Julian rubbed his eyes. “I slept through you leaving the bed?”
“You’re exhausted. I was glad you did and I wasn’t waking you.”
Barrett stretched. “Come on. Let’s get this done. I don’t know what your day will be like, Alatheia, but when we’re all back together, you can make your calls, and then we’ll figure out something to do tonight that isn’t too much but also fun.”
“Sounds good.”
Phoenix cleared his throat. “Hey, Barrett, can you come back for me? I know you’re taking Alatheia, and I don’t want to interfere in alone time. It’s important for all of us. I think. But, I need a ride. I can ask Eric, but I’d rather not if you can take me. I need to go check in with my therapist but not for an hour.”
“Yep. Got you.” He smiled at his brother.
The morning was relatively familiar. We all ate breakfast together. Julian was more chipper than he had been, which I had to think was because he had slept through the night. He would probably say it was because he’d slept next to me. I smiled at the thought.
I turned to Phoenix before I left the kitchen. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you when you were going through this.”
He kissed the end of my nose. “Still going through it, Red. We’re going to go through this next part together.”
“Thanks for getting me that information. Really, thank you.”
He kissed my cheek. “Wasn’t hard, and I actually love being able to do something for you. I missed your middle-of-the-night meal. I was only asleep about half an hour.”
I’d never been to a therapist before. I really had no idea how this was going to go. We stepped outside and I abruptly stopped. “I need my hat. The one that your mother made me. I need it.” I turned and headed back in, taking the stairs two at a time. My head was going to be freezing otherwise. I put it on fast and ran back down.
Barrett side-eyed me. “Did you want that for the cold or because you are worried about what people might think about you? Because if anyone were to say or even think anything…”
I stopped him by squeezing his arm. “It’s cold for me. I don’t even have a coat.”
“Hold here a second.” This time it was his turn to return into the house, fast. A second later he had a hooded sweatshirt in his hand. It was his. “Raise your arms.” I did as he said, and he put it onto me, almost taking off my hat in the process. It said Columbia on it. I’d seen him wear it a lot. “Jules is going to get you a coat today. This will help.” He grinned. “Besides, you look adorable in my sweatshirt. I think it’s yours now. Yep, it’s definitely yours.”
I smiled. “I should say no. It’s yours. But I’m not going to. It’s warm, fuzzy. And it smells like you. I want it to keep smelling like you, so you have to wear it in between me wearing it. Like back and forth.”
“And when I’m wearing it, it’ll smell like you.” We got into his car together. “We’ll have to wash it sometimes or it might get gross.”
That was true. He turned us onto the small road to head toward the clinic. It was quiet. Houses every so often but mostly the big pine trees were visible everywhere. “Why did you guys build this here?”
“Eric thought it was essential we have some place to go where we could just be ourselves. There are enough doctors and nurses here to staff it. Our mother’s births made them feel that way. Only Kit could be there when all of us were born. It would be weird, right, for his brothers to be in the room when his wife delivers. It’s a high pressure situation. What if she slipped up?”
Those were all good points. “Makes sense.”
“And like everything else, the Lents are forever wanting to show the people here that we aren’t trash. That they can’t mess with us.” He frowned. “That they can’t kidnap us.”
I took his hand where it was between us on the center console. “What are you thinking when you say that? Your eyes… they went somewhere.”
“I’m thinking”—he sighed—“that Phoenix was always the smartest of us all. He survived when the others that night were killed. He doesn’t remember it. But he did. And I don’t believe that now he’s clean and focused that he is going to leave it alone. I think it’s only a matter of time until he goes after them in some way.” He met my gaze for a second. “And I’ll be helping him because I’d never leave him to that.”
I stared straight ahead. Yes, that was true. There was no way we would all be down here without that happening. “I will too.”
“First, we help you too.” We pulled into the clinic’s parking lot.
The lake was huge, and the cloudy weather that had moved in overnight wasn’t making it less gorgeous. The glass windows of the clinic gleamed from a reflection off the lake. The beige facade blended harmoniously with the natural surroundings as I was sure it had been designed to do.
Once again, I was sure that the landscaping would be beautiful at other times. Right now, it looked like it had all gone to sleep for a while. It was cold and resting. Maybe there was something beautiful about that, but right then I couldn’t see it.
“It looks dead,” I said to Barrett. “Everything.”
Barrett leaned against the side of the car. “It’s not dead. It’s taking a break from everything. We do that, too. Right? Sometimes we have to take a rest to start over.”
He wasn’t just talking about the grass. I smiled at him. “I don’t suppose I could just ignore this and I’ll suddenly be fixed?Like I won’t have a freak out waking up. I won’t freak out at the table. It’ll just stop.”
