“She’s fine. But I don’t need this, babe. I really don’t. You have to come home now. I mean it.”
My stomach sank below the crushing weight that came with knowing that my weekend would now be completely taken up with trying to keep Tyler, Rachel, and my parents on an even keel while fielding arguments and explanations. “Let me see what I can do.”
Behind me, Darryl said, “Hey, Don! You want a burger?”
Turning back around, I saw that Don Petrella had now sauntered over to the barbecue in search of something more sustaining than a vampire’s normal diet. “Sure,” he said, and took his teeth out. “Make it two.”
Malaika asked, “And how is your day going, Don?”
“Pretty good.” He rubbed his shoulder. “Scar’s been acting up, though. There’s a storm coming. A big one.”
Pocketing my phone I smiled tightly, and beneath my breath I answered, “You have no idea.”
? ? ?
Rachel sat very still, facing her window. The trees in the backyard blocked most of the view of the bay but the branches would dip now and then in the changeable wind and stray flashes of evening light dancing across the blue water broke through, making patterns of shadow and light on the ivory-striped wallpaper. I wasn’t sure Rachel noticed.
Niels had done the same thing when emotions got the best of him—he’d withdraw inside himself so deeply he’d be unaware of everything around him, sitting there unmoving like a thick-walled tower with its drawbridge up. He’d never wanted anyone intruding then, and knowing Rachel had inherited my brother’s moods I was about to close her bedroom door again and give her privacy instead of going in, but as I started easing the door shut she spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
Pausing with my hand still on the doorknob, I said, “That’s okay. You don’t need to be sorry.”
Tyler, I knew, wouldn’t have agreed. He’d been hit full force with her anger and frustration. He had told me where she’d told him he should go. “You need to talk to her,” he’d said, “because there’s no excuse for that.”
But clearly he had missed the full significance of what I’d noticed right away when I’d come in. She hadn’t just brought suitcases, the way you did when staying for a weekend. She’d brought everything—her bedding and her pillow and her laundry basket packed with smaller items wrapped in tissue, and a cardboard box of books.
“Was someone driving her?” I’d asked, because she didn’t have a car.
“What?” He’d been irritated, but he’d said, “She took a taxi. What difference does that make?”
“Did she carry all this in herself?”
“The driver helped her. What—”
I’d interrupted him with, “Ty. Just stop a minute. Look.”
He’d looked. And slowly reached the same conclusion I’d already come to. “She’s left college?”
Rachel didn’t want to talk about it.
I could tell, from standing in the doorway of her room right now and looking at her, that she wasn’t ready to discuss why she’d come home. She needed time, and understanding, and the space to work things through in her own way. I fought the urge to hug her, knowing that would only make her more uncomfortable. Instead I asked her, “Is there anything you need?”
A pause. And then she shook her head, and even though the movement was a small one it allowed a single tear to squeeze through her defences and escape the corner of her eye. It trailed a jagged path down her pale cheek, and hurt my heart.
“It’s going to be okay,” I promised. Then, because I saw that she was trying hard to pull that drawbridge up again, I left her on her own with, “If you need me, I’ll be right downstairs.”
Retreating, I’d found Tyler waiting downstairs in the kitchen. He’d brought a six-pack of the beer he liked to drink and had one open in his hand, half finished. “So much for our dinner plans.”
I stopped and shot a glance at him and had to bite my tongue. I wanted to say they’d been his dinner plans, not ours. My plans had been to eat in tonight, on my own—preferably wearing pyjamas while watching an old TV movie. I wanted to say that plans changed all the time, and the mark of a grown-up was learning to deal with that. But I knew that if I lost my temper his would only rise to match it and I didn’t want to spend my evening arguing. Instead I said, “That’s okay. Mrs. Bonetti brought over potatoes and sausages yesterday, I still have those. I’ll make salad and we can have wine. It will be just like going out.”
Tyler’s tone knew better. “No, it won’t.”
We ate in silence—though his brooding didn’t stop him finishing the roast potatoes without asking if I wanted any more. But food, as always, helped his mood, and as I stood to clear the dishes he said, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe this is good, that she’s dropped out.”
“I don’t know if that’s what she’s done.”
“But if she has, it makes things easier. For us, I mean.” He set his knife and fork across his empty plate and passed it to me. “That’s why you came down here, right? To take care of the house for her until she finished school. So if she’s finished, you won’t have to stay so long. Okay, so maybe she’ll need you around a few more months until she finds a job and gets a bit more settled, but then you can come back home.”
“It’s not that easy,” I reminded him, and standing at the sink I let the taps run for a moment, having learned the water always came out scalding hot to start with. “The museum hired me for a two-year contract.”
“So you’ll break it. After all the trouble you’ve had with the board, they shouldn’t be surprised.”
“It’s not the whole board giving me the trouble, only three of them. The rest of them are nice. I like the job.”
“It’s just a job, though. Anyone can do it.”
That point stung. It wasn’t that I thought my skills were special, but I did have skills. And knowledge. And experience.
We’d had a game when I was young—an upright plastic cylinder with sticks poked through it in a kind of web, with several marbles balancing on top of them. You’d play by taking turns to very slowly and strategically pull one stick out while trying not to let a single marble drop. It wasn’t possible, of course. You couldn’t keep those marbles on that shifting web of sticks forever, and eventually one player drew the stick that made them all come crashing down. I hadn’t thought about that game in years, but now, with all the things that I’d been balancing myself today—not just with the Fall Harvest but with Sharon, Eve, and Harvey, and the disappointing news of the Sisters of Liberty turning us down, and the separate arrivals of Tyler and Rachel—I couldn’t help feeling my own web of sticks was precarious, just at the moment. And Tyler, who should have been keeping me balanced by giving support, was instead pulling out the remaining sticks, one by one.
“Well, thanks.” I tossed the cutlery into the sink. It made a satisfying crash. “I’m glad you think so highly of the work I do.”
“Whoa, slow your roll, babe. Don’t get all defensive. What I meant was, it’s a little place, it isn’t the Smithsonian. They’ll get along without you.”
With my focus on the fork that I was washing, I replied, “I don’t break contracts. I’m not leaving until mine is done.”
“But that’s just—”
“Besides,” I cut him off. “I can’t leave Rachel now.”
“Oh, I see. But you can leave me.”
“What?” I turned. “I haven’t left you.”
“Haven’t you?” He didn’t try to smooth things with The Smile. In fact his features were the furthest from a smile I’d ever seen them, and his eyes had hardened, challenging. “Because it sure as hell feels like I’m doing this all on my own, right now.”
And that was it. He had pulled the last stick and whatever I’d held in the balance came tumbling down. “Listen, I’m not the one who decided to cancel the weekend we did plan and go to Atlantic City instead, so don’t even—”