with a snort.
Lisieux groaned. “That was a mental image I didn’t need.”
“I’m going to find him,” I said as I began to climb the stairs.
Jason said, “Dinner will be ready in about thirty minutes.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said from halfway up the stairs.
Sam called out, “But Luca is.”
She was right, of course. Luca never missed a meal and often ate a second meal after the rest of us were done.
Five
Luca’s room was at the end of the longest hallway on the second floor. My father had suggested he move into this room because it had a fireplace—at least that was the reason he’d given to Luca. The actual reason was because it was the farthest room from mine, with my dad’s room safely between the two. It was not that he minded having Luca here or minded us spending most of our free time together. But the quarter of a mile between our rooms gave Dad the sort of buffer he wanted.
After all, we had other rooms with fireplaces, though Luca’s was one of the nicer ones, with drywall and insulation, things Luca required to not freeze to death. I tapped at the slightly open door and stepped in.
He was sitting in a beanbag chair next to the glowing hearth, a book in his hand and a sock hat covering his curly hair. This was his typical position when he was not at work or with us in the main part of the house. I watched as he read. Unlike Lisieux, when Luca read, he had no idea what was going on around him. The rest of the world disappeared and all that existed was him and the book. No wonder he didn’t hear us come home.
I went into the room. He finally noticed me when I sat on the chest that served as the bed’s footboard.
“Hi,” he said, closing the book.
He placed it on the area rug and came and sat beside me. He put his hands in his lap, his hip touching mine. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Aunt Sam told me Gigi asked her not to let me go. I shouldn’t have listened to her.”
“You being there would’ve been worse,” I said. “Thomas’s mom already blames me for everything. If you’d been there, she would have been even more hateful to me. They all would’ve,” I said, the image of Beth’s stares entering my mind.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I suddenly felt cold; I stood and went to the fire. “She thinks my rejecting Thomas caused him to lose his mind and his life.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, placing a hand on my arm.
His amber eyes were so sincere, so comforting.
“She acknowledged that, I think,” I said, trying to make sense of Brenda’s words. “But that didn’t make it better. For some reason, that made her angrier. She hates me more than anyone has ever been hated.”
“You were one of the last people her son was around before he died. She’s not going to like you right now, or maybe ever.”
“Thank goodness the police were there to witness him … jump. Otherwise, she’d probably think I dragged him up the cliff and threw him off. She’s so vile.”
He rubbed the upper part of my arm, his nails appearing white against his caramel skin. “That’s not fair to her. Of course she hates you, and of course none of it makes sense to you. Because it doesn’t make sense. If you remove the spiritual side of the world, which we did when we didn’t tell the police about the demons, then none of it makes any sense. Her outgoing, popular son suddenly became psychotic and jumped off a cliff without any family history of psychosis. How could she possibly accept that? And then today, you are all there, healthy … alive. How could she not hate you?”
“Your uncle said basically the same thing. But what were we supposed to do? Tell the police we thought Thomas was possessed?”
“We didn’t think he was possessed, Siena. He was possessed.” Luca guided me to sit in the beanbag chair, and he sat on the rug, beside me.
I watched the fire. “You’ve gotten good at building fires,” I said, remembering some of the sloppy, smoky fires Luca made when first learning.
“Practice makes better,” he said, scooting closer to the hearth.
I leaned my head against the top of the chair, the rustling of the beans inside loud as my ear pressed against the leather.
“Can’t we be normal?” I said in defeat. “The inn’s gone, the funeral’s over. Can’t we forget all the crazy demon stuff and move on?”
He rocked forward onto his knees and adjusted a piece of wood. It instantly caught, causing bright yellow flames to shoot up. He leaned back. “You can do that. You can pretend none of this ever happened. It’s never been an option for me and not one I would choose even if I could. If that’s what you need to do to get through life, then go ahead.”
“You think I’m a coward.”
“I think you’re like most people. You’d rather avoid the uncomfortable stuff.”
“The uncomfortable stuff doesn’t bother you?”
“Siena, I see dead people and feel demons. Trying to pretend I don’t would be impossible or make me crazy, so, no, I choose to face reality, even if it’s uncomfortable.”
I sensed he was trying to hide his judgment of me. I lowered my eyes away from his gaze.
He draped an arm across his knee, and his voice softened. “You’re dealing with a lot, and I don’t blame you if you want to pretend none of it’s real, but that’s all it would be—pretend. Your rejecting the existence of the spiritual world doesn’t change its existence, it just changes how you deal with the world, and not necessarily for the better.”
“Is being normal that bad?” I said, almost begging him to let me forget the past six weeks.
“Not if that’s who you were made to be,” he said, with his eyes on mine—those kind, sweet, caring eyes.
There was nothing normal about him. I leaned back in the beanbag, my head resting on it as the heat of the flames caused my face to flush red.
“Maybe I was made to be normal,” I said, unsure if I wanted that to be true or not.
“Is that
what you want, to be like everyone else? To go through life never understanding the first bit of reality. To live a lie?”
Tears starting to form, I turned my eyes from his and focused on the darting flames. I closed my eyes a few moments, absorbing the tears.
Then I watched the flames. “Their lives are easy,” I said, my tone pleading.
If Luca let me be normal, if he let me forget, maybe I could. Maybe this could all go away.
“Yes,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Their lives are easy—or at least they appear easier than ours. That’s why lies exist—to make lives appear easier. But behind every lie is a truth, a truth that can only go untold for so long. Don’t forget that in the end, everything that’s been hidden will be brought to the light.”
I said, “I liked you better before you knew how to quote the Bible.”
He smiled. “There’s so much truth in it. It’s hard not to quote it.”
“If I had your gifts, it would be different,” I said, thinking again of the small prayer I’d uttered during the funeral. “Maybe then, things would make more sense. As it is, I feel like nothing makes any sense.”
I stood up, my face cooling as it rose away from the flames.
“Where are you going?” he asked, standing beside me.
“My room. This day needs to end.” I was so tired I wondered if I could make it without passing out on the way.
“What about dinner?” Luca asked, watching me with concern.
“You can have my portion,” I said.
Six
Sometime later I heard the faint tapping of someone outside my door. I tried to open my eyes or call out to them to enter or go away. I wasn’t sure which I would’ve said, but it didn’t matter. I was too tired to utter a word. In a moment I was asleep again, my dreams jumping from one scene to another. Even in my unconscious mind I wondered why this was. Why could I not stay in one place for more than a few seconds? In the deep darkness of night, when my body was most tired, my dreams turned to nightmares, or I hoped that’s all they were. My body couldn’t move; my eyes were open but so tired they were trying to close.
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