“Why? Because I’m your stepmother?”
I looked down at my worn loafers, realizing how ridiculous they must look with Loralee’s dress. And seeing again how very different we were—how different she was from my own mother. “Because I never invited you into my life.” I paused, regretting my harshness and tasting shame on my tongue. In the last weeks my old anger had shifted like an arrow in a bow without a string, useless despite its potential to wound. If I were one for introspection, I might even say that my anger over life’s injustices had managed to become self-directed.
Her smile dimmed but didn’t fall completely.
“It’s not that you’re not a likable person, or that there aren’t people out there who I’m sure would love to have you in their lives. I’m just not one of them. We’re way too different.”
Loralee placed the hairbrush carefully on the dressing table. “And I married your daddy even though you thought the two of you already had a team and didn’t need new members. I get that. But I also believe that we have more in common than you think.”
I met her gaze in the mirror and almost laughed. With her blond hair, tanned skin, and bright lipstick, we looked like we had as much in common as a loaf of bread and a shoe. The doorbell rang again and I moved toward the bedroom door, eager to end our conversation before anybody’s feelings got hurt.
“You’ve got a big and generous heart, Merritt, and you need people in your life, no matter how much you tell yourself different.”
I shook my head, trying to find the words to let her know that my heart had been closed up for years. It made life easier that way. I reached the doorway, grateful to have escaped.
“You could have told us to leave.”
I paused in the doorway without turning around, Loralee’s soft voice doing nothing to deaden the impact of her words. Anger, shame, and loss flooded my lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
I clenched my eyes, remembering something Cal had once told me, and how I’d often thought of it when he became angry. Fire is an event, not a thing. Heating wood or other fuel releases vapors that quickly combust with oxygen in the air, resulting in a fiery bloom of gas that heats the fuel even more, releasing more vapors and continuing the cycle.
“I still can,” I finally managed.
“But you won’t.”
I didn’t respond as I made my way down the stairs to the door. Gibbes was leaning against the railing, his hands shoved into his front pockets, his long legs crossed casually at the ankles. I noticed the way he stood because Cal had never leaned like that. He’d always stood with his feet apart, balanced on his toes, almost in a wrestler’s starting pose. I’d always thought he looked like an animal getting ready to pounce.
Gibbes straightened as his gaze flickered over me. “Nice dress.”
“It’s Loralee’s.” I tugged on the hem of the skirt that was a good four inches above my knees, and tried not to think about how much of my scar was showing. “For some reason, she chose to wash all of my clothes today and nothing is dry. She lent me this. Apparently she doesn’t have anything longer than streetwalker size. I’m just thankful my feet are a half size smaller than hers.”
He slowly scanned my body from the low V-neck of the white knit wrap dress to the short hem that made me think maybe it wasn’t actually a dress but a long shirt and I should go get a pair of pants to wear under it. Except I didn’t have any that weren’t wet.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
He said it with a straight face, but I was sure I heard a hint of laughter in his voice. I marched past him and down the steps, still tugging at my hem and hoping he’d put on sunglasses so the sun reflecting off my legs didn’t blind him.
He held open the passenger door and helped me in, averting his gaze as I climbed in and the wrap of the dress widened alarmingly. He turned on the car and the air-conditioning blasted. Leaning toward me, he reached out to adjust the fan’s direction, and I flinched without even being aware of it until I’d done it. He looked at me oddly and I thought he was going to say something, but quickly changed his mind.
“The Heritage Society is just down on Carteret, so it should take us only about five minutes, depending on how many tourists are jaywalking across the street. We have time, so if you’d like, I could take you the long way around and give you a little tour of the backstreets.”