She laughs, planting her hands on her hips. “Oh, I’ve thought about it,” she replies. “But it’s not like it’s easy to afford a bigger pace, at least on a teacher’s salary. And my parents, they’ve done their best, but they don’t have a whole lot of money to spare either.”
“Right, right,” I mutter, feeling a little stupid for even broaching the topic. Of course this isn’t what she’s chosen for herself. She said it yesterday—she’s been fighting just to get by all this time, and I would do well to remember it. She’s living off a single salary, trying to provide for four children. Not exactly an easy feat, even if her family are around to lend a hand when they can.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” she replies, her brows digging together with concern.
I shake my head. “You didn’t.”
“But you know how it is here,” she remarks, as she continues to stack the plates away, grabbing the spoon I’m using to stir and tasting a little of the sauce. “The people with money keep it all to themselves, and the rest of us just have to hope we find a way to keep up.”
“You mean like Carlisle’s family?”
“Not just them,” she replies, pulling a face. “But yeah, not as though his father was ever the most generous when it came to keeping the people of this town in employment…”
“Yeah, I don’t think Carlisle ever stops beating himself up about it either,” I remark, shaking my head. “Acts like he’s personally responsible for fixing up everything his father did, you know?”
“Yeah, he talked to me about it a bit,” she agrees. “I mean, I don’t blame him, exactly. Not that I think heshouldfeel that way, but I think I would, if I were in his position. All that money, knowing where it came from, it would be hard not to see it as some kind of…I don’t know, as something I needed to make penance with.”
“He already funds us,” I remark, and she raises her eyebrows.
“Oh, really?”
“How do you think we afford all of this?” I ask with a slight laugh, gesturing outside to where the van is parked. “Don’t get me wrong, the military pension isn’t awful, but it’s hardly enough to live in an apartment, let alone buy up cabins all over the state so we can keep an eye on fires springing up all over the place. Not to mention how much it costs to keep the equipment up-to-date.”
“He didn’t mention that he was the one funding all of that…”
“He wouldn’t,” I reply. “He never likes to make a big deal of it. That’s just how he is.”
She sighs, running a hand through her hair. “God, there’s still so much I need to do before they get here,” she remarks, and her voice suddenly sounds like it’s edging on total overwhelm. I wonder how many times over the years she’s found herself faced with a huge pile of stuff that needs to be done, but without the help she actually requires to make it happen. My chest aches for her, thinking of her in her early twenties, having to navigate her way through all of this alone.
But I can’t get caught up in the past. No, what matters is that I help her now, no matter how tempting it might be to turn this around into something to beat myself up with. She doesn’t needany of that. She needs me to keep my gaze fixed to the future, and that is precisely what I intend to do.
“Okay, what needs to be done?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Where can I get started?”
“Oh, don’t do something as useful as actually offering to help,” she replies with a slight smile. “I just wanted someone to complain to.”
“Well, I can be that too, if you want.”
She pauses for a moment in the doorway of the kitchen, her eyes lingering on mine. “Thanks for doing this, by the way. I’m sure you guys have plenty better things to be worried about than what’s going on with me, but?—”
“We haven’t had another call,” I reply bluntly. “No reason for us to be anywhere other than here.”
Her face drops slightly, and I realize how it must sound to her—as though I’m waiting for the first chance to get out of here, the first chance to leave this place behind just like I did all those years ago. I want to take the words back as soon as I’ve said them, but the ache in her eyes won’t go away that easily.
“Right, of course,” she murmurs, doing her best to keep her voice neutral. “Well, I guess I should make the most of it while I still have you then, right?” She offers me a broad grin, but I can see that I’ve stung her, and I curse myself internally for making it sound like I can’t wait to get out of this town. It reminds me, all too clearly, of how it felt when my father had to take off to another call, brushing my mother and me off like he hardly had time for us.
I promise myself that I’m going to do everything I can to prove that I want to be here. I don’t even know what that looks like, not when none of us seem able to put into words the fact of the matter of our children. But as Angelie and I work in the kitchen together in companionable silence, I know that there’s nowhere else I would rather be.
Even if I seem to have a hard time convincing her of that.
18
CARLISLE
Pausingat the top of the hill, I catch my breath for a moment outside the cemetery gates—what’s left of them, at least. The fire that tore through the forest has been well and truly snuffed out now, the soaked, blackened trees standing as a testament to that fact. But the stone walls that once stood around this place have tumbled down, either victims of the force of the water or of the heat from the fire. Either way, there’s little left apart from the headstones pockmarking the ground below, and I push open the gate to step inside.
It creaks loudly, the only sound in the air as I close in on my father’s memorial. A lump leaps into my throat, and I swallow it down swiftly. I didn’t come here to make myself feel bad; I just want to check that his grave is still standing.
I haven’t mustered the courage to visit with my mother yet, not wanting her to know that I’m back in town, though I’m sure she’s already figured it out based on what she’s heard from the residents who have been moved back into Devin Ridge. No doubt she’s expecting a visit from me, but there’s somewhere that I knew I needed to see first, somewhere I had to pay myrespects before I took the pilgrimage up to our old home on the top of the hill.
