I looked down at my feet and closed my eyes tightly as I shook my head to psychically block Dylan out. The worst part was that he definitely believed what he was saying. I could hear it in his voice. Dylan honestly believed that he was going to lose his best friend over this. It made me feel guilty and helpless and cruel. I didn’t want to deprive my brother of his best friend.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I finally managed to say. “But what can I possibly do about it?”
Dylan barked a sour laugh that sounded nothing like him at all. “Dump him right now?”
My lips parted in total disbelief. “Jesus Dylan. No.”
“Ok, that’s fair. How about later this afternoon?” he asked hopefully.
“No. Absolutely not. I’m not arranging my romantic life for your peace of mind. Especially because I think you’re dead wrong about all of this. If and when Charlie and I break up, we are fully capable of handling things in a way that won’t result in you needing to go on the macho-man warpath. You won’t lose anything. You won’t lose your friend.”
“Then I might lose you.” His voice was very quiet. Just above a whisper. I almost thought I’d imagined what he said for a second.
“You can’t lose me. I’m your sister. You’re stuck with me no matter what. I’ll be annoying you for the rest of your life. And possibly the afterlife.”
Although I couldn’t see Dylan, I could easily imagine what he looked like when he sighed again a moment later. He would have taken his glasses off and folded them in front of him. His light brown eyebrows would be drawn tightly together, and he had probably messed up his hair until it looked awful by shaking his head and running his fingers through it repeatedly. He’d be sitting with his nose trapped between his thumb and forefinger as he fought off a headache.
“You won’t change your mind, will you?”
“No. You can’t convince me that this is a bad idea. I’m happy.”
“Right now, you’re happy, sure.” His voice was uncharacteristically bitter. It bothered me a bit that he was so sure our happiness couldn’t last.
“Well shouldn’t that matter? Shouldn’t you be at least the slightest bit glad for us? Can’t you try and be happy that Charlie and I are happy?”
My hopeful questions prompted a long, uncomfortable silence.
“I guess.” Dylan’s words did not match his tone whatsoever.
“Please try not to be stressed out about this. We’re fine. Everything is fine. Better than fine. Everything is great.”
“Ok.” Dylan’s voice could not have sounded less convinced. He was also down to monosyllabic answers only. Neither were signs that I’d made progress with him. It was time to change the subject.
“Are you still going to come help me look at cars this weekend?” I asked hopefully. I knew Charlie or Meredith or Thomas would go with me if I asked, but I’d rather have Dylan. He knew a lot about cars.
“Yeah. Text me.” The way my brother was responding, you’d have thought I just shot his dog, not decided to date his friend.
My patience with his whining was giving me a headache.
“Great. Talk to you later.”
I hung up the phone and turned back to face Charlie. He’d been watching the entire exchange from his little desk area at his townhouse. His expression looked just as tense as I imagined that Dylan looked. I probably looked no more relaxed, but I forced my face into a calm, relaxed smile. There was no need to take my anxiety out on Charlie.
“It went fine,” I assured him. “It went much better than I expected.”
His expression betrayed his skepticism, but he held out his arms to me and I melted into them with such enthusiasm he mustered a real smile. His arms around my waist felt wonderful. I should have had the entire conversation wrapped in his arms.
“You handled that really well,” he told me, his voice muffled somewhat by my midsection since he was seated, and I was standing up. “Better than I would have for sure. You stayed calm. You sounded reasonable.”
“Then why do I feel so bad?” I asked after a moment to reflect on it. I pushed my hair back from my forehead in frustration and realized I was somewhat sweaty from all the stress. Gross! I pulled back from Charlie’s arms and sat next to him on the desk.
“This whole situation sucks. I don’t want to make Dylan sad. I don’t want you to feel guilty. I just want all three of us to be happy.”
He nodded and nuzzled my neck with his forehead, finding a comfortable spot between my clavicle and shoulder to rest his head. “I know,” he said, “but I don’t regret anything about being with you.”
“Me neither.”
The last few days had been like a dream. Charlie and I had been spending every spare moment with each other, and although it still never felt quite like I was getting enough time with him, the time we did have was wonderful. Being with him was incredibly, almost ridiculously easy; I was addicted. It was like we were made for each other.
Charlie was intent on showing me the city. We’d hit up all the major landmarks over the weekend, and just as many little secret things that only locals knew about. He promised we’d barely scratched the surface of the things he wanted to share with me.
It was a lot of fun seeing the city of Philadelphia through Charlie’s eyes, but I’d be lying if I pretended that sight seeing was anything other than an excuse to be near him. All I really wanted to do was be next to him, touch him, and be touched. In between our excursions around the city, we found ample time for our real favorite pastime: sex. I’d never realized I had such a voracious appetite until now.
I was about to suggest that Charlie and I take a mid afternoon ‘nap’ to escape from the Dylan issue for a while when his phone buzzed.
“Fuck,” he swore when he glanced at it. He looked at me, down at his phone, and then back at me. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve got something I have to do.”
“An emergency? Your mom?”
He nodded and rose, grabbing his keys from the desk and patting his pockets to make sure he didn’t forget anything. His mind was clearly ahead of his body. Mentally he was already out the door.
“I’ll drive you back right now,” he told me, but I shook my head.
“I’ll call a ride. You’ve got an emergency. Go.”
He equivocated for a moment and I repeated myself confidently and pointed at the door like I might with Alexander when he disobeyed. Charlie nodded.
“Ok. Thanks.” He said.
“You’ll tell me what this is about later?” I asked as he put on his coat.
He nodded again, but his mind was somewhere else. He snapped back just long enough to come over and kiss me passionately. His tongue fought against mind for a few blissful, sweet seconds. There was a desperate edge to it that I couldn’t understand but certainly didn’t mind. When he pulled back, we were both breathless.
“Sorry. I have to go right now,” he repeated. “Will you lock the door and go out the back?”
“Yes. Of course. It’s ok. Go on. Bye.”
I watched him dash outside and get in his car. Outside, the third snowstorm of the fall was beginning. The snowflakes were the huge, wet, sticky variety that made the world look like a greeting card. It was a day for staying inside, wearing sweaters, and snuggling. Thoughts of curling up in front of a fire with Charlie and a cup of hot chocolate filled my thoughts during the short wait and long Uber drive back out to the Durant mansion.
Feeling more than a bit cheated out of my afternoon with Charlie, when I hopped out of the Uber I waved to Isaac who was out raking leaves. It looked like he was trying to get the last of the fall detritus cleaned up before winter really set in. One had to admire his dedication for bagging leaves when it was snowing. I trudged up the steps to the main house and was almost at the door when a strangled cry from behind me pulled me back.
“Jesus Christ!” Isaac was repeating over and over when I trotted to his side a moment later. He
was laying on the ground in the newly fallen snow.
At first I thought he had twisted his ankle or dislocated something by accident while he was working, but the look on his face was so ashen as I got closer, I wondered if it wasn’t a more serious injury.
“Isaac, what happened?” I asked, visually assessing him from head to toe and seeing nothing significant out of place. Maybe he was having abdominal pain? Or a panic attack? He was clearly on the edge of hyperventilating.
“Take deep, slow breaths,” I told him sternly, and he struggled to comply.
He continued to mumble “Jesus Christ” intermittently, but after a few breaths he raised a trembling arm to point at the pile of leaves he’d been bagging up. I followed his attention in confusion. The leaves had frightened him?
Then I saw it. Partially concealed and almost camouflaged by the damp, red and brown fallen leaves, the feet and legs of a man were sticking out of the leaf pile.
I inched closer to the feet, one step, the two. For just the barest second, I wondered if someone was just playing a prank on Isaac. Then, when I was about three feet from the legs, the smell hit me. It would have been concealed by the frozen leaves and general cold, but now that it was uncovered, the dank, fetid smell of human putrefaction hit me full on and I retched involuntarily. I managed to avoid actually vomiting, but Isaac’s gag response was triggered by my own and I heard him loose his lunch behind me.
There was a dead body buried in the leaves on the lawn of the Durant mansion. And we’d all been walking right past it— past him—for what smelled like a very long time.
19
Charlie
“Does it hurt?” I asked. My mom shook her head and smiled at me with an embarrassed, uncomfortable look on her face. She flushed pink.
“I’m fine, Charlie. Really. You didn’t have to rush over like this.” Her voice was weaker than I liked to hear.
And her answer was also bullshit. She could have died.
“You fell down the stairs! If Mary Ellen hadn’t heard you, if she hadn’t been home or hadn’t cared, if she hadn’t known to call me…” I trailed off in horror. The text I’d received from my mom’s upstairs neighbor had been both urgent and vague enough to give me a near heart-attack. I hoped I hadn’t said anything too embarrassing to Eva on my way out the door.
My mom had managed to fall on the stairs in such an improbable way that she found herself wedged between a piece of furniture and the wall of the landing. She wasn’t seriously hurt from the fall, save a large bruise I could see rising on her arm, but she wasn’t able to reach anything to help her get up. She couldn’t even reach her phone. The weird, surgical girdle she’d been fitted with to help her heal from the reconstruction restricted her range of motion. On top of it all, she was just generally weak and tired from being poked and prodded all week by every doctor under the sun. It had taken me thirty seconds to pick her up and make her comfortable again, but she’d been laying on the ground for almost an hour before I arrived.
I hung my head in shame. She looked fine now, but my stomach was still in knots over all the what ifs.
“I should have been over here more often over the past week,” I told her. She shook her head as if that was ridiculous, but I knew it was true.
“You’ve been here practically every day,” she replied with a roll of her dark eyes. “Stop being such a nervous wreck. It’s stressing me out. The pain medication made me dizzy, that’s all.”
I gritted my teeth. “I would be less nervous if you would agree to let me take you to urgent care to look you over.”
She rolled her eyes at me and reached up to push my hair back over my forehead affectionately. “Nice try. There’s nothing to look over though— I’m totally fine. I was just wedged in that corner like sardines in a can. What a ridiculous way to fall. I’m embarrassed much more than I’m hurt.”
“Your arm—"
“My arm is fine.”
“It could be broken.”
“Then how am I using it perfectly normally?”
“Well then it could be sprained.”
“It doesn’t even hurt. It feels normal.”
“Maybe it’s a hairline fracture?”
“That would hurt a lot more than this does.”
“What about the bruise?”
“What about it? It’s only a bruise.”
“You should have it looked at by a professional.”
“Do you have any idea how many bruises I treated on you as a kid? You were constantly getting in scrapes, fights, falling off things. Constantly. I’m lucky no one ever called child services you played so rough. When it comes to bruises, I am a professional.”
“Yes, but—"
“Charlie, honey, you’re being irrational.” She was getting frustrated, but she was still smiling. I think she found my anxiousness vaguely amusing. “Please just calm down.”
“But your medication made you dizzy. Maybe the dose is too high.”
“Or more likely it’s one of the normal side effects like it says right there on the bottle.”
“But—"
“But nothing. I’m fine. I just need to be more careful. I appreciate you coming over. I appreciate you prying your poor, infirm, uncoordinated mother out of her bizarre predicament. I appreciate everything you have done and continue to do for me Charlie. You’re the absolute best son in the world and I love you. But right now, I’d really appreciate it if you would lay off.”
The fact that her characteristic snarky attitude had returned was the clearest indicator so far that she was uninjured. I bit back my next attempt to persuade her. It was a lost cause anyway.
“Can I get you something? Do you need anything?” I asked instead.
She sighed dramatically. “Yes. I need you to bring over the girl you’re seeing. I’d like to meet her.”
I felt my face freeze. My pulse rate jumped so forcefully my head pulsed with it. “Huh?”
“The girl. The one you’ve been seeing? I want to meet her.” She was still using her snarky voice, but I could tell she was dead serious.
“How did you…” The question died on my lips at her satisfied smirk.
“You just told me, that’s how,” she answered unnecessarily. Then her haughty, arch look softened into fondness. “And also, because you seem happier and less stressed than you have in ages, even with my surgery. I’m so glad for you that you found someone you really like. You deserve that. You know I just want you to be happy.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say in response. Was I really behaving so differently? It’s true I was waking up with a big, stupid grin on my face each morning. And that my horrible, nonstop schedule felt much less obnoxious when I had Eva to look forward to. I was even more productive lately since I was in an absurdly good mood.
“What’s this lovely lady’s name?” My mom pressed. She was looking at me inquisitively. I hadn’t brought a girl home in years, actually closer to a decade now. I was badly out of practice with these types of conversations and seemed to have regressed to teenage awkwardness immediately. Still, it was a simple enough question.
“Her name is Eva.”
“That’s a nice name. What does Eva do for a living?” My mom looked positively delighted to discuss this. It was the happiest I’d seen her in ages. Her enthusiasm was contagious, too. I felt myself smiling back at her.
“She’s a nurse. She’s working for the Durant family right now as a private caretaker for the old man.”
“A nurse? How nice. Is that how you met her, through work?”
My tension returned in a rush. “No. I’ve known her for a long time, actually. Eva is Dylan’s younger sister.”
My mom digested that for about half a second. “Well then you know she has good values and comes from a good family. I’ve always liked Dylan.”
I nodded warily. My mom’s easy approval of Eva made me feel frightened for some reason. Maybe it was because she looked so incredibly happy to see me dating. What i
f things didn’t work out with Eva? Would that make my mom sad?
My insecure self-reflection would need to be delayed, however, because the home phone started ringing. Yes, my mom still had a home phone attached to landline. She was sixty-five and unwilling to give it up. She tried to get up to answer it, but I was faster. I didn’t want her moving around yet. Her ancient wireless headset still didn’t have caller ID. I made a mental note to replace it and handed her the phone.
“Townsend residence,” my mom answered cheerily. She was already naming future grandchildren. I could see it on her face. A moment later, however, her expression shifted. Whomever was on the other end caused her to pull the phone away from her ear and stare at it distrustfully. My mom made the same face at the receiver that she would if someone had cut her off in the supermarket, probably right before flipping them off and snapping at them. Clearly the caller had just been rude to her.
“Hold on just a moment,” mom told the caller. Her voice was icy. “It’s for you,” she said to me.
The look on her face said it all. Only one person I knew was obnoxious enough to turn my mom’s mood so quickly. I already knew who it was going to be, but I tried to sound neutral when I answered.
“This is Charlie Townsend.”
“Get here right now,” Richard’s voice came through the line with a furious edge. I could hear the wail of sirens in the background. Lots of sirens. “We’ve got a dead nurse and a metric shit-ton of first responder types at the house. Some moron called the police. The media will be here soon. Your phone was dead. I’ve been trying to reach you for twenty minutes. Get. Here. Now. Manage the goddamn crisis. That’s your job.”
Dead nurse? Eva. Fuck!
I must have replied to Richard, hung up the phone, said goodbye to my mom, and left out the front door. I must have jogged the two blocks to my car, gotten in, and drove out of the city. I know I must have done all those things in some sort of panicked trance state because the next thing I was aware of, I was flying down the highway at one hundred and six miles per hour.
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