“You don’t need to go in.” Rem puts his hands on my shoulders, whether to stop me or steady me I can’t tell.
“I do.” I pull away, feeling too fragile to be touched. “I owe it to my aunt, to my parents. I have to see if there’s anything inside that helps make sense of what happened.” My voice falters. “I need to do it for myself, too. I have to say goodbye, and this might be my only chance.”
“We’ll have a service for her, Lena. A chance for you to put your aunt to rest and say goodbye properly. As soon as thepolice release her body there’s nothing stopping us from celebrating your aunt’s life exactly the way you want.”
“Nothing,” I point out, “other than the fact that I might not be alive long enough to do it.”
Rem starts to protest, his protective instinct rearing its single-minded head, but I don’t wait to hear his assurances. Standing in front of the burnt-out shell of my aunt’s home, the truth is clearer than ever. It doesn’t matter how fast you run, death is guaranteed to catch up at some point.
I push open the front door. There’s no resistance, the lock busted or simply gone. “You said it’s safe for us to go inside?”
“Yes.” Rem reaches over my shoulder and lifts the police tape out of my way. “The fire did a lot of damage, but the frame of the house was built of brick, so the walls are still sound according to the incident report. The roof is more of a problem, but all the reports I’ve read say it should hold for a while. Certainly long enough for us to get in and out.”
“Okay. Good.” I take a step across the threshold, but Rem stops me.
“I agreed to this trip because I understand why you need to be here Lena, but if any part of this starts to feel unsafe, we leave immediately.”
I nod, my thoughts already twisted around what must’ve been the last moments of Aunt Mable’s life.
The kitchen is gone, completely decimated by the fire that started there. Soot climbs the walls of the dining room and living room, the ceilings of that part of the house torn out by flames.
The whole place is freezing, snow drifts frosting over what’s left of my aunt’s furniture.
“It must’ve snowed recently.” It’s an idiotic statement given the state of things, but Rem doesn’t comment. He just hovers close, like he’s ready to pounce if a piece of roof attacks.
It only takes me a few seconds to realize searching this partof the house is pointless. Practically nothing is left and what did survive the fire is unrecognizable. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”
Rem steps beside me, engulfing my hand in his. “Did you have a room here?”
I nod and point to the rear of the house. Rem takes the lead, guiding me down a hallway I’ve only ever walked a handful of times. Guilt at not visiting more often mixes with the grief of knowing I’ll never be able to visit again. Tears sting my eyes and instead of letting them fall, I start talking, words spewing out like a gushing tap.
“Aunt Mable and I weren’t close. She wasn’t around much when I was a kid, and we didn’t have much in common. I didn’t come here a lot. Not as often as I should’ve. But after my parents died, she was so worried that I’d feel lost or alone that she converted the outside patio into a room for me. The expense was ridiculously high for such a small room, but Mable said she had a little money stashed away and it only seemed right to use it for family. She and I were each other’s only living relatives and, close or not, she wanted me to have space here. Someplace I could always think of as home.”
A home that’s now gone, along with the only person I knew cared for me, even if it was in the only way she could.
“I should’ve come here more,” I whisper, tongue heavy and too big for my mouth. “I should’ve tried harder. Made an effort to get to know her better. To actuallybeher family, instead of just visiting when I felt I had to.” The tears I was trying so hard to hold back cascade over my lids, streaking down my face.
We’ve made it to my room. It smells of smoke and is covered ceiling to floor in a thick coat of ash, but the once-exterior brick wall helped stop the fire from doing as much damage to this space as the rest of the house. Despite the evidence of the fire, it looks much as I remember. That realization pulls a sob from my chest as loss knocks my knees out from under me.
Rem catches me before I hit the ground. He hugs me, his arms warm bands around my back, his hands firm as he tucks me into the safe haven of his body. He holds me close, with no chance to push away. No chance to run away from the feelings bombarding me or the comfort he’s so determined to give.
“I did everything wrong. I should’ve been here more, called her more.” Grief is a heavy thing. My body sags. Rem pulls me closer. I feel his lips against my hair, soft words mingled with even softer kisses. “I don’t know what TV shows she liked or where she wanted to travel or what stories she could tell me about my mom from when they were little.”
I wrap my arms around Rem’s neck, my fingers working in spasms as my fists open and close. As my heart catches over and over again at everything I didn’t know I was going to miss. “I should’ve been here,” I tell him through thick tears. “I should’ve been here when she died.”
“Then you would’ve died, Lena.” Rem’s arms tighten around me to the point of almost being painful. “You can’t say things like that,amorina, because you would’ve died too.”
21
LENA
We stay wrapped up in each other, my tears drying as I let Rem hold me.
I would’ve died too.
The thing is, I should be dead multiple times over. Standing in the ashes of my aunt’s house I realize I must make a decision: give up, give in, let some faceless enemy kill me—or fight like hell to stay alive.
Walking through the charred house, I knew I had lost what was left of my family, my last concrete tie to the Haywoods. I loved my adoptive parents, just as they loved me, but even when I was growing up, I felt…apart. Different. Like I was one step out of sync with everyone around me. Life was always a bit muted, my friendships a little too superficial. My romantic relationships non-existent. The one thing I felt any genuine connection to was my music, my hope for a future career playing the violin. A future that feels impossible right now.
