I cut off my father’s rant with a snarl. “I came here to inform you all that Sorrow is back.”
The room goes deathly silent, and nobody moves or breathes, it seems. I look at Katy once more to see if she’s okay and realize she doesn’t look surprised at all.
“You knew.”
“I saw her yesterday.”
“You stay away from that little whore.” My mother jumps to her feet and charges toward Katy.
I grab her and haul her back. “Calm the fuck down,” I yell at her.
“Do not tell me to calm down, Jake Bannerman. That whore murdered your brother, and I’ll be dammed if I let her get her clutches into Katy and turn her into a whore too.”
She reaches for Katy, but I back her up toward the door. “Go wait in my truck.”
“Don’t you dare leave this house, young lady,” my mom snarls at her, but Katy ignores her and leaves. “Katy!” she yells before glaring at me. “This is my house, Jake, you follow my rules while you’re under my roof.”
I look over at my dad, who is typing away on his phone, oblivious to everything going on around him, before turning back to Mom. “I’ll come back and talk to you when you’ve had a chance to calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to be calm.”
With a sigh, I turn and head down the hallway toward the kitchen, ignoring my mom calling my name. I poke my head in and see Dora wringing her hands. “Going to have to take a rain check on lunch, Dora.”
“Go get your sister out of here. I’ll make it for you another day.”
I walk over and kiss her cheek before jogging outside to my sister.
Katy is quiet when I climb in, staring out the side window.
“You knew she was back?”
“She saw me sitting on the steps of her mom’s place and came out to make sure I was okay.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“And what would I say, Banner? That the girl you hate is back because her mom is dead, and she needs to sell her house? We didn’t even talk about that stuff. She was just worried about me.”
I huff out a laugh, but she turns and glares at me. “She’s not staying anyway, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
Silence fills the truck, neither one of us knowing what to say for a minute.
“You know she doesn’t speak?”
“What?”
“Sorrow. She can’t speak. I don’t know if she got hurt in the crash or if it’s from something else. But yeah, she doesn’t talk at all.”
I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to say to that. I’m finding it hard to have sympathy for her, though part of me reels from the fact I’ll never hear her voice again. I shake my head, pissed at myself for thinking about her at all. She’s barely been back two minutes, and she’s already causing problems.
“What’s going on with Dora?” I ask, changing the subject as I pull away from the house and head home.
Katy rubs her eyes with the heel of her hands. “When I leave for college, Dora’s leaving too. Mom’s pissed because she’ll have to do things herself or have to hire someone else, and she hates change. You know that.”
I sigh. “She probably thought Dora would work there forever. I’ll admit, I’ll be sad to see her go. But with us both gone, there won’t be much for her to do.”
“Oh, I doubt Mom would have any issue finding her things to do. But that’s not the reason she’s leaving. She stays for me, soI’ve got some kind of constant in the house. But things are not the same since…” Her voice trails off, but I can fill in the blanks. Not the same since I left. Not the same since Alec died and Dad checked out.
I think about my mom’s almost manic reaction to things. “She always like that?”
