I had stopped directly across from the bookstore.
My spine tingled as I saw the boards covering the window anddoor. I guess they wanted to protect the glass. Otherwise, nothing had changed. It was dirtier, more desolate, but the same. No one had touched anything.
I peeked through a gap in the boards and almost whined from sorrow. Inside, nothing had been touched. I could see the cash register in the shadows, the hundreds of books piled up all over. The tables, the armchair, the lead-crystal lamp.
I didn’t get it.
It had been months since I’d let my grandmother’s lawyer take care of the details. He’d put the bookstore on the market, and not long after, he’d found a buyer. I didn’t ask him to tell me the details. It hurt too bad.
I tried to get a grip on myself when I saw the looks of worry from the passersby. But I couldn’t help it. That had been my only true home, and my favorite memories, my happiest moments, my dreams, my hopes, my childhood were all locked up inside there. Along with the ghosts of the women who had mattered to me most.
If I stayed there, I’d lose every last trace of that false peace I’d told myself I’d found because I needed it to survive my new life. I turned around and left.
I ran away like a little girl fleeing the monsters in her closet and under her bed. I ran away from reality. I ran away as if you could run away from pain, as if it were really possible to run away from yourself.
29
Every Action Causes a Reaction
The new year began, and with it I got a gift. I’d worked hard to learn my job well, and my father gave me a promotion with more responsibility. He moved me to public relations. That meant I no longer had to work for Dustin.
I was excited. I thought that meant I was free of him and that constant harassment he thought was love. And it was true that I no longer saw him during work hours. But I still had to put up with him elsewhere. He spent more time at my house than his. My father invited him to everything. He even celebrated Christmas and the new year with us.
Hoyt liked to joke that Dustin was my father’s secret love child, and he accused me of having an incestuous relationship with him. I didn’t think it was funny at all. In fact I hated it—the very idea disgusted me.
“He just makes my skin crawl,” I said to Hayley in the bathroom of a restaurant one day, strutting around the way Dustin did and imitating his voice: “‘Of course, Mr. Weston. You’re absolutely right, Mr. Weston. Brilliant, Mr. Weston.’ He’s the biggest ass-kisser I’ve ever seen. Does he not know there’s a thing called pride, dignity?”
Hayley cracked up laughing as she washed her hands.
“Yeah, honestly, I don’t get it.”
“What?” I asked.
“Judging by the way he treats him, Dad doesn’t like him much more than we do. But he still takes him everywhere. For some reason I can’t figure out, he’s obsessed with the idea that Dustin’s the right guy for you and he can’t stop waving it in your face.”
“I know! Well, he can keep waiting. I’ve spent months and months trying to make him happy, but I’ve got my limits, and one of them is Dustin. I can’t even stand him looking at me.”
Hayley looked up at me in the mirror. “I know you gave up your dreams because you think you owe Dad something.”
“I told you…” I began to reply nervously. But she interrupted me.
“Harper, I’m not dumb. I may have let it slide, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t notice. I’ve spent my entire life watching you strive to get his attention. And here you go doing it again. But, honey, he’s not worth it. So why do you keep killing yourself over him? You never wanted this. You wanted to write.”
I looked away and forced a blithe smile to lighten the heavy atmosphere. Hayley hugged me. I needed that contact, that human affection, and it made me let down my guard. I closed my eyes and leaned into her.
“I hope you’ll tell me the truth someday,” she whispered into my ear.
“But what if what I have to say changes everything between us?” I struggled to make it through that sentence, remembering it was my fault Mom had left her an orphan when she was just ten years old.
“Harper, if you told me right now you were the witch from ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and you’d just eaten them both, I’d figure out how to help you hide the bones.”
Hearing that was bittersweet, and it moved me beyond words. I turned around to hug her back, so tight that she shrieked that I was breaking her ribs.
We went back out to find Dad, Scott, Hoyt, Megan, and of course Dustin, my nightmare, at the table.
And there was someone else there. Not that it should havesurprised me. Everyone knew my father, and whenever we went out, someone came over to greet him. I don’t know how, but even before I saw him, I could feel who it was. There was just something in the air. And maybe in my heart, too.
It was him.
