“Moooommmy!”
Bailey stands in the hallway with her hands over her ears, her frightened eyes wide as she penetrates me with her stare. I try to comfort her, but she won’t have it as that beep keeps sounding.
“Moooommmmmmy! Stop it!”
Unable to find anything to stand on, I grab the broom and hurry back to the kitchen, jabbing it up at the smoke detector to try to make the noise stop. Before I can get it under control, I manage to dent the sheetrock above me in two different places. And then the beeping starts again just a few seconds later.
Pulling up the window in the kitchen, I grab a towel and wave it above my head a few times until the beeping comes to a halt. As I hang my head, I can’t help but hear Bailey murmuring beside me. Turning, I take in the presence of my sweet girl, hands pressed over her ears and tears running down her face.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, opening my arms. Rather than move toward me, she stands in place, shaking her head. “Bailey, it’s okay, it was just a loud noise. Nothing happened.”
Still, she won’t move toward me, so I sink to my knees to look her in the eyes, placing my hand on the silky fabric of the gnome costume against her shoulder. Her bottom lip pushes out, but she remains rooted to her spot. My attempt to draw her in my direction using my hand falls short, so I tilt my head as I look into her eyes.
With a little huff, her lip sticks out even further.
“I peed my pants.”
Chapter Eleven
Alexis
There’s something about holiday dinners and the Jennings household that combine to create an exclusive club of sorts. And since Mom and Dad have been involved in ministry over the years, we’ve entertained a lot of people at our table. Sometimes they were elderly widows, or families whose daughters or sons had recently gotten married, and once even a Korean family who wanted to see American traditions firsthand. They were always well-fed and even better-loved.
Either you’re a Jennings dinner veteran, or you’re not.
As an honorary family member, Sadie Lou is most definitely a Jennings dinner veteran. She’s also the only person who can look at me across a table without saying a word and manage to make me feel self-conscious, defensive, anxious, and accepted in a mere matter of seconds.
“Jonah, how is third grade treating you?” I ask, averting my gaze from Sadie’s green eyes. Her son shrugs as he stares at his mashed potatoes.
“Okay. Multiplying is hard.”
“You should know better than to diss math when you’re talking to Alex,” Heather announces to the entire table, not bothering to look up from her plate. I can’t for the life of me remember her boyfriend’s name. Jesse? Jerry? Johnny? I allow my eyes to linger on his face for a second, until he catches me staring and meets my gaze.
Jeremy.
I don’t know why I even bother. He’ll be gone by next weekend anyway. Heather has an unspoken three-week rule. Week one is window shopping. This is where she meets said guy, gives him the once-over, and decides whether he is worth a further inspection. Week two is the equivalent of going to one of those used car sites to determine whether the automobile has any fatal flaws. Prior wrecks, bad transmissions, bent frames. In Heather’s case, I would guess it’s something like body odor, bad breath, or maybe the inability to pay for her dinner.
Week three is the test drive, and I’ll spare myself the ickiness of thinking too deeply about that.
Jeremy stares at me a little too closely before he glances back at Heather, and instinctively I know what he’s thinking. If I wore a little more makeup and a little less clothing, and a fairly constant smirking grin on my face, I might look a lot like my younger sister.
“I listen to people diss math every day,” I offer to Jonah, along with a smile. “In fact, there’s one boy in my first hour class who thinks he has to take a dig at me at least once a morning. But you’ll be glad you figured out multiplication one day when you’re at McDonald’s and wondering how many cheeseburgers you can get with five dollars.”
“Or you can just calculate it on your phone the way Steve Jobs intended,” Heather adds, giving me a grin so I’ll know she’s teasing.
“True.” I stop picking up green beans with my fork just long enough to make sure I have Jonah’s attention. “But…you’ll never be the next Steve Jobs with that kind of attitude.”
Jonah shrugs, because he’s nine and probably just wants the whole lot of us to leave him alone. I’m supposed to be an adult and sometimes I feel the same way, so I know where he’s coming from.
“What does Miss Bailey think of her new house?” Sadie wonders as she drags a slice of turkey through the brown gravy on her plate.
“It’s not like Gump’s,” Bailey tells her, picking up a green bean with her fingers. “Jay made big locks to keep out bad peoples.”
“Bad peoples?” Mom asks, eyes wide as she glances in my direction. She can’t be forced to bring the glass any closer to her lips than where it stopped a couple inches away, probably because I haven’t countered Bailey’s words yet.
“Jake installed new locks so Bailey couldn’t open the door when I wasn’t in the room, that’s all. No bad people.”
“Jake spends a lot of time with you two, then?” Dad might have posed his question lightly, but it holds a depth that I don’t miss. He wants to know how far I’ve come to forgiving Jake, as though it’s just a cut and dry option. I love my dad immensely, but sometimes that bleeding heart compassion doesn’t translate to the real world.
“He’s been over three times since Halloween. Always on Saturdays, and usually for just over an hour.”
“Does he live near you then?” Mom wonders, finally allowing the glass to her lips.
“He says he does, but I have no idea.”
“Well, where does he work?” Dad wants to know. “Has he been able to find a job up there?”
“He told me he’s a bartender.”
Heather clears her throat, and I can’t help but glance in her direction. Her eyebrows rise a bit as she tilts her head at me, and I know if we were in private she would make a joke about that statement. Jake practically living in a bar, he spends so much time there, or something or other.
“I think it’s real nice you let the boy in Bailey’s life,” Mrs. Hathaway states. She’s so quiet, I’d nearly forgotten she was at the table, down at the end just between Sadie and my dad. She offers me a timid smile, her delicate white hair framing her face in a bob with the ends flipped under. The soft-spoken octogenarian was one of the few people who actually stood by Dad’s side three years ago when…
But it’s Thanksgiving, and best not to think about those things while I’m supposed to be counting my blessings.
“It’s nice to have all of us together today, isn’t it?” Mom’s voice has suddenly taken on a token of whimsy, and it almost makes me a little nostalgic. Thanksgiving was so happy and joyful, back when our only troubles were wondering who to invite to dinner. Back when my parents didn’t worry about paying their mortgage, or trying to find work.
And deep inside, I know it’s all my fault.
“I guess Jake couldn’t accept our invitation?” Mom pushes on, and I can actually feel my neck growing crimson under her attentive stare. Unable to flat-out lie to my mother, I simply shake my head. He couldn’t accept the invitation, because I didn’t extend it to him. Bailey and I were driving five hours back home for Thanksgiving, after all. Why would I want to include the one person who would impede any chance of happiness?
“I wonder how he’ll be spending his holiday,” Mom adds. That statement actually causes Heather to kick me under the table. I definitely don’t have extrasensory perception, but somehow I’m still reading Heather’s mind. He’ll be drunk in a few hours—a bleached-blonde with a skintight skirt stretched over her thighs hanging off his neck. Or if he’s working, he’ll be getting said blonde drunk. Letting her give him tips.
Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t really say any of that with certainty. She c
ould be a brunette, or a redhead.
“Bailey, I think your house sounds great,” Sadie interjects, effectively saving the day. I don’t want to spend our entire Thanksgiving dinner talking about Jake, after all. “In fact, I can’t wait until Jonah and I get some time to come up and see you there.”
“You come to my house?” Bailey asks excitedly. “And Gump and Nan?”
“Just as soon as we can,” Dad says, reaching out to tap Bailey on the nose. “Sometimes old Gump can’t get off work so easily.”
That’s another thing bringing down my Thanksgiving happiness. I know that Dad’s going to be heading off to work tomorrow, and we won’t be able to spend the day decorating for Christmas like we used to. His job managing a pizza chain restaurant in Jackson doesn’t leave a lot of time for recreational activities, and he hasn’t been there long enough to build up much vacation time.
Mom is in the same boat, although she does have the weekends unplanned, since the doctor’s office where she works as a receptionist is only open Monday through Friday.
“You Black Friday shopping with me and Sadie Lou?” Heather asks, completely ignoring the hurt look Jeremy gives her. Face it, buddy—it’s week three. You’re practically out the door already. Poor sap.
“I don’t know…” Averting my eyes from Heather is pretty simple, but Sadie drills me with that stare. “You know I don’t go in for that Black Friday stuff, and I really don’t care for the crowds. Besides, the Louisville Jennings clan is kind of limited on funds this year.”
The last part is intended as a joke, and I even offer a self-deprecating grin just to prove the intent, but Mom visibly deflates. She’s never been overly fond of the idea of her baby (of course I mean Bailey) moving out of state. Add to that the fact that she decided to get a job after she wasn’t tasked with the job of watching Bailey during the day, and she feels a little like I ripped out her heart.
She’s never told me that, just to be clear—merely an observation.
“She’s going,” Heather announces, proving she doesn’t care about my feelings or my opinion.
“I can’t keep Bailey out that late.”
The instant the words leave my mouth, I know they are uttered completely in vain. Complaining about being tied to child care when I have a room full of people dying to watch my child is probably not my best strategy.
“Bailey can stay with me,” Dad says, exactly as expected. “She needs a little Gump time.”
“Guuuuump!” Bailey exclaims comically, reducing everyone to laughter.
And so my night is planned without me having a say, sort of like everything else in my life.
“Aw, come on party pooper! We haven’t even hit the good sales yet.”
I’m past the point of arguing, so I lean across the hood of the car and place my head on my arms, feigning exhaustion.
“She’s being dramatic,” Heather assesses, dragging me backwards by the belt loop at the back of my jeans. “You not having fun at all? Kentucky make you a fuddy-duddy already, Alex?”
“Fuddy-duddy,” I repeat, expelling all the air in my lungs at my sister as I turn to give her a stern glare. “We just hiked three-hundred miles in the cold and the dark to go to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart, Heather.”
“Three-hundred miles,” she scoffs. “The cold air is going to her brain. Anyhow, it would have been worth it if I could’ve got that computer.”
Sadie laughs as she leans against the car beside me. When she slouches, we’re almost the same height. Otherwise, she stands about six inches taller than me. Maybe that’s why she always manages to be slightly intimidating—I’m fairly certain she could crush me if she wished.
“But was it worth standing in line so you could get all those Vin Diesel movies? Really?”
“Yes,” Heather answers succinctly, “and the footie pajamas. I needed those, ya know.”
“I can’t imagine you sleeping in footie pajamas,” Sadie tells her.
“Who said anything about sleeping in them? I’ll wear them while I’m watching the Vin Diesel movies.”
I unlock the door to my car, and Sadie responds by moving a couple steps away.
“You’re escaping, aren’t you?” she asks, giving me a knowing look.
I attempt a small smile, but my heart’s not in it. Not in anything lately, really. Things would be better while visiting home, I thought, but it’s not turning out that way.
“You can bring Heather home, can’t you Sadie?” The look I’m sending her is supposed to be gently pleading, but I sense that it’s coming across more like hopeless desperation. “Maybe it’s the trip back home, but I’m completely wiped out.”
“It wasn’t Kentucky. You always have been a fuddy-duddy, Alex,” Heather says.
“Just hush, will you?” Sadie offers a sympathetic, thin smile.
“She knows I’m teasin’.” Heather takes a step toward me and leans over to press a kiss to my cheek just for show. “I love ya, Alex.”
“Knock it off,” I tell her with a grin. It’s difficult to remain annoyed with Heather, because… Well, she’s Heather. Ornery as they come, but still my little sister, and I’ve got this weird instinct to protect her even when she’s ridiculous.
“We’ll hang out tomorrow,” Sadie tells me as I slide into the car seat. A nod of my head is all I give in response before I close myself inside, breathing in the cold November air.
I don’t make it home. Instead of turning down the familiar road, my car makes its way down an alternate path, onto a sleepy dirt road, and eventually to a little clearing to the right of the dirt that stands on top of a hill overlooking houses and fields below.
Louisville greeted me several weeks ago like a stranger, welcoming me slowly and with trepidation. Jackson welcomes me back like a bad dream that I can’t escape, taunting me with memories that won’t be forgotten. The white Mitsubishi doesn’t belong here in this clearing any more than my mind should be entrenched in reminiscing, but I can’t seem to back away.
A familiar country song’s refrain streams from the radio, thanks to a local station I found on the way back. The haunting melody of love lost causes me to close my eyes as I bring my hands up to rub them across my face, attempting to clear the cobwebs from my mind.
Cody Hewitt.
The last time I was here was with Cody Hewitt, and as I stare out the windshield at the scattered houselights below, melancholy threatens to overtake me.
“I’m not used to seeing this side of you,” Cody told me, glancing over from where he sat to my left on the tailgate of his old rusted-out Ford.
“The fun side? The relaxed side? The late-at-night side?” I allowed myself to let out a laugh as I pondered his words.
“Naw, I just meant that I’m usually in front of you turning toward the left, not the right. But you look the same from either side, really.”
I dragged my palms down the thighs of my jeans as inconspicuously as possible. The night was warm for April, but not warm enough that I should be feeling the moisture gather on my palms. Definitely not warm enough that I should feel the tiny beads of sweat threatening to show up at my hairline. My hands went up to push back my hair, testing to make sure my nervousness wasn’t obvious by swiping at my brow. No perspiration yet, thank goodness, but I made sure I kept my hair away from my face just in case.
We’d been working on the morning’s trigonometry assignment at my parents’ kitchen table, just like we had been every evening that week. Cody was really not great at math. There were some months that he barely pulled out a good enough grade to keep him on the football team, but he kept taking math anyway, semester after semester. He was such a go-getter on the football field, I imagined that he just wanted to teach math who was boss, or maybe prove that he could get a grasp on it.
Heather insisted that he took math just so he could ask for my help.
The song coming from the cab of the pickup truck shifted, and I heard the first few lyrics of “Every Mile a Memory,” the Dierks Bentley tune that play
ed countless times that year. It was impossible for me not to notice, because it was fitting that I’d be thinking about remembering everything around me, when we were so close to graduating. When Cody was so close to being gone.
“So, um, that photo thing today was a little awkward, huh?”
Of course he meant the yearbook photo that we took earlier in the afternoon, after which he couldn’t stop giving me odd looks. I’d tried to ignore his strange behavior, but as soon as he finished his homework he asked if he could take me for ice cream. My heart lurched inside my chest as though it wanted to break free and run at him, but I managed to appear nonchalant as I asked my mom if it was okay.
Sitting on the back of Cody’s truck that night, I was determined not to let him see my emotion.
“I guess.” Accompanying my delayed answer with a shrug of my shoulders, I placed the palms of my hands at the edge of the tailgate and leaned forward slightly, looking at the trees down below us.
“It would be nice if you could do what you want without changing things, you know? But I guess we’re almost to graduation anyway. Not much to lose anymore.”
His words came to me almost like gibberish, and I tried to brush them off rather than read anything into them.
“The irrepressible Mr. Cody Hewitt,” I teased, forcing myself not to look in his direction. “I figured you did what you wanted all the time.”
“Heck no.” He leaned his head back, staring up at the mess of leaves above us. It was impossible to see the stars with all those trees so close. “Been wanting you for a long time, and I’ve never done anything about that.”
My breath suddenly felt like it was pinging around in my throat, not making it in and out of its normal volition. My thoughts were jumbled inside my head, too—so much so that I couldn’t force a coherent word out of my lips. How long had I been waiting for Cody to want me?
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