by Mindy Klasky
“I should have fixed the window before I started on the miniatures. I’m sorry.”
“You should have—” She cut herself off before her voice reached a glass-shattering pitch. “Tom Finnegan, why did you come to Harmony Springs?”
He shot her a wary look, like he thought she’d gone nuts. “You know why. I owed it to my buddy. To J-Dawg. I had to tell the Dawsons what happened over there.”
“Then I should have introduced you,” Lexi spat. “Because Susan Dawson would have loved the chance to shake your hand before she left with her napkin rings and candles!”
She watched the blood drain from Finn’s face. Now he really did look sick, like he might collapse against the counter. She didn’t care, though. She wanted Finn to hurt. She wanted him to feel the way she did—sliced open, scraped raw. “You lied to me.”
“I—”
She couldn’t let him interrupt her, couldn’t allow herself to be diverted. Not when she was crumbling before him, not when she was shattering into a million jagged pieces. She dug deep for the sharpest words in her arsenal. “You never talked to the Dawsons. You never did anything you said you were going to do. What? Did you let yourself get distracted? Figured a roll in the hay was as good as a death-bed promise? Thought it was easier to act like a kind man, a good man? You’re nothing but a goddamn coward, Finn.”
He flinched as if she’d slapped him.
She closed the distance between them, trembling with the terrible power she held. She’d trusted him. She’d relied on him. She’d let herself imagine they could have a life together, a life where all the ugly past didn’t matter. She’d let him stay overnight in her bed—not just one night, but all of them. She’d fallen for him, fallen hard, let herself believe that she loved him. That he could love her.
“You’re a coward,” she repeated, shoving at his chest with the stiffened fingers of her left hand. “A liar.” She shoved again. “A cheat.”
He caught her hand before she could push him again. It wasn’t that she hurt him, not with her fingertips. He just didn’t want to hear what else she had to say. “Cut it out,” he growled. “I’m not one of your fucked up pets. Not some project to win you brownie points in town.”
“I never said you were!”
J-Dawg laughed from the far end of the shop, from the wall where that goddamn Christmas tree had been covered with the fucking artisanal ornaments. “She’s got you there, buddy.”
“Shut up,” Finn snapped, before he realized he wasn’t supposed to answer that voice out loud.
Lexi followed his gaze to the other side of the room. “I wish to God you’d never set foot in here,” she said. “I wish I’d never listened to a word of your lies.”
Even as his fingers tightened on her wrists, he watched her twist away. She wasn’t trying to break free; his grip wasn’t tight enough to hurt her. Instead, she was trying to hide the scars on the back of her hand. She was trying to keep him from seeing the truth, from seeing all of her. And that broke something, something deep inside him.
“Don’t tell me about lies,” he said, pitching his voice so low she had to freeze to hear his words. “And don’t call me a coward.” He stepped closer because he suddenly realized he might never be near her again. “You stand in this shop, day after day. You’ve made a life for yourself, built a successful business. You’re smart and you’re funny and God knows you could sell ice to an Eskimo.”
Those compliments—ironically—spread the first flicker of fear across her face. He hated himself for being the one to call that out in her. But he couldn’t stop now. He had to say the rest. He had to make her hate him, make her order him out of the shop, out of her life.
Because she was right. He was a coward. He’d never be brave enough to leave on his own.
“You’re the one who can’t accept the truth, Lexi. You make a joke out of eating Pop-Tarts and microwave noodles, but you’re terrified to cook in your own goddamn house!”
“I’m not ter—”
He rolled over her protest. “You live in a fucking cocoon.”
“Don’t you dare—”
But he was aching now, hating himself for the shock on her face. He had to make the final cut, had to make sure she’d never see him again, never let him hurt her like this, for the rest of their lives. “I’m not blind, Lexi. You’re the one who turns out the lights. You thought I wouldn’t notice you wore that goddamn robe? You thought I wouldn’t realize you’re always on your back before you spread your legs?”
He heard her gasp like he’d shoved a knife between her ribs. Hating himself, hating what he’d just said, just done, he looked away.
But J-Dawg wasn’t standing in the corner anymore. He was right there beside them, right beside Lexi.
And he wasn’t the guy Finn had served with, had eaten beside, had lived with for ten long years. He was the body torn apart by a roadside bomb. He was a piece of meat, ripped and bloody. He was the real hero, the man who’d fought to make one little corner of Afghanistan safe for his brothers.
And he was shaking the ruins of his head slowly, back and forth, a silent confirmation that Finn had ruined everything.
Before Lexi could order him out of the store, he turned on his heel and left.
10
Lexi lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. She hadn’t slept all night. At four in the morning, half an hour before Anne would be stirring, she’d texted her best friend. “Some kind of flu bug. Can you put sign up in window?”
Right on schedule, Anne had texted her back, offering to bring Pepto-Bismol, Gatorade, whatever Lexi needed. She had demurred, saying she didn’t want to make Anne sick. Lexi had turned off her phone then, trusting she’d be left in peace and quiet.
A frozen stone sat in the middle of her chest. She wanted to cry, to dissolve the rock with tears, but her eyes stayed hot and dry. She thought about shouting, screaming into her pillow until the stone crumbled to dust, but that would only terrify Pirate and Lucky. And she wasn’t certain she’d succeed in breaking down the rock.
As it was, she was the miserable center in a pet sandwich. Pirate stretched against her left side, purring like a motorboat. Lucky was curled into a tight ball, his spine wedged beneath Lexi’s right side, his nose tucked beneath his hind leg.
She caught herself stroking Lucky’s soft flank, smoothing his velvet fur over and over again. How long had it been since she’d cuddled with her pets?
She’d changed her life, carving out a space for Finn. She’d lowered her walls, letting him in where she’d never allowed any other man.
It wasn’t the things they’d done in bed, although he’d shown her new ground there. It was the way she’d come to expect him. She’d arrived at the store, not bothering to stop at the diner because she’d known Finn would bring her coffee. She’d accepted poor sales because fewer customers had meant she could spend more time in the back room watching him work. She’d looked forward to the end of each day, to talking, to sharing. In just a few short weeks, Finn had become a part of her life.
Hard to believe, when she’d worked so hard to cut herself off from the world around her. Sure, she had friends, good ones. But when was the last time she’d sent an email to Mom and Dad in Europe? When had she called Chris in DC? She hadn’t even talked to Anne, aside from Yoga Night. This was more than her usual December Blues, more than her usual withdrawing from Harmony Springs, from the Christmas Fête, from the bonfire.
What had Finn said? She lived inside a cocoon?
So what if she did? She’d spent almost two years in and out of hospitals after the fire. She’d overdosed on stainless steel and tile floors, on sterile dressings and starched white sheets. She never wanted to eat beige food again, never wanted to settle for bland pudding or slippery Jell-O for dessert.
She reached blindly toward the foot of her bed. Even though she did her best not to disturb the animals, Lucky whimpered a protest. Pirate stopped his purr mid-rumble.
But both animals relaxed whe
n Lexi found what she was looking for. Her woven cotton throw had been washed so many times it felt like fleece. Her fingers automatically started to braid the soft fringe. When she pulled the blanket up to her chin, she found herself looking down on the smiling face of the man in the moon.
Closing her eyes, Lexi heard her mother’s familiar voice. “Fly me to the moon…” The words were as smooth as stones in a riverbed, rushed over thousands and thousands of times. She was twelve years old, coming out of a medically induced coma, and her mother was comforting her with the familiar song. She was thirteen, facing her fourth surgery, her eighth, her fifteenth, and her mother was singing her to sleep. She was fourteen and heading back to school, to a regular classroom for the first time in two years, and her mother drew a note for her brown-bag lunch, just a crescent moon and a heart.
The moon was comfort. The moon was acceptance. The moon was love.
Lexi closed her eyes and hummed to herself. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed about wandering in a great snowy wilderness where she needed to reach a giant stone mountain that never got closer, no matter how long she walked toward the horizon.
Thursday morning, it was a little more difficult to put off Anne. Lexi rallied, though, threatening to disclose disgusting symptoms of her made-up illness. Anne wisely kept her distance.
When the sun rose, Lexi heaved herself out of bed, ignoring the doomed weight of the stone inside her chest. She padded into the kitchen and excavated a box of cereal from the back of the pantry. She picked out all the Crunch Berries, eating them until the roof of her mouth stung with a thousand tiny cuts. Finishing off breakfast with a big glass of milk, she crawled back into bed. Lucky made a perfect body pillow as she dozed off.
At noon, she pushed past the mammoth rock again, finishing the last of her frozen waffles along with all the maple syrup. She let Lucky out into the back yard, praising the pup when he limped back into the over-warm kitchen. She heated a cup of water in the microwave and brewed some caramel vanilla tea. Pirate wove between her legs as she shuffled back to bed. She dozed off before the tea was cool enough to drink.
Every couple of hours her phone buzzed—Anne, checking to make sure she didn’t need anything. But Anne couldn’t help her. No one could. Lexi covered her face with the cotton moon throw and drifted back to sleep.
When Lexi woke again, it took her a moment to remember where she was: At home. In bed. On a Thursday night; she’d somehow managed to lose another full day.
Eyes closed, she tested the stone in the middle of her chest. It was still there. Still heavy. But this time, when she pushed against it, it moved, just a little. She tested it again, and she realized it wasn’t stone. Just heavy plaster. Like the waterlogged drywall in the back room of the store.
So, what was her game plan? Was she going to stay in bed forever? Wait for Anne to see through her lying texts? Or was she going to pull up her big-girl pants and figure out what to do with the rest of her life?
It couldn’t be as bad as rejecting a skin graft, could it?
Lexi pushed away the cotton throw and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Pirate looked up from the mountain of clothes on the armchair in the corner.
She’d sat in that chair after sleeping with Finn, the first night she’d invited him back to the house. Finn… who had been full of determination. He’d been quiet and calm, even as he negotiated a battle plan for what he wanted—the Civil War tableaus. Her.
He’d told her she was smart. She was funny. She was good at her job. But he’d also told her she was a coward.
As if in protest, her stomach rumbled. Suddenly, Lexi was starving.
She shuffled into the kitchen and stared at her pantry shelves. There were three boxes of cereal, one guaranteed to stain the milk pink, another blue, the third the frightening color of grey when multi-colored marshmallows gave up the ghost. Her belly turned, rejecting the idea of more sugar. That ruled out Pop-Tarts too.
When had she developed such a sweet tooth? That was a silly question. She’d started eating sweet foods when she came home from the hospital, when anything with a hint of spice seared the soft tissues of her throat. The damage from the fire had eventually healed, but her love of sugar had remained.
Another refuge. Another cocoon.
She didn’t want sweet now. She wanted eggs. Scrambled eggs cooked in butter, smothered in cheddar cheese and served over toast. She glanced at the clock. It was 9:47 p.m. Anne had closed the diner hours ago.
Well, she didn’t need Anne to make her scrambled eggs.
She collected her purse and her car keys. The grocery store in town was closed. The gas station out on the Pike didn’t carry anything that wasn’t processed, packaged, and sealed to last a hundred years.
Fine. She’d drive to Winchester. She squeezed her keychain with determination, wincing a little as the crescent-moon fob pressed into her palm. The gift from her mother reminded her she could do anything, once she put her mind to it.
In the end, she didn’t start cooking until almost midnight. She cracked three eggs into a bowl and beat them until they were frothy. She added salt and pepper. A little more pepper. She didn’t have a cheese grater—she’d never needed one before—but she cut thick slices of cheddar cheese into cubes.
A knob of butter in the pan. Pan on the burner.
And she froze.
She had never used this stove. Oh, she’d eaten home-cooked food before. Chris had cooked for her on a regular basis, before he’d left for DC. And Anne had made a number of dinners here over the years. Mom had even made a few things, soups and stews that she’d stored in easy, microwaveable packages.
But this was it. Time to cook for herself.
Her hand trembled as she pressed in the knob. She caught her breath and turned it all the way to the right, to the bright red letters that said LITE. All she had to do was let go of the knob, let the burner fire to life, let the butter melt.
She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t release the flame. She twisted the knob back to OFF.
What had Finn said? She was terrified to cook in her own house.
He was wrong, though. He had to be wrong.
She grabbed the knob again. Turned it to LITE. Relaxed her hand so it could spring into position.
Tick.
The stove was alive.
Tick.
The burner would get her.
Tick.
The smell of gas tightened her throat.
Tick.
She couldn’t do this, couldn’t stand here, couldn’t wait—
Shush.
The burner lit. Her wrist cocked, automatically dialing the flame back to medium, almost to low. The terrifying ticking stopped, and she clattered her frying pan onto the burner, flattening the blue fire.
It took less time than she expected to melt the butter. The eggs cooked up faster too. The cheese took a while to melt; she had to stir a lot to make it spread through the scrambled curds.
But in less than five minutes, she was through with the stovetop. She turned the knob to OFF, allowing herself to double-check, to triple-check that the flame had died away.
She’d forgotten to make toast, but that didn’t matter. She scooped the eggs onto a plate and shoveled up an enormous forkful. She blew once, twice, sending curls of steam over her hand.
The eggs melted in her mouth, creamy and soft and savory all at the same time. They were the best scrambled eggs she’d ever eaten in her life. She laughed and scooped up another forkful, another and another.
And when she was done, after she’d run water over her plate, she wanted to share her success with someone. She could call Anne, even though it was the middle of the night, even though she’d wake her best friend. She could reach out to Chris in DC; he might still be awake. She could email her parents, let them know the milestone she’d passed.
But she didn’t want any of them.
She wanted Finn.
But she couldn’t call him. Not after she’d called him a liar an
d a coward and a cheat. Not after she’d forced him out of her life forever.
Finn climbed out of his truck five minutes shy of 0800, only stopping long enough to make sure he had his forms in order. The hospital’s automatic doors whooshed open as he approached. This time, he knew which floor he needed. He’d memorized the twists and turns in the hallways.
The receptionist glanced up from her computer as he stepped into the waiting room. She looked calm, relaxed. She’d probably been there fifteen minutes. He could have come in sooner.
“Mr. Finnegan, right?” she said.
He shouldn’t breathe easier just because she’d remembered his name. That was her job. But it did make it simpler to hand over the forms. She remembered him because he had a right to be here. He was doing the right thing. Even if it felt wrong, even if every fiber of his body told him to get the hell out, to get back to his truck, that there was nothing wrong with him, nothing he couldn’t handle with hard work and mental discipline.
I’m doing the right thing, he repeated to himself. That’s what all the handouts said. That’s what the Army had drilled into him when they cut him loose. He just hadn’t listened to them before. Hadn’t thought he needed to.
But Lexi had changed all that. Lexi had called him on his bullshit. She’d called him a liar and a coward, and for the first time in his life, he hadn’t had any way to respond.
Except he could prove her wrong. He could prove he was willing to take the steps that needed to be taken. He could haul his ass down to the VA and do what he should have done before he ever left Afghanistan, fill out the papers, get the ball rolling toward returning to civilian life.
The receptionist sifted through the pages like she’d seen them a thousand times before. Which she had, he knew. Not his papers, but papers from men like him, men who had served.
She shuffled a few pages, moving one from the back to somewhere in the middle. She shook her head when she reached a particular document, setting it on her desk and reaching for a pen. “You forgot to sign this one.”