by R.S. Grey
Once they finished making breakfast, we took seats around the table and I tore into the pancakes, appreciating every maple syrup-covered bite.
“What do you have planned for today?” my dad asked the table.
“I think I'm going to work on the garden,” I replied.
He nodded. “It's a good day for it. We could clear some of the beds and then head up to the store for some planting soil.”
“I can help,” Chase offered.
I was staring down at my eggs, but I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye. Gardening was the one thing my mom and I had done together before she passed away. My most vivid memory of her being happy was when we gardened, so to bring Chase into that equation seemed like I was somehow stomping on her memory.
I tightened my hold on my fork as they waited for me to respond. I couldn’t say no. It would raise too many questions and I didn't feel like explaining my convoluted reasoning to anyone.
“Actually, I just remembered I have some homework I need to finish. Maybe I’ll start on the garden next week.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chase
As far back as I could remember, my dad had always worked on Sundays. It was his day to finish repairs and catch up on paperwork, but when I pulled up into a vacant parking spot in front of the shop, the lights were off and the door was locked. I popped the lock and strolled inside to find evidence of his recent departure. There was an empty pizza box with a receipt taped to the front. It was only two days old, so at least I knew he was alive. He couldn’t return my calls, but he could order a pizza.
I tossed the empty box into the trash along with a few empty beer cans, and then checked the office’s computer for recent repair requests. He’d always kept them on a simple excel sheet. His usual turnaround time for a job was two weeks so he’d have time to order any necessary parts. The most recent jobs on the excel sheet were all a month or two old and not a single one of them had been finished.
I printed out the sheet of unfinished repair requests and pushed my way into the back room. Tools and appliances littered the floor. A box of mismatched parts lay forgotten in the corner. I kicked it aside and started clearing out a workspace. The repair requests weren’t complicated; two blenders, a washing machine, and a refrigerator were on the top of the list. I assessed the damage and started to draw up an order form for parts. My dad had been ordering from the same distributor for the last ten years and I knew they wouldn’t question my scratchy signature at the bottom of the order form.
After I’d managed to get the recent repairs in order, I tore open the stack of deliveries behind the counter. My dad had managed to carry the packages inside, but he hadn’t taken the time to open a single one.
I took inventory of the parts and matched them with the appliances in the back room. I spent my entire day trying to catch up on the work my dad was obviously neglecting, and as I locked up in the dark, I knew my effort was in vain. I could come back every Sunday, but until my dad got his act together, the shop would suffer. There was no point trying to fight it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chase
That night I passed up invitations from Connor and Brian so I could stay at Lilah's house. I sat in her backyard on the swing beneath the oak tree that faced the back of the house. It was hung for a child, too low to the ground for me to go very high. I used my foot to push off the ground, rocking the swing back and then letting gravity carry me forward again. Harvey lay on the grass at the foot of the tree, content to study me as I studied the yard.
The dormant flowerbeds scattered across the yard were as much a part of my childhood as they were Lilah’s. I’d beg and beg to taste the strawberries every season and one time, when I’d assumed Lilah was busy across the yard, I’d reached down and yanked the biggest one off the vine. Just as the sweet juice slipped across my tongue, the sharp sting of cold water hit the side of my face. Lilah had turned the hose on me and I’d learned my lesson.
I sat out on the swing until it started to rain, but I didn’t care. It was the lazy kind of rain that couldn’t catch me on the swing; the fat drops were too slow. I kept pushing myself back and forth, letting my mind wander to my mom. It’d been raining the last time I’d talked to her. It was the night of the annual summer carnival up at the school. My dad and I were leaving early to help with setup and I’d almost left the house without telling her bye. I thought about that a lot lately, how it’d been such a fluke. She’d caught me at the bottom of the stairs, just as I was about to walk out the door.
“Chase, make sure your dad doesn’t lift anything too heavy. He threw his back out last year setting up the dunking booth.”
I rolled my eyes and nodded, anxious to get to my friends, but she caught my arm.
“Be good,” she said, tapping the brim of my baseball cap with her finger.
I smiled, despite the cap falling down to cover my eyes.
It wasn’t an official goodbye. She hadn’t told me she’d loved me, but I didn’t focus on that. I knew how much she loved me. She’d told me every day.
For months after that night, the what-ifs had kept me awake at night. What if she'd never gone back home from the carnival? What if the ambulance had arrived faster?
I wasn’t the only one battling a losing fight against what-ifs. My dad had started drinking the day of the funeral and he’d never stopped. Death can do strange things to people. It can turn a man I'd admired my whole life into a guy I’d avoid if I saw him on the street.
Elaine Calloway had stolen both of my parents from me. Maybe I should have hated Lilah for being a part of her, but I couldn’t. Lilah was good. She was beautiful and she created beauty with her garden. Out of such terrible things, the muck and the mud, Lilah had come to be. Life had done its best to stomp her back into dust, but I wouldn't let it happen.
Her light flickered off in her room, replaced with the glow from her lamp. I watched her silhouette move in front of the window and I realized that whatever love my mom had held for Elaine was the same love that tied me to Lilah.
I pushed off the swing as rain continued to hammer down around me. Harvey hopped up and followed me as I headed inside, up the stairs, and toward Lilah's room. Her door was cracked open and through the space between her door and the doorframe, I could see her reading on her bed. I knocked gently and then pushed the door open a crack. Harvey pushed it open even more and ran straight for her, resting his damp snout next to her pillow.
She smiled and flipped her book down onto her chest to mark her page.
“He's all wet,” she said, glancing over at me.
I rested my head on the doorframe. “We were outside when the storm started.”
She nodded, dragging her hand up Harvey's snout, over his head and behind his ears.
I thought of asking her about the book she was reading, but I had something I needed to do.
I turned and headed into the room across the hall, closing the door after Harvey had followed me inside. It was late, but that didn't stop me from pulling my phone out of my pocket to call my dad. I figured he might be awake, but after it rang and rang and he still didn't answer, I left a message.
“Hey Dad, this is Chase. I haven't talked to you for a few days so I wanted to catch up and see how you were doing. Everything's good at Lilah's house, but I was wondering if we could go to dinner or something this week. Give me a call back if you get this.”
I hung up and stared down at my phone, wondering if he'd ever be sober enough to check that message. Probably not. I tightened my fist around the cheap phone and then threw it onto my bed. It bounced off and hit the stack of boxes in the corner, the boxes I tried to avoid.
I bent to retrieve it and caught sight of Elaine’s name scrawled in Sharpie across the bottom box. It was there every time I glanced at the boxes, a daily reminder of the woman I hated most in life. I took a pen from my desk and scratched at her name, covering it with angry black strokes until I couldn’t read it any more.
She didn’t deserve to be remembered, not by me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lilah
Lunch was the hour that had brought me the most anxiety during my first week back in Blackwater. Our school’s cafeteria was small, suffocating, and operated like the English class system. I avoided it at all costs, opting instead to explore my options. The women’s bathroom proved quiet, but smelly. The locker room was comfortable, but awkward when the junior girls had to change for P.E. Eventually, I’d stumbled upon the nature center in the back of the school and had fallen in love. None of the other students ventured out there unless they were required to go for a science class. It felt like a hidden gem that only I knew about, my own secret garden.
The school did a terrible job of maintaining it, but that made it even better. The overgrown trees and shrubs concealed me away as I traversed the short path toward the bench I’d designated as my lunch spot since the Friday before. No one knew I was out there—not Ashley or Trent—so when I heard a twig snap behind me, my heart kicked into overdrive. I froze and twisted around to find Chase standing in the clearing behind me, holding his hands up in surrender. His worn jeans and old raglan t-shirt pushed up to his elbows only seemed to enhance his harmlessness.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked before taking a hesitant step forward.
Truthfully, I didn’t want company, but he was already there, stepping toward my bench. He’d already infiltrated my secret hideout, so there was no point in pushing him back out. I shrugged and turned for the bench to take a seat.
My ears perked up as I listened to him approach. He stepped around the bench to take a seat beside me, momentarily replacing the scent of nature with his cologne. I gave myself two deep breaths before I forced myself to think of something else, like the field of wildflowers in front of me, overgrown with bright red petals.
“Second week back and you’re already breaking rules?” he asked.
I ignored him and pulled out my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“Why do you eat lunch out here?” he asked, staring out at the field alongside me.
“So people like you won't talk to me,” I answered with a little smile so he’d know I wasn’t a total bitch—just enough of one.
He laughed and I fought to keep my gaze off him. “Y'know, my favorite thing about you is your charm. I don’t think you get enough credit for how charming you are.”
I chewed on my lip, trying to interpret if he was being sarcastic or not. Either way, I relented.
Tilting my head toward him, I answered, “I don’t really want to sit in the cafeteria for an hour every day.”
“But your friends are in there,” he pointed out, trying to get to the real explanation.
“Friends is a relative term,” I answered, picking up a small stick from the bench and tossing it out onto the ground.
He smirked. “Yeah, they kind of suck.”
“Eff you, those are my friends…” I said with a smirk.
I hadn't talked to any of them since Sasha’s party on Saturday. I'd avoided the stoner-tree and Trent’s texts. It felt good to have a break from pretending to like people.
“Am I your friend?”
I picked a particularly bright poppy and focused on it like my life depended on it.
“That word never really worked for you,” I admitted, feeling my heart rate quicken.
He nodded. “It wasn't enough.”
The weight of his words threatened to undo the tiny string that tied my heart together.
“Or it was too much.”
“You know, in a lot of ways, I still know you better than anyone,” he continued.
I hiked up my brows and turned to face him. His gaze was focused on the flowers, but that grin was ever present.
“Why do you think that?” I asked, curious about why he still felt connected to me after all these years. I was nothing like the girl that he’d known back then.
“I've seen you cry and laugh and throw fits. I've seen you naked,” he laughed.
I hated that I blushed when he admitted that, but I was helpless to stop the reaction.
“When I was like seven...” I reasoned, trying to point out the flaw in his thinking.
“Yeah, but I’ll bet you still have that little freckle on your left butt cheek,” he declared, turning toward me with a sly grin. I decided to play his game.
“And I’ll bet you’re still the same size down there that you were then.”
He tossed his head back and laughed, a loud, rich laugh that tugged at the corners of my mouth.
“It wasn’t that long ago that we were best friends. What changed?”
I backpedaled, scared of the guilt creeping its way up my throat. “What are you talking about? Everything changed.”
Silence fell after that and I knew I'd hurt him. I never seemed to know how to handle myself around him since my mother’s death. Instead of apologizing, I tore off half of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and held it out to him. It was an apology wedged between two slices of white bread, and he took it.
Chapter Thirty
Lilah
After school on Tuesday, I didn’t walk home; I headed in the direction of my mom’s old apartment. It was on the other side of Main Street, where the houses were a little smaller and the tenants were more rough around the edges. After she’d left when I was seven, she’d moved into a one-bedroom apartment that smelled like bleach every time I went over to visit on Saturday afternoons. My dad would drop me off at her door, only leaving when he was sure I was safely inside. From there, I had five unsupervised hours with her.
She was never genuinely happy to see me. At the time, I hadn’t noticed, too blinded by my own excitement to pick up on the subtle signs. She'd turn on the TV, plant me on the couch, and then go in the other room and talk on the phone or flip through a magazine—anything to avoid me.
A year or two into our Saturday afternoon visits, there was a knock on her apartment door. I was coloring in the living room and even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to, I peered over. There was a man standing at the threshold, pressing the door open with his hand. A cigarette hung between his lips and a scar stretched from his eyelid down to the top of his lip. Small scabs were littered across his cheeks and chin. They looked like the scabs I got when I scratched too much at a mosquito bite. I wondered how he could have managed to get so many bites just as he bent down to grip my mother’s neck in his hand.
His cigarette fell to the floor, burning ash into the fake wood as I jumped up to stop him. I wanted to scream at him to leave her alone, but she waved behind her back, warning me away. I clenched my fists, trying to think of what to do. The phone was in the kitchen and I couldn’t figure out a way to sneak past without him noticing.
I stood scared and frozen in the living room as he bent low and whispered something only she could hear. She pleaded with him, begging for more time. Then as quickly as he’d arrived, he unwrapped his hand from my mother’s neck and left. When she shut the door, I swiveled back to stare at the TV, trying to pretend like the last few minutes had never happened. I picked up my crayon and tried to make my hand stop shaking. She walked into the living room and turned the TV off. The screen faded to black as she told me she had to leave. I asked her over and over again where she was going, but she ignored me as she gathered up my coloring books and shoved them inside my backpack. I wanted to yell at her for crinkling the pages. I wanted her to stop pushing me out the door.
I cradled my toys and snacks in my arms as she gave me orders to sit at the curb of her apartment complex until my dad came to pick me up. Then she disappeared inside her old red car. There was a giant dent on the back, near the bumper; I stared at it as she pulled away. My bottom lip quivered as the car got smaller and smaller in the distance, but I couldn’t cry. If I cried, someone would think I needed help and my mom would get in trouble.
I had to be a grownup.
For an hour, I sat on the cement with my coloring
book unopened on my lap. Any time someone would walk by, I’d tell them that my mom had run back to the apartment to grab something so they wouldn’t think I was alone. I was thirsty, but I didn’t want to finish my Capri Sun; I wasn’t sure how long she’d be gone.
When my father arrived a few hours later, I tried to lie and say my mother had just left, but he wouldn’t listen. He was in an absolute rage to find me alone and locked out of my mother's apartment. I begged him not to do anything, but that was the last time he let me go see my mom for a visit. The court rescinded her visitation rights without contest. I wished I knew what had pulled her away from me that day, who or what had been more important than her flesh and blood.
I walked along the sidewalk and then stood across the street from her apartment complex. The building had been worn down when she’d lived there, but it’d become condemnable in the years since. Trash littered the ground and most of the windows were duct-taped and boarded up. Weeds had claimed ownership of the yard a while back but no one seemed to mind. My hand itched to clear them out, but there was no point. If no one cared that they were there, no one would care when they were gone.
I was about to cross the street to get a closer look when I heard my name.
“Lilah?”
I turned to find Trent standing outside of a house a little farther down the street. He was at the top of the stairs, holding the screen door open and narrowing his eyes in confusion. It took me a second to connect the two worlds. I hadn’t noticed her apartment the last time I’d been at his house.
“I forgot you lived over here.”
He nodded and let the screen door slam closed behind him. We met in the middle of his sidewalk and then turned toward the direction of my mom’s old apartment. We stared in silence for a moment and then he spoke up.