"Alyson-" "But I know better than that," she muttered, bitterly. "It was never me. It was you. So forgive me for not being smart enough to forget about you like Mom did. She warned me, a thousand times. I still wanted a father. I thought I needed you. I never did, though. I still don't. I need my mother, or a real father, none of which you could ever be."
"Then what am I, Alyson?" he demanded.
"Gregory Michael Glass," she said softly. "Just the man with cold eyes."
~
“They said it looked like I slammed into a branch or something. The entire situation wasn’t easy… describing. Jacob said he didn’t think I have nerve or tendon damage, but I’ll have to see a fancy specialist in Anchorage.” Noah explained. It was still strange, seeing him gesture with one hand rather than two. While one ran through his hair, the other was bound up in a thick navy sling, the shoulder casted to prevent the joint from sliding. “For the most part, everything’s fine. I’ve got a prescription, and I’m not sure how that’s going to work out. I forgot to ask about driving.”
“Need a chauffeur?” she ribbed, lifting her bag to her knees as she sat on the edge of an untouched bed.
Noah smirked, managing a one-shouldered half-shrug. “Probably. Think you can handle the pickup again?”
She laughed, offering a look of sympathy. “If you can handle getting that thing reset, I’m sure I can handle an automatic.”
He nodded, stepping forward to grab her hand, pulling her to her feet. He said, “I’m sorry about today. About everything.” “There’s nothing to apologize for – although you can request a formal apology from whatever sorry tree took you down.” Her words were playful, but her tone wavered with an intake of breath. Her heart fluttered, his thumb tracing her lips. He kissed her, sending fire dancing across her skin. Reluctant, she parted, whispering, “I should get your jacket. It’s in the waiting area.” Noah teased, “Don’t go far.”
Aly smiled. “Never.” Spinning on her heel, she left the room, headed for the lobby. After retrieving his things, she refilled her cup, grabbing another for Noah. On the way back, the sound of yelling traveled through the hall. A bystander in scrubs met her gaze, sharing a baffled, wideeyed expression. The woman quickly looked away, dark crimson pooling in her cheeks at being caught eavesdropping.
Before Aly reached his door, Lee ran out, shaking with anger. Nearly running into her, he stopped, a loathing stare following her toes to her crown. He hissed, “This is your fault.”
Aly blurted, “Excuse me?”
“You belong on the outside, Glass daughter,” Lee warned, “You stay away from my boy.” As he shoved past her, half-caf sloshed from the cups to the toes of her boots. Mixed emotions welled in her chest, pain and anger swirling. Collecting herself, she prepared to brush it off.
Aly attempted to coax herself into entering the room as though tension wasn’t wafting below the door. Instead, she stood in the hall with coffee-flavored boots, feeling confused and two-inches-tall.
You belong on the outside, Glass daughter.
How dare you, Alyson Mackenzie. Blinking, Aly peaked through the square block windows in the door. He had a free hand over his face, his good shoulder leaning against the wall. Glancing up with shell-shocked horror, Noah met her stare.
“Well,” she said, “isn’t that something.”
CHAPTER 20 | NOAH Glancing in the mirror pinned to the closet, Noah turned, observing the angles of the splint. He’d nearly bit through his tongue when they reset it, his jaw still aching from grinding teeth. Once it was in, most of it went away. A dull throb and the threatening looseness of the joint remained. When he was still half in shock, keeping the arm at his side was instinctual. Without the initial agony keeping it sedentary, it had already gotten maddening.
Aly was the first thing that softened him since he had the band of labels snapped around his wrist. With her gone, the annoyance was creeping back.
He turned with a smile, the door slamming. Instead of promised coffee and Aly’s beam, Lee stood with an unseasonable faux-fur lined coat lining his misshapen frame, covered in sweat and irritation. With his gilded bolo tie fastened around the lapel of a black polo and half-rimmed wire glasses perched on projected cheekbones, he looked like someone’s hard-laboring grandfather, rather than an angry brute with primed lectures sliding across a tongue that never spoke silver.
Only rusted and charred.
Noah asked, “How is she?” “How is she? How are you? You think you can go prancing in the forest, ignoring the words of the elders?” Lee yelled, “You allow her to affect you until you forget about your family. You forget your brain. Now, you’ve hurt yourself. It proves what I say.”
Noah chuckled blackly. “You’re worried about me getting hurt?” In a fluid motion, his free hand gripped the hem of his shirt. As Noah lifted it to his ribs, he revealed bruised muscle. The center was a harsh violet, the warped edges stretched through phases of reds and greenish yellows, like an alien sun. Scratching the unwashed pony tail at the nape of his neck, Lee raised his pressed-in brow, thin lips crunching in a scowl. “The Gigit did this as well?”
Irritated and glaring, Noah replied, “No, you did.” “I didn’t get you so hard,” Lee scoffed, crossing his arms and resting them on his pregnant beer belly. “Your drama… blind, filled with ignorance.”
“Yes, you did,” Noah insisted, an edge to his voice. His eyes fleeted outside, conviction building as he saw employees in hearing range. Gritting his teeth, Noah added, “You always do.”
Lee’s fingers, like grainy sausage, moved to cover his neck. It was a nervous tick, self-conscious of the moles peppering his windpipe. Noah recognized it from public speaking, when various groups would congregate to the diner, sitting around a table and staring up at him with sour expressions, expectant.
Finally, he grumbled, “A strong boy fights. It is nature, how we survive. I make you strong. But you repay me and my wife with running around with the Glass daughter. Was it not made clear to you that the Glass man was not accepted? That he has intervened, made demands, and fought to degrade us? You ignore my warnings, you ignore”
“I haven’t ignored anything.” Noah argued, swallowing the scathing comments that roused on first instinct. It was difficult not to spit in the man’s face, to threaten to teach him the strength he claimed to share like beating a kid around was a noble act of discipline. The man was no different than Tony. Their delusions were the same.
Noah found himself disgusted whenever he gaged the situation. He and Sarah, Luke and Owen, now even Aly… they were always shoved in the middle of their games. As long as he trapped in the morbid world of Ashland, it would always be the same.
No wonder Sarah tried to get out. I don’t blame her for not waiting. Even hiding, I always play in. Spending time with a girl made him a disgrace, but how could they not see how ashamed they ought to be? How could they all be so far gone, embedded and crystalized in the dome around the town, that this was normal, acceptable, pleasing even?
The crazies think I’ve gone mad. “Ignored nothing? Of course you have. She is not one of us; you bear no rights to her. There is a reason for the things that we do. We take care of our own, we respect our people and we respect the creature and our lifestyles. That is the way it should be. It is the way it has always been.”
“Look, you don’t know her.” Noah defended, “You don’t even know me.”
“You keep her outside of you, boy.” Lee leveled his eyes, glowering as they slid into ominous slits.
“Oh my-” Noah stopped, his voice rising to a shout. He demanded, “What are you so afraid of?” “You are just like your mother, always think ing you know best. She listened to none of us when we tried to save her, and you know, you know where she ended up. Do you really want that for yourself? To die alone and young so far from your people?”
Everyone is losing their freaking minds.
Noah shook his head, disbelieving. “What the hell are you talking about?” “You are just li
ke her, always thinking you know better than everyone else, like you’re the only person that matters. It is selfish, unacceptable. You insist on making her mistakes? Then you will die as she died, and your sister will do the same. I try to help you break this cycle, yet you disobey. I pay you, I feed you, you’ve got your own bedroom, you live rent free of age in my house. You act like I’ve given you nothing? You run off with an outsider, and you’ll be in a motel when you go, just like my sister. We’ll get the news, and my wife will be so sick, you will kill her or her foolish heart. We don’t want this for you and you don’t want what we have.”
He gripped the counter, his head spin ning. He didn’t know what to spit out first and instant thoughts were muddled. Did he miss something? Did Lee kill Mary-Agnes, was he being figurative? Was he delusional, thinking Noah was becoming Maria or somehow associated Noah as her son, instead of his own, because of Lee’s opinion to mutual disgrace? He was losing his hold, the grip that contained it, that kept him from prolonging the interactions. Unable to think straight, he spit out everything in his head as it came, barely understandable in his own ears.
“Whose mistakes? Yours? I’m trying to break the cycle of angry drunks that beat their children, you sorry.… Ugh! Do you know how sick you are, in the head? Dying? DyYou! You’re going to have a heart attack or liver failure, and your wife is going to keel over from her damn diabetes. Sarah and I are going to get out of here, away from this sickness. She’s going to have a better life. I am going to have a better life. Aly is the best thing, the cleanest thing, the most right thing in my entire liferight now. I honestly don’t care who or what she is to you. And I don’t know whose mother you’re talking about, but unless you’ve murdered Mom since I’ve been out, she’s still kicking and breathing, last time I checked. And nothing? We’re dirt poor, always have been. I work for what I have, so I really don’t see how you can act like you’re presenting the Taj Mahal with a gold ticket. You’re damn right I don’t want what you have.”
Lee’s eyes grew wide, his feat of anger slowly fading, rather than igniting with each spitting word. Noah expected to be on the floor, through the wall at this point. He already decided he wouldn’t put up with it. Not here, not now, in this public place. He didn’t belong to the Locklears then. He owed them nothing, especially not to bury their sins, replacing the mask. What was best for him and his sister was the priority, and he’d live by it until the day of graduation. If Lee wanted him to fight back, it’s what he’d receive.
I’m not going to beat the sorry drunk to the ground like he’d do to me, but I don’t want to be Owen. I don’t want to sit there and take it like encouragement. This doesn’t have to be me. The cycles stop here.
Instead, the old man leaned against the door. “You cannot pretend you don’t know,.” Lee said, getting louder, demanding. “You haven’t called me Father since you were a boy. I heard Tony today, his words. I didn’t want you to be like your father’s family, yet you gravitate to his people instead of ours. You stay on his couch, you do your car with him. You will not speak to us, only disrespecting. You wish to be like the outsider boy who killed her… his loins do not make that child your father. You must see you are not like him. You have no piece of him, you and Sarahgirl both. You’re like her, a fighting spirit. You cannot fall as she did…”
“This stops right now – whatever this is.” Noah demanded, his voice low and dangerous. “You still play your games, but I know you know.” Lee continued, sounding confused and staring at the floors. His brow was wrinkled, his voice distant. He didn’t make eye contact. “You must know.”
“Get out!” Noah shouted, pointing at the door.
“What did you say to me, boy?” Lee grumbled, alarmed and aghast. He squinted, as though he was trying to read Noah.
He’s never seen these pieces of me.
“Get. Out,” Noah warned, his hand balling into a fist as he stepped forward.
Rustled, Lee offered a look of death through his shock, disappearing between the door. Feeling nauseated, confusing complexities of betrayal and incredulity rushed through his veins. A headache was rousing, too intense for anger. He covered his face, leaning against the wall. With muffled murmurs from beyond the door piercing his skull, a steady throb bleeding from his head to his arm, he wished he claimed a full dose of painkillers, rather than the hesitant half accepted from an addict’s maybe-son.
Glancing up as the voices raised, he looked into Aly’s eyes, the blue rimmed with tears. Her lips parted, the lower trembling. Coffee ran down her knuckles, dripping to the ground.
What is this?
Something was incredibly wrong.
Nothing is okay. Nothing’s right at all.
CHAPTER 21 | ALYSON
Mom would know what to do. It was a realization that had been haunting Aly all night. Noah was something she never experienced before. She’d never known anyone or anything like him. It was so easy, so natural. He always made sense without thinking about it, not that she could stop. He knocked down her walls before she erected them.
Her mother had only dated once, and it was more of a hinted backstory than anything Aly could remember. When Aly was in her toddler years, some guy named Aaron swept Vanessa off her feet.
Apparently, he flew out to Los Angeles for a work conference, and never came back. Word of a horrific bus accident floated into town two weeks later.
Broken hearted, Vanessa always told Aly that he was the man she should have been with from the beginning, that he was the father she should have had growing up. Between the devastation of the loss Aly couldn’t recall, having Greg down her throat, and the first diagnoses, as far as Aly knew, her mother never tried again. She had already worked too hard for it, and the pain never proved worth it.
Her mother always teased that someday Aly would stumble into that stage, what she called the ‘ridiculous head over heels fantasy every little one dreams of, every old person dreads remember, and a piece of happiness that every girl deserves’.
Her mother expressed some of the most grief over never attending Aly’s wedding or seeing her children. She made Aly promised that she wouldn’t make her mistake, pregnant and alone as a teen. The week before Vanessa stopped talking; she whispered that she was going to miss the story of a first love, and they both mourned.
Just for a moment, Alyson w as thankful for no one’s eyes or arms. Flat on her back as she lay in bed, her lip trembled. Tears flooded down her face, hot and silent. Stomach relaxed to a concave between her hipbones, Aly balled her fists around the frame propped below her rips.
She would lift her head or pull it close, eyes scathing the wounded moment. A memory edging into her head, she flipped it on its back, sliding the metal clasps away from the cardboard backing. A second picture had been turned around, her packing revealing she was a frame too short to display it.
When moving to Lauren’s, Aly had found it in a paperback of The Tempest. It was wrapped for her seventeenth birthday, due at the end of the early spring Vanessa intended to see. It wasn’t wine- stained, in a mass collection, or an easy-reading version like the beat up renditions peppering the rest of her mother’s shelves. In her mother’s closet, it was hidden in a box covered in black lace. Inside, along with an unsigned card, it was brand new, the cover filled with artistic edgy illustrations, perfect-bound.
As if an afterthought, like a stray piece of paper, the picture was tucked beneath the cover. On the back, in her perfect, old-fashioned cursive printed with her calligraphy pens, she wrote, I love you, my Aly Sun, and below, “What is past is prologue” – William Shakespeare.
The photograph was taken the second time she got sick, before radiation affected her thick head of hair. It was always a shame when it pieced out, clumps in the sink or on top of a filled trashcan. Post full premature hysterectomy, it kept coming back – in surrounding areas, in new places, finally weaseling into her blood and bones, traveling to her head.
Standing against the vibrant yellow panels of a hot dog
stand, her bright blue pea-coat was a contrast as stark as her dark brown curls. Pupils reduced to specks from the camera’s bright flash, her green irises looked alien. Light freckles covered her ashen skin, only noticeable after her complexion paled with dangerous levels of anemia. Her young mother shared a genuine smile, both warm and pained, her lips pale and dimples slack.
She always was beautiful. At her side, Lauren had her fast twisted into a mock-gape, leaning forward with both arms crossed. In a gray sweater, black skinny jeans, and a blue beanie that caused the bottom of her hair to spray out passed her shoulders, they were both dressed too chilled for that summer. Aly remembered the blistering heat, a rare feat to be prolonged over so many months, as distinctly as she remembered her mother’s frigid fingers.
Aly wished either were here to offer advice, but the longing for her mother was overwhelming. It took a while to confess how viciously the grief was, as though labeling it was an understatement. It tasted like pain and fear, a constant haunting over her shoulder, fighting its way forward through every thought. It had been half a year, those unspeakable days after Christmas, before New Year’s, since the doctors offered false hope that she’d be able to fight it until an early spring.
At the time, it never felt like her mother was the only one carrying the disease, always a dozen bricks too many on her own chest. Like glass, and ashes, it filled her lungs. Always crying, praying, pleading with God and fate, trying to open sympathy cards or pick at flower-esque fruit bouquets like they were a final promise, a sweetness with a reassurance to faith it would pass, and go away.
The devastation crept up with constant nausea. Spending day after day sitting crisscross-applesauce, laptop or textbook or Austen classic in hand, she stayed loyally beside her mother’s bed – enduring the howling of an IV when her arm bent, her mother’s tears and breakdowns followed by senseless apologies, the plans for a possible post-mortem that killed Aly but comforted Vanessa.
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