“Don’t be ridiculous,” I coughed. “Anna is just someone who works for me.”
See how reasonable that sounded? I’d been waiting for the question in some form or other all night, so I was completely prepared with my answer.
There was a point in my life where I’d run a company of over a thousand employees and my family would not have once thought I’d formed a personal relationship with a single one of them.
I was a solitary person who preferred my own company, and the only person who had ever penetrated the distance I kept from the rest of the world had been Allison.
However, one young plain assistant, and I knew they thought I’d lost what was left of my mind over her.
Had I lost my mind over Flowers? Maybe.
“Oh.”
“Oh,” I repeated. “Why, did you think she was something else?”
Rebecca scowled at me. I knew that scowl all too well.
“Evan Grant Allen Jr., do not attempt to fool me. I’ve been your sister my whole life. You talked about another person, a woman, with me on the phone. There was something in your voice, whether you would acknowledge that or not. That has happened only twice in your life.”
“Don’t make too much of it, Becks,” I said, using my sister’s nickname. It felt a bit strange brushing it off. Like another crack around the dried mud, I’d felt encased in for the past four years. A sarcophagus breaking open, except I had no idea what newly formed monster lay inside it.
“I’m not making too much of it. I’m making just enough. You’re different around her. Protective.”
I shrugged, as if owning that. “You see how young she is. This is her first real job.”
“She is young,” Becks admitted. “But, in this crazy way, she doesn’t feel young. Almost like she’s lived twice the amount I have in fewer years. Does that make sense?”
It made perfect sense, but I wasn’t going to explain why. Flowers was already nervous about her secret, although it was stupid to call it that. She didn’t want them to know about her past, so I wouldn’t share it.
Except, I wanted to. If only, so they could perhaps understand my reaction to her better.
I was simply being protective of someone who had to navigate this world alone. There was nothing more to it than that.
“Look, she works for me. She does her job well. That is all there is between us. If that’s why you all made the decision to come to Houston-”
“We made the decision to come to Houston because you wouldn’t come to us, and we wanted to see you,” Becks cut me off. “You don’t let us see you enough. Not since Allison died. You know we didn’t die with her. We’re right here, whenever you need us or want us.”
Her words weren’t sharp, but they still stung.
She wasn’t wrong. I had purposefully kept my family at bay. They made me feel things when I didn’t want to feel. When I only wanted to be numb. It was easier to stay numb when they were all in Florida. Easier to suffer through the holidays alone.
I wasn’t numb anymore. This past September had been the four-year anniversary of Allison’s death. The death I caused. Four years of anger, sorrow and regret. So much, that I had to ball it all up and bury it away with my dead wife.
Numb, dead, zombielike. It had been the only way to live.
Now I was beginning to see there was a different way.
Had I suffered enough penance? I couldn’t have. Not nearly enough for Allison.
Only I didn’t know how to stop it. Feeling these things.
“I like her,” Rebecca said, and took another sip of her wine. “I know that. She was clearly put on the spot at lunch, but she buckled down and handled herself like a champ. Even in the face of one of Mom’s guilt trips.”
“She is a likeable person. I suppose.”
“Don’t be like that. Of course you like her. I know this because she obviously doesn’t put up with your bullshit. She’s pretty in a way you don’t notice at first, until you do. And she’s got this…quality. It’s hard to put a finger on it.”
“Innocence,” I supplied.
