I encouraged everyone to sit while I served the salad. I sat with them.
“I’ve been thinking,” I told them. Everyone laid their forks down. “I’m going to give the girls to you.”
Hollie broke down crying, as did Matt. She stood up and Matt held her, the girls ran to their sides and they tucked them into their embrace.
I struggled.
I hurt.
I was grateful to them.
I loved them for loving the girls.
How can I feel so happy yet so heartbroken all at once?
That’s when Hollie and Matt turned toward me. Matt held his hand out to me. I stood and gave my own to him. They brought me next to the girls, surrounding me with their arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The following Saturday, Sylvia and Hollie and Matt’s attorney worked together to begin the uncontested adoption process and we all signed the necessary documents. I spent most of the day with them, touring their home, and the girls showed me their rooms.
When I left that evening, I felt peace about it all. I didn’t think I’d ever seen the girls happier, healthier, or better adjusted. No more dysfunction for them, and I was relieved because I think even my mom would have been pleased with how much they were loved.
When I made it home, I locked my doors and made sure all the windows were still shut, checking all the rooms to make sure they were as I’d left them. I stood by the back door, looking over the top of my fence at Trace’s house. All his lights were on and there were people inside, I could see.
Good, he’s not alone, I thought. Maybe he’ll leave me be again tonight.
To take my mind off him, I turned the TV on but it didn’t work. I took my phone out.
Salinger, I texted, not worried for the time since I knew he’d be at work.
He didn’t reply so I continued on.
I don’t know what happened at the tournament. Just confused. I tried to talk to you but you blew me off. If I’ve done something, please know it wasn’t intentional and I’m sorry. I miss you. I have so much I want to talk to you about. So much. There’s things that need to be said but would be better in person, you know? Anyway, please consider meeting up with me later.
I dropped my phone on my new coffee table and laid back on the new sofa, staring out the window. I didn’t expect a reply, but I wanted him to know regardless.
I’d come a pretty far way from what I’d used to be. I looked down at my body.
“No bruises,” I told myself.
It’d been a long time since my body had remained unmarked for any period of time. A wave of guilt washed over me when I thought how I was glad Sterling was dead because it also meant Mama was as well.
I was coming to terms with her death, though, coming to terms with my role in it. Avoiding those who needed me didn’t rid me of the eventual blame, as I said before. Yes, I was still left holding the gun and didn’t notice until after the trigger had been pulled. But as Tao had encouraged, I was deciding how that past would shape my future. I had decided it would mean I would dedicate my life to helping those who had suffered from domestic violence. I was letting my past predict a better future, not just for myself but for others.
I had decided I needed to go to school.
I had also decided I wasn’t going to stay in Bottle County much longer.
I had no future there because the past was no longer an anchor.
I stood up and headed for the kitchen. It was growing close to one in the morning and I thought I’d get a bottle of water and head to bed. I’d just wrapped my hand around the fridge handle when I noticed something weird happening at Trace’s.
“What the hell?” I asked no one.
I ran over to the sliding glass door and noticed there was small fire in his kitchen.
“What a dumb ass.”
There was a lot of movement. I slid the door open and heard them yelling. A girl I didn’t recognize rushed down the back deck and grabbed the hose. She attempted to bring it up to the house, but it didn’t reach, so she ran back inside. I watched, hoping they would get it under control, but when it seemed there was no hope of that, I turned, ready to get my phone to call the fire department.
But I never made it. The loudest sound I’d ever heard in my life blasted through my chest and ears before I was thrown forward, sharp slices slit across my skin, a shower of glass tinkled all around me. I landed on my stomach, the breath knocked out of me. A second, roaring blast rumbled through my house, and I flinched where I laid.
I groaned and slid onto my back, a silent scream of pain when my skin met the glass there. I gasped in air, but it wouldn’t come. I felt myself losing consciousness there on the kitchen tile.
It’s funny the things you think about when you think you’re dying. First instinct is to save yourself, your body naturally fights to stay alive, but when your heart catches up with the fact that your body is failing you, you turn to reflection. My first thought was Salinger Park. Not Mama. Not my sisters. Not Ansen. Not Katie. I thought of Salinger and how I wish he could have known I loved him.
How I wish I would have properly thanked him for showing me a better way. The crumpled wallpaper, the thin walls, the shallow ceilings, the confined, empty rooms. The hurt, the hatred, the rage, the resentment, the heartsick. The guilt. He’d erased it all. He fixed it all.
When Mom died, I felt like I had nothing to lose and when you’ve got nothing left to lose, you tended to get reckless. I had been reckless personified and since I’d made my bed, I’d chosen to lay in it, sinking deeper and deeper into sheets of nothing; the fabric of apathy enveloped me over and over.
And I’d done nothing for a long time.
He’d discovered me, grabbed me, and held me against him, shook the petrified flint from my bones. He was the first shift I’d chosen to make. My hands had wrapped around his waist, no longer idle.
I regretted not telling him.
I love you, Salinger Park.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Salinger
Tao looked at me briefly, shifted, and put his hands in his pockets. He looked back at Lily, her back to me. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Are you and Salinger, like, a thing or something?” He knew I was standing right behind him. He knew exactly what he was doing.
She shook her head. “No, we’re just friends.”
“Lily?” I called out to her.
I felt my stomach grow tight. I am nothing to her.
“Just checking on you,” I said. “You coming?”
“Uh, yeah.” She turned toward Tao. “If you’ll excuse me, we’re gonna sit with Bernard in the bar upstairs.”
“Oh, really? You don’t mind if I join you, right?” Tao asked.
She looked at me. I opened my mouth to tell him to go bother someone else, but Lily answered for me instead.
“Uh, sure,” she told him.
All three of us climbed the stairs to the main lobby and crossed the marble floor to the small bar there. Bernard sat at a table, sipping a drink.
“You were gone forever!” he said to me.
“I was only gone two minutes, Bernard. Stop being dramatic.”
Bernard leaned forward when Lily sat. He glanced at Tao but didn’t greet him.
“Young lady,” he said to Lily.
“Yes?” Lily answered.
“Do you know who this man is?” he asked her, referring to Tao.
She coughed over a laugh. “Um, yes, I do.”
“This is the boy you will play in the final round.”
She turned to Tao. “I didn’t know you were playing this tournament.”
“When I found out you would be here and since you were explicit when you said you wouldn’t be going to Nationals, I just knew I had to come see you for myself,” Tao told her.
“Pish, posh!” Bernard interrupted. “She will be at Nationals. Why would you assume she wouldn’t be at Nationals?”
“Because she told me so herself,” Tao answered him.
Bernard stared at Lily. He thought she was crazy, I could tell. I didn’t necessarily disagree with him.
“You are going to Nationals. Period,” Bernard answered.