by Elle Tyler
I stroked her hair. “I’m gonna go to work at the hospital and confront Logan, beg him not to show you the pictures on his phone. I’ll make sure your father sees, and that’ll force his hand. There’s no way Timothy will let me talk to you before Logan, so he’ll make him show you the pictures tonight. In your father’s mind, Logan will be the last person you were with. That’ll put Timothy’s attention on him and not me.”
“But Logan will just tell my dad he couldn’t find me.”
“He’s gonna find you, just on our terms. He needs to be the scapegoat, Everly Anne. Timothy is gonna know when I apply to Atlanta, and if he thinks that we’re together, he’s gonna put the pieces together fast. He can’t know until we’re ready.”
She slid her hands over mine. “Graduation is so far away.”
“No, it isn’t,” I assured, our fingers interlocked. “Summer will be here before you know it. We actually could use more time than we have.”
“My point exactly,” she said.
“You’re not going to die before I graduate. Say it aloud. Make sure fate hears you.”
She stared me in the eye. “I’m not going to die before you graduate.” But the anxiety crept back into her features. “What if someone comes up here?”
“Marta has been the only one brave enough to try in almost ten years—and believe me, she won’t ever do it again.”
Everly shook her head. “When did you come up with this?”
“I don’t know. I was sitting there eating my ziti and then… light bulb?”
“Liar.”
“I asked myself what would Jesus do.”
She laughed, but her eyes burned. “Even bigger lie.”
I ran my hands across her hair. “I love you?”
“Fine, don’t tell me,” she smiled. “And don’t tell me that either—it’s too short-lived.”
“I love you? It couldn’t possibly live any larger.”
“But it becomes routine, which makes every ‘I love you’ after the original ‘I love you’ less powerful. Even people in crappy marriages probably say it to each other. But do they still mean it? Or are they just following protocol?”
I laughed. “An ‘I love you’ protocol?”
“Does your pop ever tell Marta he loves her?”
“I don’t know... I guess.”
“Think it’s like when he loved your mom, Julep?”
“Not even a fraction.”
“So it’s an ‘I love you’ protocol,” she concluded.
“Okay, fine,” I agreed. “No ‘I love yous’ anymore. What would you prefer in its place?”
“I liked the numbers. It felt more inspired.”
“Everly Anne.” I slid my hands under her hair and turned her face up close to mine. “I love you no less than 358 ways. Please never allow anything to sway you from believing it’s the absolute truth. Even if the sky does fall, even if we do turn to dust, I’ll always be waiting for you.”
Our mouths touched gently as if to test out our first kiss since Montauk, but as soon as I tasted her lips, I committed myself to that invisible cord until it tied me so completely to her, I no longer knew where she ended and I began. I had never felt softness before her lips. Warmth and unyielding desire thumped inside my chest. My blood ran so conflicted—down deep and back to the surface. She was feather-light as she crawled into my lap, her arms wound around my shoulders and nervous fingers at the nape of my hair.
Then everything slow, slow, slowed.
The entire world outside of the attic sounded like it went missing. There were only our breaths. There were only soft presses and finger-soft promises on her cheek. Our lips drew like magnets. Eyes closed, I never once lost hold of her.
***
“But I’m wearing pajamas,” she protested.
“It’s just my family, Nick, and Tatum. They won’t care. Everyone else has gone home.”
We found the living room and claimed a seat on the couch together. Tatum was trying to find a radio station, and Nick sipped a beer as he checked out the small of her back peeking out from her shirt. My father sat in a chair to our left and only gave a smile as he glanced to us.
“Oh, hell yes.” Tatum turned the radio up to a decibel that would ensure police knocking on the door. Marta cringed as she took a seat on my father’s lap. “This is my song.”
Some Beyoncé song mixed with months of separation caused Tatum and Nick to perform a dance that would have Marta praying to God for forgiveness until next Thanksgiving. Everly watched with a huge grin, probably more thankful everyone was staring at them and not her pajamas.
“No,” my father grumbled. “No, no, no. You have NO idea what you’re doing.” He was still a little high in the sky, if you wanted my opinion. Not enough to be alarmed, but just enough to be entertaining. “What is with all the bending over? Thatsa thing you kids do?”
“It’s called twerking,” Marta replied. “It’s going around in all the high schools.”
We all cracked up. “You make it sound like a virus,” I told her.
“It’s definitely sick.” She nodded as Tatum turned around and rolled her eyes so only I could see.
“It’s not this twerkin’ that’s the problem,” my father continued. “It’s the void of a man leading his lady. What happened ta that? She’s doin’ all the damn work, and ya just standing there completely useless, Nicholas!”
“Yeah?” Nick challenged. “You got something better, old man?”
“I sure as helllllll do.”
I turned my face into Everly’s shoulder to hide my laughter. Not that she was any better.
“Find me a song,” he ordered Tatum.
Tatum scanned through the stations until she found a song begging for you to tell her somethin’ good over pops and clicks.
“Let me see whatcha working with, Papa Trovatto.” She was gonna dance with him, but then he shook his head and pushed Marta’s hips so he could stand. I expected him to take her hand—cringing internally—but he crossed the room and went straight to Everly.
He offered his hand. “May I?”
She looked at him like she was a child. “You know I can’t,” she replied quietly.
“You can. I know this for a fact, because I remember teaching you.”
I stared at him, but he only watched Everly. She took his hand and let him lead her to the middle of the room. Tatum pushed the coffee table aside, and Marta folded her arms across her chest awkwardly, as though knowingly dismissed.
“Remember how I told you it’s like sweeping the floor?” He swayed Everly lightly back and forth. “Your weight is mine, your feet are mine.” He led her as if they were center-stage in a ballroom and a classic voice loomed over the airwaves. He wore an honest, deep smile on his face that ran from his eyes down to his chin. And the faster he waltzed, the brighter Everly’s cheeks flushed, the more her smile mirrored his. The room grew louder and smaller and ignited into a time lost. It wasn’t my father and mother—but that’s where he got the dancing from—it was just a little girl who once wanted a father trapped inside a young woman who still needed to know that hope existed.
Tatum applauded as he dipped and spun and showed Everly off. And with every twirl, I felt myself sink further into a sea of tranquility. The possibility of happiness, of normality, arose inside of me with such vigor, I understood in an instant why those black robes went to church and belted praise each Sunday. I found sense in putting your hands to the heavens, as if someone above witnessed your devotion. She was right—everything rested on hope.
They ended the dance with a dramatic dip toward the audience. Everly reached out and touched my chin, and I smiled at her. “391.”
My father pulled her upright and took her hand so he could place a kiss.
I eyed him. “I’m not opposed to beating a senior citizen in his own home.”
He only smiled and led Everly back to her place beside me. As if it were a secret he told her, he said, “Thank you, peach.”
; She looked at him as if she understood the code and gave a nod. Tatum was switching the radio dial as the doorbell rang. Two officers greeted Marta on the other side of the door with a complaint about fireworks. Nick nodded to me and then interrupted.
“Evening, officers.” Gently, he moved Marta aside with just the size of his frame. “Sorry about the ruckus, but I just got back from a tour in Iraq, and my brother Callum wanted to welcome me home properly. Hope we didn’t disturb anyone too badly, sir.” He extended his hand. “Sergeant Nicholas Petros.”
Officer Stroud shook his hand but frowned. “You know fireworks are against the law, don’t you, sergeant?”
Nick sighed. “You know what, sir? I’ve been traveling the world for so long, I don’t even know where I am half the time.”
“Yes, but you said it was your brother who set off the fireworks. If you’re referring to Callum, I know he’s Andrew’s boy and has lived here his whole life, so he damn well knows better. Usually doesn’t offer us any problems, either.”
He tried to glance around Nick, but I grabbed Tatum’s hand and pulled her up to the door with me, throwing my arms over her shoulders affectionately. “I do know better, and I’m very sorry. Truth is, I was just really trying to impress my girlfriend.” I kissed her cheek and cupped her hand in mine to hide her wedding ring. “But I won’t be any more trouble tonight, Officer Stroud. I’m due at the hospital in thirty minutes, and they don’t allow fireworks, either... Not that there’s anyone worth impressing, even if they did.” I kissed Tatum’s cheek again.
He tried not to smile, but there was something lucky about this front door and people failing tonight.
AN OLD ATTIC
23.
HER LIFE REST IN THE ATTIC from my childhood. And our future rested in my ability to act as if she didn’t matter.
My days at work started to consist of asking Cecily the Cute Girl all of those questions I’d never wanted to ask. I paraded her around places I knew people from work would see us, like to Noelle’s café, where she told me all about the humdrum details that comprised her life. I smiled at her every time we passed one another in the hallway at work. I talked about her with the nurses and asked more questions like, “Where would be a great place to take a girl I like on a romantic date?”
According to the hospital, we were a thing.
According to Dr. Brighton, I had no interest in finding out what had happened to his daughter.
According to me I was following my plan.
And according to Everly—she was right—the best way to manipulate people you were at the mercy of was to learn their point of weakness and use it against them.
For Brighton, that point was becoming his greatest fear. I was now the man who only had interest in an anomaly, and when it became too much work, too close to home, I’d bolted like a coward.
And Everly fulfilled her role. She became the girl I’d warned him about—too caged up, plus bright enough to figure out how to flee.
But to believe that this had been orchestrated and achieved so simply wasn’t allowed. I wasn’t that naïve.
So when the police showed up at my house two weeks after Everly Anne Brighton went missing, I wasn’t surprised. But what preceded that event was a permanent game-changer.
We had been so careful to follow routine and never falter, but while I was banking on everyone’s weakness in order to win, what I hadn’t banked on was the strength of a lonely woman who wondered too many nights about the ghosts from the past, as her husband slept at her side, dreaming of another woman he couldn’t shake from his memory.
And when you have nothing to lose, threats are pointless.
I wasn’t watching or listening to the happenings of my house, as I had all the days before, because I was too focused on a girl with a sad yellow scarf.
“It was a big day in knitting club.” She waved her hand to the cutout paper dolls she had assembled on the chaise. “We made you a scarf to keep you warm and to keep me sane from boredom.”
I smiled. “I didn’t know they allowed anyone under ninety to join such clubs.”
“How do you know I’m not ninety?”
I took the gift from her. “Because I pay sixty-five dollars annually for my optometrist to report I have perfect vision.”
“Does he charge to make sure how well you see souls, Callum?”
“Souls?” I laughed.
“How do you know my physical form is the same age as my spiritual being? I might be ninety in spirit.”
I had to look away or else I’d bring her back to the hospital with me. There would be no denying that she lingered in a smile I couldn’t erase.
But she took it all wrong. “You don’t have to wear it. I was just bored.”
“No,” I said, “I love it. I... I miss you. That’s all. I’m tired, too. That doesn’t help my mood any.”
She slid slowly across my lap until she was settled with her knees at my hips, arms around my shoulders. We sat on the floor of the attic and kissed with abandon. It felt as if I had never touched her before. As if my memory was trying to claw its way back to Everly and hold on with all its might.
So I allowed myself the delight of her skin as I slid my hands up the back of her sweater, under her bra strap, and hooked my fingers over her shoulders. I submerged myself in how her quickening pulse felt against the millions of kisses I had dreamt about giving her neck as I fooled Cecily with a charade.
Too much blood rushed through my body as she stroked her cheek along my face, her long soft blonde hair covering my eyes and suffocating my senses with her warmth, essence.
My memory pulled so firmly toward this moment, refusing to waver until it was committed to my mind infinitely. And this is why I didn’t hear Marta.
It was three hard knocks on the front door that broke our kiss.
When my eyes opened, she stood there, shell-shocked at what she found in the attic. I quickly pulled myself up and checked the window. Two squad cars sat below. Everly was as still as the paper dolls she’d created. I crossed the floor and quickly yanked the ladder up before my father had a chance to open the front door.
“I swear to God, if you say a single word …” My threat was useless—I knew that—but desperation leapt before it took sense along for the ride.
Marta kept her voice hushed as she looked at Everly. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and then reached for my hand. I pulled her to my side, and she whispered back to Marta, “Please don’t say anything. Callum is keeping me safe. My father is hurting me. Please.”
I ignored Marta and sunk carefully to my knees so I could put my ear to the floor and listen to the muffled conversation below.
They wanted in the house and he’d allowed them. My mind prayed I hadn’t left anything behind of hers. I prayed that I had been so careful. Mixed with the officer’s voice I also heard Brighton. He wanted to know when the last time my dad saw her was. He said Fourth of July. Brighton didn’t believe him and asked about Thanksgiving.
“Callum had friends over, but she wasn’t one of them.”
Brighton pressed him but was interrupted by an officer.
“Actually, Dr. Brighton, I had a call here on Thanksgiving. Andrew’s son was setting off fireworks with his buddy. When he came to the door, he had a girl with him, but she wasn’t Everly. They seemed pretty... friendly.”
“What did she look like?” he asked.
“Hmm... long dark hair. Callum’s age. And his buddy said he was in the military.”
“Nicholas,” my father supplied. “Yes. He’s a sergeant.”
And to myself I whispered, “Please don’t say she’s his wife. If there is a God, do not allow him to give up the gag.”
But the only words my pop uttered next were, “You see, Officer Stroud, my son keeps good, honorable friends. He’s a good student with a bright future. I can understand where you might think there is a weak spot in the nobleness of my family, but I promise you it’s only myself, not my son.”
Their footsteps paused just below my ear.
“What’s up there?” Brighton asked.
Every part of me seized.
“None of your concern.”
Brighton must have gone for the rope, because there was a scuffle and then orders to calm down.
“Mr. Trovatto, what’s in the attic?” Officer Stroud asked.
“I have allowed you to look around without a warrant, and now I’d like you to leave.”
“If you have my daughter…”
Another scuffle broke out and then my father shouted at him, “It’s Julep’s attic, you bastard!”
Officer Stroud knew us well enough to understand.
“It’s all I have left of her. You want to strip me of that, too?” He took a breath and then ordered them to leave. “The next time you come back here, Timothy—warrant or not—you better be prepared to shoot me dead, because that’s the only damn way you’re getting in that attic.”
I watched from the window as they left our house and reached their squad cars, Brighton’s arms flailing as he yelled his frustrations and orders. I turned back to Marta.
“You cannot tell them.”
Her face was troubled as she pushed the ladder down. My father’s wasn’t troubled, though, when he saw her at the bottom of the steps, Everly and me lingering at the top. He simply pushed the ladder back up as if he hadn’t even noticed us. Just as I turned to Everly, the doorbell rang once again. A string of profanities filtered back up toward the attic as I heard Marta answer the door. My mind started to calculate how difficult it would be to scale the snow-clad roof and climb down to our escape.
I listened as she greeted Officer Stroud. “Oh..., hello Mrs. Trovatto. I... I didn’t know you were home, ma’am.”
“Yes, well,” she said with a laughing sigh, “I have been a bit feverish today. I was resting and then heard all this commotion.”
“Sorry, ma’am. We were just trying to help Dr. Brighton locate his daughter. He thought she might be with your son, Callum.”