If I never see her again, it’s going to be me who dies of a broken heart.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sheridan
* * *
I find Mama at the kitchen table beside a pile of mail. There’s no ambulance in the driveway. My father’s car is gone. None of this is screams urgent crisis.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You said there was an emergency?”
She’s breathless. An anxious kind of breathless. And her eyes are bloodshot and swollen. She’s been crying.
“Take a seat, Sheridan,” she says, voice raspy. I take the chair beside her, hands trembling because I’ve never seen her so calm yet so upset at the same time. And the fact that it didn’t work her into a spell is a straight-up miracle. “We received a bill in the mail from Centurion.” She slides it toward me. “Which I thought was odd because you’d said we were recipients of some kind of grant. I’ll admit, it seemed too good to be true, but I trusted you. I believed you. Anyway, it was nothing but a standard invoice showing this month’s fees have been paid … but I was about to toss it in the trash when I saw this.” She points to the name at the bottom. “Sheridan, why does it list August Monreaux as our payor?”
I suck in a hard breath, but before I have a chance to utter some bullshit excuse, the back door swings open, and Dad walks in with an armful of groceries. His gaze passes between us and he lingers in the doorway, as if he’s afraid of stepping into a minefield.
“What’s … going on?” he asks.
“Apparently a Monreaux is paying for my nursing services,” Mama says to him, though her attention is very much on me.
Dad places the groceries on the counter, abandoning them to come examine the evidence himself.
“I couldn’t get a hold of Adriana earlier,” Mama says. “So I called her mother. She said you weren’t there, that they were in Chicago for a bridal shower this weekend. In fact, she told me she hadn’t seen you in weeks.”
“Sheridan, is this true?” Dad asks, as if he has any room to call me out for my web of lies.
My stomach clenches. For the first time in my life, two disappointed gazes anchor me to the ground. I’m no longer the apple of their eyes, I’m a rainstorm ruining their beautiful picnic.
“I knew it,” Mama says. “The way you walk around here with stars in your eyes, putting on that extra coat of lip gloss, curling your hair. I figured you were crushing on some boy—but never in a million years did I ever think it’d be a Monreaux.”
Disgust colors her tone.
Dad examines the statement again, his hand clamped over his mouth. “Sheridan, what did you do? Why is he paying for this? What kind of mess have you gotten us into with them? Is he blackmailing you? Does he have something he’s—”
“—no,” I say.
“Then explain it,” Mama rises from her chair—only to collapse back into it.
“You’re going to get yourself worked up,” Dad says to her. “Please, try to stay calm. Sheridan’s going to tell us everything, and then we’re going to figure this out.”
I grab Mama a glass of water and one of her “calming” pills and place them in front of her. If she reacts this way now, what’s going to happen when she finds out the truth? That I love him? That I want to be with him?
“I’m calling Dr. Smithson,” Dad says. “I think she’s having another spell. You stay here with her.”
I place a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not as bad as you think, Mama. I promise.”
Her eyes turn hazy, growing unfocused.
“She wants her to come in,” Dad says when he returns from the next room. “Immediately.”
We help her to the car and ride in silence, not a single utterance the entire trip. Knowing my father, he’s preparing his lecture in his head, saving it for when we’re alone and out of Mama’s earshot. We can’t risk upsetting her even more.
My father might be disappointed in me, but my mother could die of a broken heart.
I have to end it with August.
I have to accept once and for all that I can love him, but I can never be with him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
August
* * *
“Maybe it was shock,” I say over the phone after Sheridan fills me in later that night.
I’m sitting by the pool, in the very same chair she tossed her clothes onto the night she snuck in. The grotto is lit. The moon is full. And the crickets are in full effect. But on the other side of my phone, the situation is dire.
I can hardly hear her. Between the hum of the hospital vending machines she’s standing next to and the hushed tone of her voice, as if she’s afraid she’ll get caught talking to me.
“That’s my point,” she says. “It was shock. She was devastated at the mere fact that you’re paying for her nurse, that I’m associating with you—and she doesn’t know the half of what we’ve been up to.”
“Maybe when she calms down, you can talk to her about us? Maybe it won’t be as big of a shock next time? Since she’s already got some idea?”
“I don’t want to test that theory.”
I don’t blame her. I’d feel the same if it were my mother.
“I meant what I said earlier,” she says. “I love you. But I can never be yours, okay? Not in this life.” Her voice breaks. “Maybe we can try again in the next one. Maybe then we won’t be enemies?”
She chuckles, as if she knows how ridiculous she sounds, as if it could possibly soften the words that crush my soul.
But I’d live a thousand lifetimes if it meant I could spend just one of them with her.
“I need to go.” Her words are fractured. And so is my world. “Goodbye, August.”
I refuse to say goodbye.
“Goodbye, August,” she says again, slightly louder as if she thinks I didn’t hear her the first time.
But I can’t. I can’t repeat it. This isn’t goodbye. I won’t allow it.
“Please don’t do this. Don’t make this harder than it already is.” Her voice is a whisper a million miles away. She inhales. Mutters a fraction of a word, as if she’s going to say something more.
But then line goes dead.
Maybe she thought I’d argue or say something that would only make it worse.
“August.” My father’s voice steals my moment—and steels my façade. “Who was that you were just talking to?”
“No one,” I say.
“It wasn’t, by chance, Rich Rose’s daughter, was it?” He takes the chair next to mine and reclines. “You can tell me. I know all about it anyway. Gannon let the cat out of the bag.”
Fucking Gannon.
He called my bluff. He knew the Cassandra threat was bullshit. Though if it were true and I had proof, I’d throw his traitorous ass under the bus so fucking fast …
My fists clench until my knuckles turn white, and my blood flashes ice cold.
“Was actually hoping I’d get a chance to meet her one of these days.” He slides his hands behind his thick neck. “So … what are your intentions with her anyway?”
I rise. I don’t have the energy for his information fishing.
“All right, fine. Don’t answer me,” he says. “But just know that you don’t have to hold back on my accord. If you like the girl, that is.”
I rest my hands on my hips, studying him. I learned long ago that any conversation with my father requires you to stay one step ahead of him at all times, which can quickly become exhausting if you’re not careful.
“I thought you hated the Roses,” I say.
He laughs, readjusting his lounge chair. “Once upon a time, I hated the ground they walked on and the air they breathed. But honestly, August, who has time for all of that? The past is in the past. What good would it do any of us to stay angry about something we can’t change?”
“I’ve just never heard you talk like this before. For years, all you did was talk about ruining Rich for what he did …”
“People are allowed to ch
ange.” He puffs his chest, as if I should know better than to question him. “It isn’t healthy to hold onto grudges. Maybe this would be a good way to bury the hatchet? And heck, if you marry the girl someday, it’d make for some powerful PR, that’s for sure.”
I roll my eyes. Inevitably his train of thought always circles back to the business and how he can benefit from something in the end.
“So you forgive Rich for what he did?”
He sucks in a humid breath. “When tragedy strikes, August, the first thing people do is point fingers. We want to make sense of it all. And at the time, Rich made the most sense, given our past and a few specifics surrounding what happened. But at the end of the day, he was never charged because there wasn’t enough evidence. No one could prove it.”
I hold my breath as disbelief washes over me, searing hot.
“I guess what I’m getting at here,” he continues with a half-shrug, “is maybe I was wrong.”
I’ve never heard my father admit he was wrong about anything … ever.
“So you’re saying if I date her, you’re not going to disinherit me or punish me or anything like that …”
My father chuckles, his middle-aged belly bouncing and his pristine white teeth almost glowing in the dark. “What do you take me for? A monster? Come on, you’re my son. All a father ever wants is for his kid to be happy. If she makes you happy, son, then by all means, don’t let me stand in the way of that.”
“Okay, baby, I’m ready,” Cassandra calls from behind us. “Oh! Didn’t realize we weren’t alone.”
In my peripheral, she grabs a towel from the cabana and wraps it around her lithe, Malibu-bronzed body.
I don’t even want to know …
Heading in, I let my father’s words play on a loop in my head all night, examining them from every angle.
It’s possible for people to change—I’m living proof of that.
But this is a complete one-eighty.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction. If my father is open to moving forward, maybe the Roses would consider doing the same, too. If I could just have a minute of their time, they’d see I’m my father’s son, but I’m not my father.
Lying in bed, I re-read old texts from Sheridan. And before I crash for the night, I send her a message.
ME—Sher, call me when you wake up. I have big news.
The message delivers, but it’s never read. I’m sure she’s sleeping. It’s been a fucking day.
I shove my phone under my pillow and close my eyes, drifting off with something I didn’t have an hour ago … hope—and relentless determination to bury the past so that Sheridan Rose can be my future.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sheridan
* * *
I’m leaving tomorrow.
I fold the last of my clothes and seal the plastic tote. I’ve managed to squeeze all of my things into five containers, which doesn’t include the box fan and random items already packed into my car.
Dad knocks on the door. He still hasn’t answered my questions from the other day and we’re not exactly on good terms, but we’re trying to keep it cordial for Mama’s sake.
“Your mom’s resting,” he says. “Mona’s on her way.”
I swear she comes home from the hospital more exhausted than when she went in.
“Okay.” I don’t meet his gaze. I still can’t look at him.
“Sure you don’t want me to follow you up there tomorrow?” he asks. “Kind of sad that I don’t get to help my daughter move to college.”
“It’d be a waste of gas for you to drive all that way to help me move five boxes …”
“I don’t look at it that way.” He takes a seat at the foot of my bed, shoulders sloped, bonier than usual. I didn’t realize he’d been losing weight. Guess I didn’t notice a lot of things about him lately …
He watches me stack the boxes in the corner. I have nothing to say to him.
“Is this … about him?” he asks a moment later.
“You can say his name.”
He hesitates. “I know you don’t understand. And I can’t blame you, Sheridan. We kept a lot from you. We sheltered you from a lot. We thought we were doing the right thing, and we didn’t want to burden you with our family tragedies. I realize now, that we made a mistake. We should’ve told you what we went through so you’d understand exactly why we stay away from the Monreauxs.”
“I read the articles in Mama’s album.” I keep my back to him, hands pressed against the top of a tote as I stare out my window—the very window August climbed through not long ago. “I know everything.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he says. “The way that man drug my name through the mud after what he did to my sister. Had his minions slash my tires and harass your mother. For years, I couldn’t drive home from the grocery store without a police offer tailing me. And every year, on the anniversaries of Cynthia’s death and Elisabeth Monreaux’s death, we’d get a mailbox full of hate letters. And those are just the little things. Don’t even get me started on the job sabotaging. He once tried to pay someone to falsify a drug test I’d taken for that position at the meatpacking plant. Monreauxs are pure evil.”
“August is nothing like that.”
“And you know this how? Because you spent half a summer with him?” Dad scoffs. “Vincent was my best friend, Sheridan. Since I was eight years old. And he murdered my sister and pinned it on me out of spite. Forgive me, but I find it difficult to believe he’s capable of raising an upstanding young man worthy of being with my daughter.”
I don’t know what I could say in this moment to convince my father that I know August’s heart, that he isn’t his father.
“You know, Sher. You can always talk to me about anything. I know it’s been a rough summer with your mother, but if you ever want to talk about anything, I’m here. You don’t need to go running off—”
“—I tried to talk to you a few days ago.”
“I mean, you can come to me with whatever’s bothering you.”
“The texts I saw certainly bothered me.” I don’t have the energy to play ‘nice’ with him, to beat around the bush or guilt him into confessing. Especially when he’s being so dismissive.
He forces a hard breath through his nostrils, hunching and resting his elbows on his knees.
“I’ve already told two people about them,” I add. “So if anything happens to Mama, you’ll be the first person they look at. You and Kara.”
“Jesus, Sheridan.” He buries his face in his hands. “You really think I’d hurt your mother?”
“I don’t know what to think … you won’t tell me anything except that it’s personal and private. Sounds an awful lot like an affair to me.”
“You have it all wrong.” He glances at the door, as if he expect Mama to walk in at any second, and then he shakes his head. “Look. A few months ago, I lost my job. I didn’t tell anyone, not even your mother. I didn’t want to cause her any unnecessary stress. It was a bullshit reason, one I’m sure Vincent Monreaux had a hand in.”
For as long as I can remember, my father would start a new job, work his way up after a couple years, only to be let go for some asinine reason. He always suspected Vincent was behind it, given their history and his penchant for causing chaos, but Dad never could prove it.
“Anyway, Kara is an attorney who specializes in employment law. She’s been putting together a wrongful termination case for me. At least she’s been trying. Sounds like they might settle out of court, maybe in the six-figure range. It’d be life-changing for us. We could pay off both mortgages, drive a reliable car for the first time in our married life, pay off all of your mother’s medical bills, cover your tuition, and sock the rest away for retirement.”
“I’m sorry, but how can you afford a lawyer if you’re not working?”
“She’s doing it pro bono—as a favor to us. You were probably too young to remember, but Kara was quite the fixture around here back in the day. S
he sort of looked up to us as the parents she never had. I’m the one who encouraged her to pursue a law degree. Guess she felt she wanted to pay it back, bring it full circle, what have you.”
“Okay …” I wrap my head around that. “So if you’ve been off work the last couple of months, where have you been going in the middle of the night?”
“Out to the cabin,” he says, referring to a family friend’s one-room fishing cabin on Lake Graystone. They’ve always given Dad free reign to use it, and it’s about thirty minutes outside of town, so it’s plausible.
“So you just … go hang out at the cabin all night? Five nights a week?”
“I stay busy,” he says. “Sometimes I do some midnight catch and release. Other times I read a book. Take a nap. Watch an old movie on VHS. The time passes quickly enough.”
“And Mom has no idea?”
“None.”
“Why haven’t you told her?”
“Isn’t it obvious? She can’t handle even the slightest stressful event. Can you imagine how she’d handle a lawsuit rollercoaster? That and I didn’t want to get her hopes up in case it didn’t pan out. She’s had enough disappointment in her lifetime.”
“So why couldn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve had enough on your plate for one year. I didn’t want you to worry. You were already entertaining the idea of putting off college. If you knew I wasn’t working, there’s no way I’d have gotten you to leave.”
He’s right. I’d have stayed, taken on full-time hours at the cell store, and insisted I contributed to our family’s bottom line.
“I want to believe you,” I say, after absorbing everything for a moment.
“Well, you should. It’s the truth.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me you were accused of killing your sister? That you were arrested for it?”
He folds his hands, clasping them until his knuckles turn white. “Because that was one of the darkest moments of my entire life. And I was worried you’d never look at me the same.”
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