Cade’s father clenched his hand into a fist around the spoon and rested it very calmly on the table. “Would you have preferred she suffered the alternative?” he asked. His voice was quiet. Except for the death grip he had on his utensil, he was a picture of tranquility.
This was when he was at his most dangerous.
“No, sir.”
“That’s what I thought,” Mr. Sano said. He dropped his spoon into the bowl, and milk slopped out onto the table. He didn’t bother to clean it up. He never did. That was for maids.
Cade finished his cereal and began to stand up, but his father directed him back to his chair with a single look.
“What are you going to do with your day, now that studying is out?”
Cade knew the answer. “I’m going to see about a job. Maybe an office aide or something.”
“Women’s work,” his father snorted. “Still, better than nothing. Want me to make a call?”
“No, Dad. I’d like to do this on my own, if that’s okay with you.”
His father nodded, and for a moment, he almost softened. “Give it your best.”
Sweeping up his iPad, he left without another word. It wasn’t until he was gone—far gone, into his car and backing out of the driveway—that Cade said what he had wanted to.
“I’m not my sister.”
The only reply was the distant echo of one of the maids vacuuming down the hall.
But it didn’t matter. His father would never believe that. Cade stood up and carried his bowl to the sink. He brushed his teeth and grabbed his keys. He was leaving.
But he wasn’t going to look for a job.
He was going to get through this whole unpleasant situation and he wasn’t going to ask his father for any help. What would his father really do for him, anyway? Get him a good lawyer? Have him turn himself in? Nothing that could really fix anything.
He climbed into his car and backed up out of the driveway. But he didn’t go anywhere. He just drove. And drove. He drove by the school, and he drove nearly all the way to the farm before he turned around. And he stopped by the river to look at the waters, which were still higher than normal. He’d heard there had been storms up north, too. Flooding, even.
He hoped that meant Stratford’s body was being carried farther away. He imagined it going all the way down to the ocean, where it would sink into the sea and be eaten by sharks or some other hungry ocean animal.
He sank down onto a half-rotted branch that had fallen from a tree during the storm.
He needed time to think. To plan. Because he had something in mind.
And it all had to do with the extra bike he had in the garage.
Ivy
Thursday, June 18
It was Garrett. It was the guy she loved. It was who she needed.
Hey, Ivy girl! How are you?
She pretended that he had texted her first. She pretended that she had not sat in front of her phone for thirty minutes, deep in indecision, her heart radiating an incredible, thick pain, needing someone who understood everything, before she typed out a pathetic, incredibly needy three-letter text: Hey.
And he’d texted back. She’d been sitting on the couch, channel-surfing through cartoons (her guilty pleasure). Her mom, who was sitting in the corner, was paging through an old issue of Martha Stewart Living, and hadn’t even complained.
Best of all, Garrett texted back in less than ten minutes. With her nickname.
It was almost like he still cared.
I am great, she texted. Taking the summer class. How are you?
She pretended to watch Gravity Falls until he texted back.
Awesome. Just left the pool. Are you recovered?
Ivy winced. Of course the last thing he remembered about her was her body splayed out beneath the vending machine like a half-squashed bug.
Still. It was better than him knowing—
She cut her own thought short. Wait. What was he doing at the pool? The Garrett she knew hated pools. He preferred video games, and for an occasional exercise session, he made a fool of himself at the skate park, pretending to be a punk.
All healed. Thanks for your help.
No prob, he texted back.
She hesitated, biting her lip. Would he see her? Did he want to see her? She took a deep breath and watched the minutes tick by, ever so slowly, until an appropriate amount of time had passed that she wouldn’t seem overeager.
Maybe we could get coffee and catch up.
His reply was almost immediate.
Just let me know when.
And for the first time since everything happened, she smiled. Actually smiled, in a way that reached her eyes and down to her heart.
If Garrett came back to her, if everything just went back to the way it was, then maybe she could pretend that this horrible, sick little section of her summer was just a dream.
She put her phone on the coffee table in time for Daniel to come crashing through the front door into the entryway.
“Mom!” he said. “Hey, Mom!”
“She’s in here,” she called to her brother. It was weird—even though he was almost thirty, she was definitely the more mature one. Whenever he showed up at home, he just wanted SpaghettiOs and his laundry done.
He walked into the living room, beaming. “Hey, Mom. Hey, Ivs.”