Standing in the kitchen over a colander of freshly harvested rhubarb, Avis eavesdropped as Noah and Kenzie sat around the kitchen table. They laughed as they discussed plans to rearrange furniture in each house they hit.
“Everything is inside out,” Kenzie explained. “A couch against a right wall instead of a left. A TV on the opposite side of a room. Pictures reversed and backward. We gotta find a name for it.”
“A name . . .” Noah leaned back in his seat, gazed up at the ceiling, then snapped his fingers a moment later. “One-two switcheroo.”
“Switcheroo!” Kenzie howled with laughter.
When they told Jeffrey about their plan, he muttered something about how they were both idiots. They were going to get them all caught. But he failed to demand they not do it. Avis guessed it wouldn’t be long before they figured out how to glue furniture to ceilings and stick light fixtures to the floors.
But the switcheroos were the least of her worries. It seemed that the family had officially gained another member. Maggie was visiting almost every day now with Eloise in tow. “My mom is just . . .” Maggie shook her head, aggravated, when Avis had asked about Eloise’s standard babysitter. “She’s gone crazy, I think. I don’t want my kid around that.” And while Avis wouldn’t have minded had the group treated Maggie the way they had behaved toward the former Audra Snow in the beginning, Maggie certainly didn’t suffer the same level of rejection. She had nothing to prove.
Jeffrey loved three-year-old Eloise. He played with her every chance he got, giving her piggyback rides and playing “camp out” in one of the old red tents Deacon had pitched in the yard for them. Just the day before, Avis watched Jeff, Deacon, and a few of the girls dig a fire pit close to the decommissioned tent. They roasted marshmallows after dark. Maggie sat at Jeffrey’s right and Eloise was poised on his knee. Avis spied on them from inside the house like a woman scorned. They looked like husband and wife, as though they’d known each other for all their lives, not for the few months that had passed. For the first time since Avis had laid eyes on him, she felt a pang of disdain for the man she’d grown to love. And her best friend? Avis would have done just about anything to never see Maggie again.
What made it worse was that both Clover and Gypsy seemed to like Maggie more than they liked Avis. Like that’s a surprise. She watched the three of them huddled together like a trio of best friends—the wicked stepsisters—probably making life-altering plans that didn’t include her. Eloise took to calling Jeffrey “Uncle Jeff,” which set Avis’s teeth on edge. She thought about cornering the toddler and filling her head with stories of how Uncle Jeff ate little girls, how the entire family lived off the flesh of children. But she had yet to talk herself into it. There was no telling how Jeff would react if Eloise decided to rat her out.
She missed her pills, and was starting to resent Jeff for confiscating them every time she picked up her prescription from the clinic. There was also the germ of regret at putting all her trust in a single person.
The euphoria of her newfound family was wearing thin.
Yet again, despite being told that she was part of the family, Avis—no, Audra—couldn’t help but feel like she was on the outside looking in.
41
* * *
THE DRIVE INTO Seattle was quiet. After a while, the silence seemed to unnerve Jeanie. She fidgeted in the Honda’s passenger seat, turning her attention away from the window to scrutinize her father, then wrinkled her nose at him and spoke.
“You know,” she started, “if you want me outta the house—”
“I don’t want you out of the house,” he cut in, but she was undeterred.
“. . . I can just go to Echo’s.”
Just like that, opting to move in with a complete stranger rather than stay with her own father. The suggestion tasted like aspirin, chalky and bitter. It made him want to heave.
“I don’t know why you don’t like her. She’s cool. We went to the beach, which is more than you and I have done since we’ve gotten here, you know.”
Lucas clenched his jaw. Thanks for reminding me, kid. “I do like her,” he said, though he wasn’t sure just how true that was anymore. The way she had called Jeanie Vivi, the way the two of them had looked at each other as though he was an intruder in his own home . . . it was still eating at him. He couldn’t resent his own kid for it, so he directed his ire at Echo instead.
“What’s with the nickname?” he asked, shooting a glance at Jeanie before looking back to the road. “Since when are you Vivi?”
Jeanie lifted her shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “Since when do you care so much?”
Lucas bit his tongue. His grip increased on the wheel and he squinted at the road. So he didn’t like the fact that Echo had given Jeanie a nickname. And their strange exchange of looks had made him feel insignificant. But nothing had happened while he had been gone. Echo had done him a huge favor by keeping an eye on her, and Jeanie was safe. Hell, she actually seemed happy when he had gotten home. But something was still keeping him from rolling with it.
What could have occurred in the space of a few hours?
“I don’t like her better than you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jeanie remarked.
Lucas nearly swerved into the GMC passing them in the right lane. The truck laid on its horn and Lucas righted Mark’s Honda with a jerk of the wheel.
“Jeez, Dad!”
“What?” He shot his daughter another look.
“You’re going to wreck Uncle Mark’s car,” she mumbled. “And kill us, too.” Going momentarily quiet, she continued with her original train of thought. “Anyway, I said some mean things and now you’re worried or whatever. Well, I’m sorry, Dad, but you don’t exactly make it easy these days.”
Lucas opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t find the words. He was too taken aback to put together a coherent sentence. Safety said he should have pulled over before he had a full-fledged anxiety attack, but he gripped the wheel harder and kept his eyes on the road.