‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, covering my mouth while I chewed.
‘What?’
‘How come you call Catherine “Catherine” and not “Mom”?’
She shucked off her shoes and stretched her legs out along the couch, head propped up on a pillow like she was preparing for a therapy session.
‘Can’t really say,’ she replied before taking a sip from her cup. ‘“Mom” never felt right and I find people who call their mother “Mother” to their face are almost always straight-up strange, so I started calling her Catherine like everybody else. There wasn’t ever any kind of rush to correct me. Could be it makes her feel younger. She sure won’t be begging you to start calling her Grandmother any time soon, believe me.’
‘She does look good for her age,’ I admitted as I caught the outline of my reflection in the computer monitor. ‘I hope I inherited those genes.’
A bitter chuckle escaped Ashley’s lips. ‘I’d bet my bottom dollar on it, although I can’t say you’re looking your best today.’
‘Then I look as good as I feel.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Her expression shifted to something more curious, a glimmer of interest in her eyes, and I pressed my top teeth into my bottom lip. How much did I want to tell her?
‘I’m not sure how to explain it,’ I said, not ready to share with her, not yet. ‘Just feeling off, I guess.’
She grunted as she lay back down, almost like she was disappointed. ‘Drink your tea, it’ll fix almost anything.’
‘Must be magic tea then.’ Maybe if she knew I’d been playing blood brothers with a potentially rabid animal, she might’ve shown more concern.
‘Better?’ she asked as I sipped from the cup.
‘Yes.’ The silky liquid slipped down my throat to soothe my frayed nerves, sweet and comforting.
‘Swell,’ Ashley remarked. ‘Like you said, must be magic.’
I picked up another cookie and closed my eyes to savour the taste. It was hard not to inhale the entire plate, they were so incredibly good. She might not be the world’s best conversationalist but my aunt definitely had a future as a cook. Everything she touched was delicious.
‘I have another question,’ I said.
‘Sure you do,’ she replied.
‘I don’t mean to be rude …’
‘… Which means you’re about to be incredibly rude. What is it you want to know?’
‘What do you do?’ I asked. The colour rose in my cheeks as the words left my mouth. She was right, it was rude. ‘For work, I mean. Do you have a job?’
Her green eyes glowed in the dim light of the library, her long brown braid coiled over her shoulder like a pet snake.
‘I’m a caretaker.’
‘A caretaker?’ I repeated. ‘Taking care of what?’
‘Whatever needs taking care of.’
She stood abruptly, her movements startlingly fast and fluid as she walked over to one of the bookshelves. I stayed perfectly still as she casually pulled out a book at random, read the front and back covers then put it back on a completely different shelf, spine in, pages out. The chaos of it would’ve given my dad a panic attack. No wonder this library didn’t make any sense.
‘I know everything must be real strange for you right now,’she said, reshelving another undeserving book in the wrong place. ‘But look at it from my perspective. A complete stranger just moved into my house and changed everything I’ve ever known. Catherine might be all excited to have you here but don’t expect me to roll out the red carpet.’
‘I don’t expect anything—’ I started to say but she cut me off before I could even try.
‘No one cared about me until Paul disappeared. I was the spare, second to the golden child, until you were born. After that, I could have dissolved into dust and no one would have noticed. Then Paul vanishes and it’s all eyes on Ashley. One second I’m invisible, the next I couldn’t even sneeze without Catherine wanting a full written report on how, why, when, and where.’
