The Deepest Roots

by Miranda Asebedo

  Nothing else happens. No light, no wind, no darkness. Just calm, as if the house and Emmeline decided we didn’t mean any harm to her. While Mercy gently folds each item of clothing or blanket that came out of the chest, placing them carefully back inside with her small hands, Lux grows more despondent.

  “We should lock it back up,” I say, putting my hand on the lid of the chest. I move to close it, but notice that we’ve left the framed picture out. I pick it up, looking at it more closely.

  “It’s just a picture of the town,” Mercy says. “There’s one like that in the book we put together for the Cottonwood Hollow Historical Society. It’s probably the same one.”

  It’s sketched in pencil, a miniature of the town of Cottonwood Hollow and the Remington land. It’s clearly an amateur’s work, the houses sketched with little flowers around them. There are a few words written in the same spidery script from Emmeline’s diary.

  “It’s a map,” Lux says. “Look.” She points at the hills on the eastern edge of Remington land. “That’s where the ruins are now.” She traces the wavy lines of the creek and the tiny fishes jumping out of them. “And here’s the creek and the homestead.” Little roses are drawn around the homestead.

  “I don’t see any big ‘X marks the spot,’” I say, looking over the map. “But let’s take it with us. Maybe if we look it over we’ll see something.” I try not to think about another day lost looking for the chest. Another day that might be the one when Garrett Remington sells my Mach to someone else.

  Lux sighs. “So this is a bust. This house has already been gone through and we have no idea where the chest could be. It could literally be in any hole dug on eighty acres.”

  I shrug, feeling more hopeless than I want to admit right now.

  Lux is quiet when we leave the homestead. I carry the picture carefully, noting that the frame is a little loose and the glass front slips around. It needs to be Fixed, but I’m not going to do it out here when I need to get to work.

  When we’ve crossed back over the tree bridge, Mercy says, trying to cheer us up, “Well, at least we know the chest isn’t in any of the rooms we searched today.”

  “But someone was,” Lux follows, putting her new shoes back on her feet now that we’ve crossed the tree bridge.

  “Someone was,” I agree, “and they were looking for something. Maybe the same thing we’re looking for.”

  “They couldn’t know about the diary,” Mercy counters.

  “What if whoever took it read it and found out all about the dowry chest?” Lux asks, picking the head off a foxtail and throwing it to the ground. “What if they already found it, and that’s why Emmeline is pissed and making mini tornadoes in her house. Maybe she’s mad because it wasn’t a daughter of Cottonwood Hollow like she wanted.”

  “We don’t even know if the diary was taken,” I counter, frustrated that this all comes back to me losing the diary. “I mean, look at all the weird shit Emmeline did in that house. What if she just made the diary disappear? What if we were never meant to have it more than one night?”

  “And that was the only night we could have found the dowry chest?” Lux follows my line of thought. She kicks furiously at the grass.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Mercy says quietly to Lux. “Why do you need this money all of a sudden? What’s the big push?”

  “Shopping,” Lux lies. “I want to go shopping.”

  Mercy rolls her eyes. “If this is about you trying to fit in with those rich Evanston girls, and your Evanston girlfriend—”

  “This isn’t about Morgan!” Lux retorts. “This is about what I want.”

  “And if we did find money, Lux, don’t you think it should all go to Rome? She just had to trade her car for the rent!”

  Lux’s face falls. For her, that dowry chest is a way out. Even if it’s not a realistic one. Even if it will never be enough to make her financially independent from her stepfather. Even if it was never enough to make her mom kick him out on his ass. I want her to just tell Mercy what’s going on, to stop with the secrets. But I can’t make her tell, because I’d be a hypocrite. There are secrets I keep from them. About paying half of the rent. About Mom almost sleeping with Garrett to pay it. About ruining the fuel system in Aaron’s truck. About being so afraid of being hurt or abandoned that I push away anyone who’s not them.

  “Rome—” Lux begins an apology. Her green eyes find mine, and I know she’s hurting, that she doesn’t want to keep secrets any more than I do. But she’s afraid. Afraid of what’s on the other side of that door if she pushes it open, if she admits that what’s happening in her house isn’t right.

  I shrug her off. “It’s fine,” I say.

  “What is it?” Mercy asks, crossing her arms. She’s on the verge of blowing up, just like she did in the Remington homestead two years ago. “What are you two keeping from me?”

  “Nothing,” Lux slings back, and I know she’s getting angry.

  She’s ashamed, I realize. She’s ashamed to tell Mercy.

  “I hate it when you do this. I hate it. We promised. We swore that we wouldn’t keep secrets. That we wouldn’t turn away from each other.” And for the first time in our friendship, Mercy evokes the blood oath on purpose, holding out her hand so that we can see the thin white scar. She points at it with one small, slim finger. “Don’t do this to me. We’re supposed to be friends. We’re supposed to be sisters.”

  “You wouldn’t understand, okay? So just drop it!” Lux says.

  Mercy’s in a full-on rage now. “Try me. I’m not a baby. You two treat me like I’m made of glass. Just tell me what the hell is going on!”

  “Oh, Mercy, you are a baby,” Lux shoots back. “You with your perfect life and your perfect family and the perfect grades and the perfect scholarship you’re going to get to some fancy college. You don’t know what it’s like to be Rome or me. Things have never been hard for you. Nobody’s ever looked down on you because you live in a trailer or you’re a slut or you’re repeating algebra. It’s different for you. Everything is. You’re going to leave here someday. You’re going to go on with your perfect life and do amazing, wonderful things and we’ll still be here.”

  The words sting when she says them, and I wonder if they’re true. Maybe Lux and I have always been preparing for this. Protecting Mercy, keeping her safe until her wings were strong enough for her to fly away. Maybe because we thought she was the only one of the three of us who would ever really fly.

  Mercy steps back, as if Lux has slapped her.

  Lux knows she’s winning, and she delivers the final blow. The one that Mercy won’t think to question. “Not everyone is as perfect as you, okay? Maybe I just want that money because I do. Isn’t that enough for you? Aaron’s hours were cut. He’s not the foreman, like your dad. Who do you think cut his hours, anyway? Your dad. The foreman.”

  Mercy’s mouth falls open, and her eyes are wet with tears.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, Lux. I’m so sorry.” She looks at me like I should have stopped her midrant.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lux murmurs. “We’ll probably never find the chest anyway. It’s just a stupid pipe dream like everything else.” There’s a shadow of guilt that obscures her features, and she looks away from Mercy. “I’m sorry about what I said to you,” Lux says. She can’t even look Mercy in the eyes when she says it, which tells me that all these secrets are eating Lux up, too.

  “Wait,” Mercy says, wiping her eyes. She looks at me, and for a brief second it’s like we’re reading each other’s minds. “Find it. We need to Find it,” Mercy says.

  “And we have a Finder,” I finish.

  Lux stops and turns around. She actually smiles. “God, we have a Finder. How could no one have thought of that before? Neveah! Your little sister is a Finder, Mercy.” She hugs Mercy, and Mercy holds her so tightly that I think she might crack Lux’s bones.

  Mercy feels guilty.

  That’s what
we’ve done to her. Lux has fed her half-truths, and I’m just standing here as an accomplice, wondering why I never realized this strange facet of our friendship. Mercy is going to leave us, and we’re just waiting for it.

  “Neveah’s got that church service project after school all week,” Mercy says, letting go of Lux and looking grimly determined to make things right. “But she could come along on Saturday. We’ll look then. Bright and early.”

  “Here,” Lux says, holding out her hand to take the framed map from me. “Give that to me. I’ll stay for dinner at Mercy’s house, and while I’m there we can dig up the book from the historical society and see if we can find anything out about Maisie, if she was the last person with Emmeline.”

  As we walk back to Cottonwood Hollow, Lux looks as if she could fly, too, the tips of her ballet flats barely touching the ground. But I feel like I’m made of lead.

  Eleven

  AN HOUR LATER, I’M UNDERNEATH the chassis of a Buick when I see the sleek Dodge Challenger roll into the last shop bay door. “Shit,” I mutter to myself. It’s Jett Rodriguez in his stupid car with its stupid warped rotors. We managed to avoid each other for the rest of the day at school because he’d left. He was probably at the dentist getting his perfect white teeth looked at. I stick my tongue into one of my back molars, wondering how long it’s been since I’ve been to the dentist.

  “Rome!” Red shouts. “Get the keys from the Dodge Challenger. He’s got an appointment to have his brakes looked at.”

  I wait a beat, taking a deep breath before I roll out from under the car. Sitting up, I grab a grease rag from the pocket of my coveralls and wipe my hands. Then I stand up and walk over to him in my work boots, the only pair of shoes I actually own thanks to Lux this afternoon.

  “Hey,” I say as Jett gets out of his car. “Can I get your keys?” I feel Red’s eyes boring holes into me from the office window, where he’s shuffling through papers, making sure I’m being polite to the customers. He’s not one to talk. He has less patience with other humans than I do.

  “I wondered if I’d see you here,” Jett says, pulling his key fob out of the pocket of his jeans.

  I’m not good at apologies, but I know that I need to give him one now. I wipe my hands on my coveralls, because they’re starting to sweat. “Look, I’m sorry about how I came off this morning. I don’t think you took the diary. I mean I didn’t really think you did. I was just asking because it was lost. And sometimes things come out of my mouth the wrong way. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. My friends say sometimes I’m a jerk.”

  Jett makes kind of a half smile, like he’s trying not to laugh. “Yeah, it was kind of an awkward moment.”

  I nod, looking down at the floor of the shop while I give my face a chance to cool down from the embarrassment of apologizing. Tim and Eddie are trying to listen in on the conversation from where they’re clustered around the engine of a Toyota Tundra. I look over my shoulder and see that Red’s figured out Jett and I know each other, and he’s giving Jett the stink eye.

  “Did you find it? The diary?” Jett asks.

  “No. It’s still lost.”

  “Did you write anything good in it?” he asks, that big stupid grin back on his face. “Anything about me?” His dimple pops.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Is that your boss?” Jett must have finally noticed Red.

  “Yeah.”

  “He looks angry. At me.”

  “He hates everyone on principle. Don’t take it personally.”

  “You guys must really get along well.”

  “Touché. We do. We’re a lot alike.”

  “So how about getting that pizza tomorrow night? Or tacos. Or whatever sounds good.”

  “I have work. Until eight.”

  “I’ve got practice, so eightish works for me. If you want to go.” He hurriedly adds that last part, stumbling a little.

  My stomach growls. “Yeah, that would be good. I could go get pizza or tacos or whatever.”

  “Should I pick you up here or at your house?”

  “Um, here, I guess.”

  “Sounds good. Well, I guess I’ll go. My friend’s waiting outside to give me a ride back to practice. I’ll see you later.” He glances back over at Red, who’s now holding a tire iron. “Give me a heads-up if your boss charges me while my back is turned.” He hands me the key fob.

  “Will do.” I can barely manage to suppress a grin.

  As soon as Jett leaves, Tim starts in. “Rome’s got a date with a guy? I didn’t even know you liked guys, Rome. I thought maybe you were one of those—”

  “Shut your face if you want to keep your job, dipshit,” Red growls, setting down the tire iron he’s carrying on the top of my toolbox. I didn’t see him walk over here, but he stands behind me now. “And it’s your turn to clean the bathroom, Tim. Why don’t you go get on that?”

  Tim grimaces, but he needs this job, so he skulks off. Eddie follows, wanting to get out of blasting range in case Red is pissed for a while.

  “You okay?” Red asks, crossing his arms. “You want me to get rid of Tim?”

  “You mean like in a ‘hide the body’ kind of way?”

  “Like I cut the little shit’s shifts until he quits kind of way.”

  “He’s a jerk, but I can deal with him.”

  “What about the other guy? Challenger guy?”

  “Jett?”

  “His name is Jett? Jesus Christ. It’s no wonder kids today are so fucked up. Was he bothering you? He was over here a long time. You know him from school?”

  “Yeah, he’s an Evanston boy.”

  “Thought you had a rule about no Evanston boys.”

  “Well, you know how they say rules are meant to be broken.”

  “Just be careful, okay?”

  “I can take care of myself,” I tell Red, crossing my arms. I look over at him and realize he’s standing the same way.

  “I know you can. I see you do it all the time.” He takes a deep breath. “So how are other things?”

  “What other things?” I ask.

  “Like your Mach. What happened?”

  “I sold it. Time for something different.” I don’t like to lie to Red, but I don’t want him to feel sorry for me, either.

  “Huh. Well, I didn’t see that coming. Must be getting old.” He smiles at me, and there’s nothing behind it, no motives or pity, and for a second I almost spill everything.

  Red has always respected me, always treated me like an equal, and I don’t want to lose that. So I laugh, “Yeah. Or it could be all those exhaust fumes getting to your brain.”

  “Whatever, grease monkey.” He starts to turn away, but before he does he says, “Let me know if you need some extra shifts. I’ve got the money if you’ve got the time.”

  There’s something warm in my chest, but it’s probably just the smell of gasoline. I look over at Tim, who’s still cleaning the bathroom, and Eddie, who’s admiring the Challenger and not paying any attention to us, so I do something I never thought I’d do. I dart in and give Red a quick hug.

  He’s so surprised that he doesn’t say anything. He just pats my back with his big, grease-stained hands.

  And then I pull away, confident that neither of us will ever feel the need to speak of it again. We understand each other that way.

  Red deals with Jett when he comes back to get his car just before closing time. I wanted to say hello again, but Red told me he’s been working on the electrical system of this car for three mornings now, and he can’t seem to figure it out. I can’t shake what he said about the extra shifts and how much it meant to me that he offered them without prying, without strings. He knows that I won’t take a handout, but I’m willing to take on any honest work. So instead of getting another few minutes with Jett outside of school, I’m lying half under the front of a 1987 Chevy Cavalier, dodging the mouse shit falling from the wiring beneath the dashboard above me.

  I prop myself up against the driver’s seat just
far enough to watch Red explaining what Tim and Eddie did to the rotors. My arms ache from holding them above my head for so long, and I’m about to give up and just Fix the wiring rather than doing it the old-fashioned way. I don’t care if I’m exhausted afterward. I’m ready to get out from under this storm of mouse pellets. I like Red a lot, but there’s only so much poop that can fall in my face before I’m done.

  Not long after Tim and Eddie leave for the night, Mom’s car pulls up to the garage. She’s carrying something, and Red practically sprints across the shop to greet her. I’ve never seen him greet anyone that way, and it makes me uneasy. Mom is beaming, wearing that same little black skirt from yesterday, this time with a shiny red top that is more date appropriate than job-hunting appropriate.

  I drag myself out from underneath the dash of the Cavalier, finally having Fixed the wiring problem. My body is stiff and sore, and I spend a few moments just rolling my shoulders and bending my taxed joints. I wash up and change in the bathroom, which is newly cleaned thanks to Tim. I slip on Lux’s borrowed flats that we’d stopped to get after our adventure at the homestead. They are soft and supple and don’t rub my toes and heels the way my lost ones did. Damn Lux and her fancy shoes. I’m not giving them back.

  When I get to the office, Red is leaning against the desk while Mom is waving around a stack of paper. “So I just printed all these up today and I don’t even need them!” she laughs.

  “What’s that?” I ask, wiping my damp hands on my skirt.

  “Résumés I made at the library. But Red, I mean, Mr. Montgomery, offered me a job running the office here. Can you imagine?” she gushes. “We’ll be working together!”

  “You can call me Red,” he says, still grinning.

  There are no words to express exactly how I feel about this development. “That’s really something,” is all I can manage to utter. I want to scream at Mom, but I don’t want to do it in front of Red. I am terrified that she’s going to mess this up for me. I admire Red. I respect him. I don’t want her to hook him like she’s hooked so many other men just to dump him in a few months. He hasn’t dated anyone that I know of since I started working for him, probably because he’s always here, making sure everything is running smoothly. Someone to manage his office and his paperwork would carve out more time for him. I’m stuck in the middle. I want Mom to get a good job, and I want Red to be able to have more time outside of the shop, or at least out of the office. But I don’t want Mom to break his heart, or disappoint him when he realizes that she has no idea how to run an office.