Seven Sins

by Piper Lennox

  “This woman truly thought she’d never see her daughter again, Van. If she needs time to adjust to the idea, it’s not our place to force it.”

  I cursed and thought about punching a wall, but took some deep breaths instead. My lungs wanted a cigarette, but I was already a month off them and knew I’d regret it. That, and Dad would put my head through the wall I’d left intact.

  During our long drive back to Brooklyn, my patience held steady.

  But as soon as we finished showing Allison her new place, the guard dog barked.

  “Why don’t you want to see her?”

  Her brow furrowed as she turned from the window. Dad was in the hall on his phone, and I saw her eyes flit to the open door with mild panic.

  I deep-breathed until my volume lowered, even if it couldn’t fix my tone. I didn’t want to scare her off, but I was angry. Furious.

  Every minute we stood here, chatting like everything was normal, was another minute Juniper spent on the road thinking she had nobody in this world.

  She was leaving Juni motherless.

  “How can you not be ready to see her? After seven years? Christ, I’ve been without her less than seven weeks, and I’m falling apart.” I shut my eyes. It didn’t help; when I paced back and looked at her, everything blurred.

  Allison pressed her lips together and stared at the floor. “I don’t want her to see me like this—looking and sounding exactly how I did the last time we saw each other. I want her to know, when I tell her I’m different now...that I mean it.”

  My feet froze. In the dust we’d rattled from the shelves and floorboards, moving in the furniture from Dad’s guestroom-turned-nursery, I stared at her.

  I nodded.

  In the end, that was exactly the right thing for Allison to say to me—the perfect phrasing so I’d understand why she couldn’t see Juni yet. It was no different than what I’d done, finding her mom and relegating myself to more time on Wes’s air mattress.

  The next time we told Juni we were sorry, we wanted her to see for herself how far we’d go to prove it.

  We got to know each other the same way Juni and I did: one piece at a time.

  I told Allison about my childhood, all my dumb mistakes; she told me about hers. It made more sense, how she fell in with Unity Light, when I learned she was a runaway teen with a heroin addiction.

  A lot of the interviews I’d seen had that theme. The cult recruited vulnerable, lost people the most. It bolstered their congregation, so that the families they lured in later—homeowners with savings to drain and assets to sign over—would get overwhelmed with welcoming smiles and grateful testimony.

  When I shared what I knew of her daughter now, she told me stories from when Juni was little. How she was once chosen to take their reverend’s place, then cast aside on a whim.

  I told her I fell in love with her daughter, but messed it up. I hadn’t trusted her enough.

  She surprised me by saying Juni messed up, too.

  “I can certainly understand why talking about it would be hard,” she sighed, pouring me another cup of tea I hadn’t asked for, “but she needed to trust you enough to tell you everything. Not just glimpses. And it sounds like she wouldn’t let herself do that.”

  “Yeah, well.” I flicked a sugar cube off the plate she held out for me, watching it splash into my tea and sink. “It’s not like I gave her much of a reason to trust me, the way I treated her those first couple weeks on the road. And her last few weeks at the ranch, when I assumed everything she said was a lie.”

  I paused. “When she stole from my dad, it felt like that verified everything. But maybe I left her feeling like she had no choice. Living up to expectations, or whatever.” I definitely knew how that felt. Most of the trouble I got in as a kid was because everyone around me held their breath, waiting for me to get into it.

  “She stole from your father?”

  Strangely, Allison didn’t look crushed at this revelation about her baby girl. Just curious.

  Hesitating, I explained the missing credit cards, the strategically ordered skateboard, and how Juni took cash advances against the cards before leaving them in the stables to frame me.

  No, I reminded myself. To buy herself time.

  Allison smiled, her eyes getting glassy.

  “What?”

  She sniffed and blinked, shaking her head. “Nothing. It’s just.... A few months after Juni ran away from Crown Plains, she came back for me.”

  My pulse bled up through my throat and into my ears. I set my cup down and watched her hands tear up the napkin in her lap.

  “I was doing Daily Acts,” she said, then rolled her eyes and corrected, “Work. Unpaid labor, I guess you’d call it. I was cleaning out one of the buildings near the side of the property, and suddenly…I saw Juni.”

  Her voice broke. “She was right outside the fence. She didn’t look like herself, anymore—but I knew it was her, just from the way she watched me. I snuck over after sunset and there she was, sitting against a tree. Waiting.

  “She told me she’d fixed everything. That she had some money now, and a car waiting at the base of the mountain for us. There was even...I don’t remember what it’s called....”

  I waited patiently while she described it. She forgot words a lot: anything she vaguely knew about as a teenager, but hadn’t seen or heard of since.

  “ATV,” I prompted, when she was done stumbling through its details.

  “ATV. That’s it.” She nodded, repeating it again under her breath.

  “You didn’t go with her.”

  With another sad smile, Allison motioned to herself and the apartment, as if to say, Obviously not.

  “Why?” I choked the guard dog back, even though I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to destroy her, the way I knew she destroyed Juni when she turned her away, after everything she’d done to get back to her. Returning to a place she despised. Braving the wilderness she’d nearly died in, just months earlier.

  Stealing from the people who helped her, a task I now knew must have killed her to carry out. But she had to. She had no idea that we would have just given her the money, or hired people to go get her mother for her.

  “You chose the cult over her?” I went on, chest burning with the urge to yell. I settled for using the word “cult,” which Allison always flinched at. She preferred calling the church by its new name.

  Right then, I didn’t give a shit what she preferred.

  “No,” she whispered, but the look she gave me held all the fury her volume couldn’t. “I chose her over myself.”

  The morning after Juni and her friends left, she said, their council called a meeting. They told the grieving parents to resist any urge to talk to their children. They told them they were beyond saving.

  Some of the parents were so thoroughly brainwashed, they bought into it. But, when the meeting ended, the council members pulled Allison aside and spoke to her privately. They’d seen her doubt, she said.

  “So they made me a deal. If I stayed...they’d leave Juniper alone. But if I left, or communicated with her in any way, they’d come after us both.” Allison wiped her face with a tea towel and exhaled into it, composing herself a little before adding, “Now I know those were just empty threats. But when I saw Juni, waiting for me on the other side of that fence....

  “She looked so much better, Sullivan. So healthy, and—and happy.” Her shoulders fell, all the breath stolen from her lungs when the word tumbled out.

  “I couldn’t take her life away again. Not more than I already had. I’ve spent so many years hating myself for what I did to her—having her in that place. Keeping her there, all because I couldn’t see things for how they really were.”

  I was quiet for a while, until she was calm and threw the balled-up towel back onto the tray. “There’s one good thing that came out of you joining Unity Light, though.”

  She turned a raised eyebrow on me, rightfully skeptical. While my anger issues were vastly improved,
optimism still wasn’t my thing. Pointing out a silver lining felt about as natural to me as operating a motor vehicle still was to her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Having Juniper.” I uncovered the tea pot and poured more into her cup. “She wouldn’t exist, if you hadn’t joined. Right?”

  “I suppose not.” Her smile was forced, but I saw her nerves settle.

  “So her father was in the cul—the church too, I’m guessing?”

  Allison stared at me a moment, then let her eyes fall to the coffee table. “Yes.”

  “Is he still there?” I stood, energized by this new, nebulous plan. “We can go back for him.”

  “Sit, Sullivan,” she laughed roughly, placing her hand on my arm.

  Like magic, it calmed me. Made me lower myself back to the sofa.

  “He doesn’t want her. Or me. And he’ll never leave the church. If he’s even still alive; I’m really not sure.” Allison stirred her tea and sipped.

  When I said that it was still worth trying, she touched my arm again and shook her head.

  “Trust me,” she said. “Juni’s father really is beyond saving.”

  “Just got the text from Clara.” Wes jogs into the apartment and waves his phone at me, panting. He probably bypassed the elevator for the stairs, just to get here one second faster. “They’re on their way.”

  I look at Allison. She’s dressed in a simple black dress and gray cardigan, but used some of the makeup Georgia and Clara gifted her. Her new haircut, shoulder-length with bangs, complements her face shape: just a little rounder than when we met. Healthier.

  She’s almost unrecognizable from the woman who first shook my hand in that Jersey hotel room. As hard as it was to have patience, I really do understand why she didn’t want Juniper to see her right away.

  This version of her leaves no room for doubt. She’s changed.

  I look at myself in the glass of the living room window and wonder if I’ll look any different to Juni, too...but probably not. Most of my changes were on the inside.

  Besides: that’s not what tonight is about.

  “Ten minutes,” Wes updates us, then hitches his thumb to the door. “We’re gonna head out now, so she won’t see us.”

  “Good idea.” Wes ducked out of the twins’ product launch party early to help me. If Juni catches sight of him on her way inside, she’ll know something’s up. Ditto if she spots my father.

  They go to Wes’s building to play lookout from his balcony. It’s better if they do it. My nerves have me thinking every car, every girl with blonde hair, might be her.

  “I think you’re more nervous than I am,” Allison laughs, straightening my tie. “And since I feel like I could pass out at any moment, I’m pretty worried for you.”

  “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. The thought of seeing her again has my stomach rolling.

  “You think she’ll run off, if she sees you?”

  “I know she will. That’s why the twins will be guarding the lobby.”

  Guilt churns my stomach worse than my nerves, even though we didn’t technically trick Juniper to get her here. Clara’s thing about the launch party and their company wanting to meet Juni was true. Just not the full story.

  My phone pings.

  Wes: She’s here.

  Jesus, forget passing out; I could leave my body completely right now, I’m so nervous. I show my phone to Allison, who inhales shakily, hugs me, and goes to wait on the sofa.

  The elevator hums when I shut the apartment door behind me. I press myself against the wall, hidden just out of sight.

  The doors open.

  “...just didn’t realize you lived so close to Wes, is all,” I hear Juni tell Clara. Suspicion laces her voice.

  “I don’t.” Poor Clara and her sweet, honest soul; I know this whole thing wasn’t easy for her to pull off.

  Especially this part—backing herself into the elevator when she tells Juni, “Sorry.”

  “Sorry? Wh— Hey!” Juni slaps the doors with her palms. “Clara!”

  “Don’t be mad at her.”

  Juni jumps, but doesn’t gasp. She doesn’t spin around to face me, or even glance behind her when my footsteps draw closer.

  Instead, she lets her hands slide down the smudged chrome doors, shutting her eyes when she says, “I fucking knew it.”

  Thirty-Nine

  At first, I assume Van’s laugh is because I’ve cursed. No doubt he’ll make some joke about me having a dirty mouth.

  No doubt he’ll try to sweep me into his arms and kiss me, reminding me of what his body can do to mine so I’ll forget what our hearts did to each other’s.

  But when I turn to tell him exactly why that can’t happen, I realize he laughed because he was nervous.

  He bites his lip, shifts his weight...so many little things I’ve never seen Van do. Not out of self-consciousness, at least.

  He’s in a suit that weakens my knees. His hair’s shorter, gelled and combed so neatly, he doesn’t look like himself until he runs both hands through it and sighs, messing it all up.

  “Don’t blame Clara,” he says. “The party, the meeting with her company: none of that was a lie. She really did want you there. And when she asked me if I’d be cool with you guys hanging out, the rest of this”—he gestures behind him, to a door that looks no different from the others—“just kind of...happened. Everything from here on out is my idea. So blame me.”

  “I will,” I mutter, but take my finger off the elevator button without pressing it.

  As much as it hurts to see Van, I’m so bizarrely glad he’s in front of me right now. From the minute I arrived in New York this afternoon, my heart hasn’t stopped fluttering and fissuring—a constant pull between happiness and heartbreak, just knowing we were in the same city.

  He takes my hand and pulls me to the door down the hall, but doesn’t open it.

  After pushing some hair behind my ear, he rests his hand against my face. “You’re even more beautiful than I remember.”

  “It’s been three months,” I tell him, even though my memory is kicking itself for doing the same thing: forgetting just how blue his eyes really are, and how his touch can wreck me with the softest, slowest motion.

  How his kiss can drain my lungs in mere milliseconds, but leave a stutter in my pulse that takes hours to go away.

  When he pulls back, pressing his thumbs to the tears slipping from my eyes, I shake my head.

  “I know,” he whispers.

  Slowly, he steps back.

  “That wasn’t part of my plan. Kissing you.” He touches his mouth and smiles. “Couldn’t help myself.”

  “Plan?” I ask, not because I’m surprised he has one—just because I can’t believe kissing wasn’t the very first bullet point on his list.

  “As much as I’ve been dying to see you,” he explains softly, “it’s not why I had Wes and the twins help me get you here. In fact, for once in my life, I will readily admit this isn’t about me at all.”

  My smile shocks us both, tiny as it is. “Then why did you bring me here?”

  Van wets his lips and looks at the door. He puts his hand on the knob.

  “Believe it or not,” he says, while his other hand presses on the small of my back to nudge me forward, “I found the one person on this earth who wanted to see you even more than I did.”

  Just past the threshold, Juniper stops.

  Allison stays on the sofa, even when her entire body tenses up like she wants to run to Juni and hold her, no intention of ever letting go. I know the feeling.

  But I also know I can’t begin to imagine it. Whatever’s running through Allison’s mind right now, it’s from a perspective I can’t understand.

  Quietly, I leave.

  I don’t go far. The guard dog makes me sit against the door, silent and listening in case either of them needs help.

  No, I realize. Not the guard dog. It’s just me.

  There are murmurs, and sniffling. I hear Juni ask, “
How?” and her mother laugh through her tears, “Sullivan.”

  My eyes shut. I tip my head against the door and remind myself this is the best I can—and should—hope for: that Juni gets her mom back…whether I get Juni back or not.

  Forty

  When the woman on the couch stands to tell me hello, the tears in her eyes mirroring mine, I step back. My spine presses to the door Van closed.

  The woman stops and clasps her hands in front of her, looking strangely patient. Like she’s waited for this so long already, a few moments more won’t bother her.

  “Hi,” she whispers.

  My heartbeat, already deafening when I saw Van, shakes the world around me like a sonic boom. I push off from the door and steady myself on an empty umbrella stand. “Hi.”

  Swallowing, she takes another step. Then another, until she’s right in front of me.

  I hold perfectly still as she studies me.

  “You grew up,” she says, and smiles such a broken, unsteady smile through her tears, I finally know it’s her.

  My mother hugs me like catching me from a fall. That’s how it feels, letting myself crumble against her: like I just landed here, after careening through the sky with no idea where I’d end up. Shattered from the effort of flying. Burned in the sun.

  I want to curl up in her lap like when I was little, but pull away at the same time. She looks nothing like what I remember, but feels like everything I once called home.

  “Here,” she says, and leads me to the sofa. Strangely, we sit apart. I might need just a little distance, a little bit longer, to ask every question tumbling through my brain at once.

  I pick the shortest, easiest one first.

  “How?”

  “Sullivan,” Mother laughs, sniffling. She grabs some tissues from the coffee table and passes me one. I take it, my stare wandering to the closed door.

  “He’s got a wonderful heart,” she adds.