by Becky Wade
Pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he made himself take a step back and dropped his attention to her appetizers. Raw vegetables, chips, and melon wrapped in prosciutto, pierced by a toothpick.
“I feel self-conscious eating in front of you,” she announced. “Aren’t you hungry?”
I am. For so many things. He shook his head.
“My melon’s cut in such a way that it forms an almost perfect rhomboid. You have the self-control to pass up rhomboid melon?”
“I do.”
“I do not.” She took a bite and he groaned inwardly. “Did you grow up in Misty River?”
“I was born in Chicago. My mom brought me to Georgia when I was five.”
“Was your dad in the picture?”
“No.”
“Not ever?”
“No.”
“What was your mom’s name?”
“Denise.”
“Why did Denise move you from Chicago to Georgia?”
He hated talking about his pre-Coleman childhood years, and yet he didn’t want to say no to her. About anything. “The spring before I started kindergarten, my mom felt pressured to make a decision about our future. She didn’t want to stay in Chicago, but she also didn’t want to move me around a lot after I was in school. She started looking for a new place to settle, where we could both be happy for a long period of time.”
“Why did she choose Georgia?”
“She loved nature and wanted a warmer climate. She applied for work up and down the southern section of the Blue Ridge range and got a job here.”
A bee buzzed close to Leah. Sebastian brushed it away.
“What did you think of Georgia when you arrived?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I liked it. On her days off, we’d go to the lake or a river or a waterfall.”
“What happened to her?”
A memory split into his head, and he saw his mother lying in front of him, with just days to live. When she’d gotten too sick to work, the two of them had moved into the apartment of the old lady next door, who’d been grumpy and, at the same time, soft-hearted enough to take them in. At first they’d shared her guest bedroom. But then, when Mom had worsened, hospice had placed a hospital-type bed in the old lady’s living room for her to lie in.
For her to die in.
Every day he’d taken the bus home from school, then stood next to that bed. The apartment smelled faintly of cigarettes, even though the old lady had quit years before. A dark brown recliner and a sagging corduroy sofa were lit by two ugly matching lamps on end tables. The white porcelain lamps had been painted with orange and brown flowers, and Sebastian hated them and every single other thing about the lady’s apartment and his mom’s health and his life.
“Were you nice to your teacher today?” Mom had asked, looking right at him with sunken eyes.
“Yes.”
She smiled affectionately. “No you weren’t. Did you try your best?”
“Yes.”
“No you didn’t.” Mom was still trying to tease him the way she always had. “I can tell that backpack you just set down is empty. You didn’t bring any books or your homework home.”
This ain’t my home, he thought.
“How do you expect to pass second grade?” she asked. “By learning through osmosis?”
He didn’t know what osmosis was. And he didn’t care about passing second grade. His mother was skinny and pale and getting weaker every day. Gut-wrenching fear had consumed every inch of mental space he had.
Sebastian refocused on the present, on Leah. “Ben’s told you my story, right?”
As personal as it felt to Sebastian, and as much as he wished he could protect it, his story was part of the public domain. Anyone who read the book or watched the movie about the Miracle Five could learn much more about him than he was comfortable with their knowing.
“I know that your mom died,” she said. “But I don’t know how.”
“A terminal illness she’d had since childhood.”
“I’m sorry. How old were you at the time?”
“Eight.” He could lose himself in Leah. He wanted to lose himself in her. “I went into the foster care system.”
“How many years after your mom died did you meet Ben?”
“Five.”
“And the Colemans became your family.”
“Yes.” That was the simplest way to communicate a complex answer. As a rule, Sebastian didn’t form attachments. One, he didn’t like to rely on people. Two, he didn’t want the fear and potential loss that came with loving people.
The Colemans were the only people he’d let in over the past twenty-four years. For them, his feelings ran deep, and his loyalty was unshakable. They were the closest thing to a family he had, but calling them his family made him feel like he was cheating his mom, his actual family member, of her due. Also, as much as he cared about the Colemans, he was always aware that he didn’t fully belong with them.
He was the one Caucasian guy in a big African-American family. The one member who’d entered their group as a teenager, instead of being raised in their ranks. As successful as he’d become, he’d always be their charity case.
“I owe them a lot,” he said.
Thoughtfully, she bit into a carrot.
He’d never forget the unselfish things the Colemans had done for him. Too many times to count, he’d entered Ben’s room to find the family’s army cot already made up for him. Camo sleeping bag. Down pillow covered in a clean white pillowcase.
They’d taken him with them in their van on trips. CeCe would bring a small cooler and pass back Capri-Suns and bags of pretzels during the long hours of driving.
They’d held parties for him when he’d graduated from high school, college, and med school. Each time, they’d stretched the same black-and-gold Congratulations! banner above a dining room table covered with his favorite dishes.
“How often do you come back to Misty River to see the Colemans?”
“As often as possible. I have an apartment in Atlanta, and I spend the nights there during the week, but my house is here. In fact, I was driving from the airport to my house the day of the car crash.”
“Airport?”
“The regional one, outside Clayton.”
“You have your pilot’s license?”
“I do. I like to fly back and forth when I can.”
“It seems I’m going to need to study aviation next, in order to keep up with you.”
“You don’t have to keep up with me.”
“I think that I do.” She beamed.
CeCe rang a metal triangle, as if calling ranch hands to the chuck wagon.
Sebastian hid his disappointment at the interruption. He wanted, but wasn’t going to get, more time with Leah.
The noise outside immediately lessened. “Supper is served,” CeCe announced. “I don’t want any of you to dawdle because dawdling when the food is hot is one of my biggest pet peeves. If I see you doing it, I’ll take this to your backside.” She held up the metal rod she’d clanged against the triangle. “Make your way indoors, where we have two long tables set up with food. You can go down both sides of both tables. Understood?”
“Understood,” the guests answered.
CeCe pulled Herschel forward, and he blessed the food.
Ben returned for Leah, and the two of them were separated from Sebastian by the crowd.
Once he’d filled his plate, Sebastian purposely avoided Ben and Leah’s table and sat with Natasha and Genevieve. The sisters who’d been trapped belowground with him and Ben after the earthquake had become good friends. The two of them—plus Natasha’s husband, Wyatt, and Genevieve’s boyfriend, Sam—kept the conversation going so that Sebastian didn’t have to contribute much.
He was facing away from where Leah was seated, but he kept catching snatches of her voice and, if he was very lucky, her laugh.
After dinner the guests mingled and ate cake. Whenever he looked toward Lea
h, he kept his line of sight moving past her so that no one could catch him staring. Even so, she distracted him so much that he kept losing track of what people were saying to him.
It was brutal to be with her in a crowd of Colemans because her presence reminded him that, while he might be successful and busy . . .
Essentially, he was also alone.
CHAPTER SIX
Conversing with Dylan was somewhat akin to lugging a big, heavy tree branch to a dumpster.
Two nights after the Colemans’ anniversary party, Leah sat at her dining room table with her brother and Tess and Rudy Coventry, the couple who’d become their unofficial grandparents.
“How’s your math class going?” Tess asked Dylan. He was taking precalculus this summer because he hadn’t passed it last semester, despite having a built-in math tutor at home.
“Okay.” Dylan’s hair fell around his head more rakishly than usual. She suspected he’d donned his gray T-shirt after picking it up off the floor. Its neckline revealed his thin, pale clavicles.
Leah knew from his summer session teacher that he was doing a little less than okay. “When’s your next quiz or test?”
“Thursday.”
“You might want to start studying tonight.”
He shrugged. The window behind Dylan framed him with color. On this warm, bright evening in June, wisps of cloud had snagged their hems on the peaks of her valley.
“Do you want to sit down and work on it with me after dinner, before you go to Jace’s house?” she asked. His usual technique of procrastinating until the night before a test gave her hives.
“Maybe.” Which meant no. He chewed a mouthful of pizza, well on his way to consuming his customary enormous quantity.
“Do elaborate, dear brother,” Leah said grandly, “and tell us how we can become patrons of your math success.” She’d learned that a teasing response to Dylan’s sullenness drew him out more effectively than a serious one.
“Yes, Dylan,” Tess said. “Please do tell how we can help.” The older woman cut her bangs ruler-straight and allowed the rest of her pale gray hair to hang flat to her shoulders. The hazel eyes that tipped downward at the outer corners bracketed an imposing nose. She always wore a shade of lipstick called Frisky Peony and a pair of earrings that looked like miniature modern art sculptures—gold circles mounted inside larger silver circles. Her face radiated pragmatism.
In contrast, Rudy’s face radiated sweetness. His ears were long, his glasses slightly askew. A rosy, healthy glow underlit his lined, age-spotted skin. Tess ensured that his white hair remained neatly trimmed. Nonetheless, it managed to look disordered, as did his clothing.
“This subject is boring,” Dylan said.
“No, indeed,” Leah countered. “We’re all waiting with bated breath for you to tell us about your summer school math class, utilizing more than five words at a time.”
“There’s not a lot to talk about. I mean . . . I’m bad at math.”
He’d said that to annoy her because he knew it rubbed her the wrong way. No one was bad at math. Many people didn’t respond well to the way math was taught in school. But that did not mean they were bad at it. She hadn’t responded well to the way basketball was taught in PE when she was growing up. But she didn’t go around declaring herself bad at basketball.
“I understood math fine until it started using the alphabet,” Dylan added.
Rudy chuckled. “Yes! What are A and B and X and Y doing in math problems?”
“Rudy,” Tess said sternly. “Letters have earned their rightful place in math problems.”
Leah sent her an appreciative glance.
Rudy straightened in his seat repentantly.
Dylan started to explain his current math unit and why he disliked it. The rest of them listened, their meal of store-bought pizza and salad (that Leah had provided) and homemade bread rolls (that Tess had provided) garnishing the table.
Leah had met Tess almost ten years before. At the time, Leah had been navigating her first year of teaching, and Tess had been volunteering for the PTA at Leah’s school. When Tess realized that Leah was a teenager tasked with the job of raising her younger brother, she’d taken Leah under her wing.
A few times a week, Tess had stopped by Leah’s classroom to help out and to deliver batches of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Eventually, Tess started inviting Leah and Dylan to her home for Sunday lunch after church. In return, Leah invited them to Dylan’s Pee Wee football games and school events. When the couple had shown up at those events, she’d been overwhelmed with gratitude, knowing that when her brother looked into the audience, he’d see more than one person there to support him.
Once, when Leah mentioned to Tess that she planned to spend the weekend painting a bedroom, Tess and Rudy had appeared on her doorstep with roller brushes and paint pans.
They played dominoes with Dylan and Scrabble with Leah. Tess gave Dylan practical gifts like coats. Rudy gave Dylan impractical gifts like Nerf guns.
Over time, Leah had come to trust Tess and Rudy enough to let them babysit Dylan, which had opened up Leah’s world a little. She’d been able to go out in the evenings with friends, take part in occasional chess competitions, or go hiking alone. To this day, they were the ones who stayed with Dylan on the rare occasions when she went out of town.
God had known she and Dylan needed grandparents, and He’d provided Tess and Rudy. They were the ones who had shown her—more than anyone else ever had—what it looked like to love through action.
“I suggest you take your sister up on her offer of tutoring,” Tess said to Dylan.
Dylan made a noncommittal sound and helped himself to another slice of pepperoni with veggies.
“What’s going on with football?” Rudy asked, clearly eager to talk about sports, something that interested him a mile more than math.
“Nothing much.”
“Do elaborate, dear brother, and tell us how we can become patrons of your football success!”
“Right now, we’re lifting weights and getting ready for a seven-on-seven scrimmage.”
It was as if Dylan’s every word were a pearl dropping into midair that she, Tess, and Rudy were doing their best to catch.
“We’re looking forward to your games this fall.” Tess speared a bite of salad. “We’ll be there to cheer you on.”
“You bet we will,” Rudy added happily. “Let me know if you need a ride to practice or summer school.” For years, Rudy and Tess had served as Dylan’s faithful cab drivers.
“Thanks,” Dylan replied.
“He drives his own car now,” Tess reminded her husband, then expelled an impatient sigh. Tess communicated most of her feelings through sighs.
A year and a half ago, when Dylan had turned sixteen, Mom had sent two thousand dollars to him for a car. They’d bought a small blue pickup truck.
“Oh, sure!” Rudy pretended he hadn’t forgotten. As was typical, he responded to Tess’s scolding like an amiable golden retriever. “But if it breaks down or something, I want him to know he can call me.”
This was a second marriage for both Tess and Rudy. Tess and her first husband had divorced. Rudy’s first wife had died. They’d married each other twenty-five years ago, when Tess was fifty-six and Rudy fifty-eight. Shortly after, they’d bought a vacation cabin in Misty River.
When Leah decided that she needed to move Dylan out of Gainesville, Tess and Rudy had encouraged them to move here. Leah had done so, and now the older couple spent the bulk of their year in Misty River, too. Tess had one son, and Rudy had two daughters. Combined, they had several granddaughters, but all their children and grandchildren lived out of state.
“Is the truck running well?” Rudy asked Dylan.
“Yeah.”
“How’s everything with your friends?” Leah asked.
“Good.”
“Really? No drama?”
“No.”
“Are you being cyberbullied?” Leah asked, only half
kidding.
He snorted. His liquid chocolate eyes blazed disbelief. “No.”
“Busy trying to order prescription painkillers through the mail?”
“You can order prescription painkillers though the mail?” Rudy asked excitedly.
“Rudy,” Tess chided. “Eat your meal.”
“But—” Rudy said.
“And put your napkin in your lap.”
“Are you interested in dating any of the girls in your grade?” Leah persisted. Dylan was polishing off his food and would bolt in seconds.
“No.”
Should she believe him? Or should she add “teenage love” to her list of fears, right before guns and right after bomb-making?
He picked an olive off his slice and took his final bite. He’d picked the olives off since he was small.
“I wonder if he’s being cyberbullied,” Leah said companionably to Tess.
“I don’t believe so,” Tess said back. “No.”
Moving as if wearing a body that wasn’t quite the right size for him, Dylan rose and carried his dishes toward the kitchen. “I’m not being cyberbullied.”
“Are you sure, O love of my life?” Leah called after him. “No one’s heckling you?”
“I don’t even know what that word means,” Dylan said.
“Heckling means tickling,” Rudy announced.
“No,” Tess instantly corrected. “Heckling is abusive speech.”
“No one’s heckling or tickling me,” Dylan said loudly from the kitchen.
“Truly?” Leah asked. “No girls are tickling you?”
“I’m leaving to go hang out at Jace’s,” Dylan said.
Leah had vetted Dylan’s evening plans with Jace’s mom earlier. “Leave us here if you must, pining for your presence.”
He appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and dining area. “Thanks for the dessert,” he said to Tess, lifting one of the cookies she’d brought. “These are awesome.”
“You’re welcome,” Tess told him indulgently, followed by a loving sigh.
Dylan skulked out of sight, and Leah could hear him gathering his keys and wallet. Their kitchen ended in a door that led to a small mudroom containing their washer and dryer. Leah had cajoled him into using the mudroom as a dumping ground for his backpack, athletic bag, water bottles, spare change, wallet, and keys. Thus, he always came and went through the back door.