“Hey, baby,” I greet them. “Looking forward to meeting you in person, you know…”
And though they can’t so much as acknowledge my existence right now, I’m almost sure I can feel a little flutter in my stomach, as though they’re greeting me right back.
22
CARLISLE
“It’sbeautiful this time of year, right?” I remark to my mother as we make our way out of the large stone-walled gardens of the family home and down toward the town.
“Well, I don’t get out much these days,” she replies, waving a hand. “Not much reason to, now your father is…” She trails off, clearing her throat slightly and patting her already-lacquered hair back into place. It’s a tic I’ve noticed since my father’s passing, one that she pulls out whenever she’s feeling tense or nervous, or at the mention of his name.
I eye her for a moment, wondering if this was a good idea, but I brush that aside and offer her my arm. “Come on, let’s get something to eat,” I suggest.
After a pause, she takes my arm, clearly surprised that I’m going out of my way to help her like this. Honestly, I can’t blame her for being a little taken aback. After all, I’ve been back in Devin Ridge for the better part of two months now, and this is the first time that I’ve been through to see her. I know that she’s privy to pretty much every bit of gossip that comes and goes in this place,and she wouldn’t be ignorant to the fact that I’ve been avoiding her like the goddamn plague.
I could put it down to the fact that I’ve been busy with construction—between the school and the new house, it’s not like I’ve had a lot of time for myself. Living out at the cabin leaves little time to do much more than go back and forth between the town and home again, and I could have tried to spin all of that to her if I wanted to, made excuses for the fact that I’ve been anywhere other than at her side.
But that’s not the reason that I’ve been so intent on keeping my distance, and both of us know it. No, it’s because, if I show my face around here now, we both have to acknowledge how much time has passed since the last time I even bothered. And how much I’ve left her to cope with alone, because the thought of shouldering it myself was more than I could take.
My mother and I, we’ve never exactly been close—not since I left home, at least. She didn’t have a bad word to say about my father and everything he did with selling the factories, and I couldn’t stand that she seemed so willing to just go along with it all like it was nothing. It was easy for her to hide out from the consequences of it, I guess, given that my father was willing to insulate her in this house, make sure she never had to deal with anyone other than the upper crust of the county who would have slapped him on the shoulder for his decision in the first place.
“So, how have you been?” I ask her awkwardly, as we make our way down toward the main street. I suggested taking her out for some food at the diner—a far cry from the fine dining restaurants she usually frequents, but as long as it gets her out of the house, I’ll take it. In my brief conversations with people around Devin Ridge, it’s been clear that she has hardly been seen out of our home in the last couple of years, having food deliveredand meals pre-cooked for her. The thought of her, locked up in there by herself with so little to do, makes me feel guilty in a way I didn’t know I could, but I intend to put that right as best I can.
“Oh, you know,” she replies, her voice pointedly neutral. “Okay. Harder, these days, without your father…”
“But you still have all those events to go to, right?” I prompt. “The ones you used to take me to when I was a kid, all the galas and?—”
“I don’t have anyone to go with these days,” she replies, shaking her head. “Without you or your father, it’s not as though I can muster the energy for it.”
My mind drifts back, all at once, to a memory of her that must have come from when I was a kid—in a fancy dress, doing her hair in front of the mirror in the hallway, while I sat on the stairs and waited for her to finish up so we could leave and I could get whatever event this was out of the way once and for all. My father emerged from the living room and when he saw her, his eyes lit up and he pulled her into a warm embrace, telling her how beautiful she looked. Her gaze was shining when he pulled away, happiness written all over her expression. The thought of her denying herself that doesn’t sit right with me, no matter her reasons for it.
“But you should come to the town more often, at least,” I prompt. “Would do you good, to get out of the house more?—”
“Not when everyone seems to have so much to say about your father.” She snorts in derision, like the mere mention of it is so damn ridiculous to her.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on, Carlisle,” she replies, looking over at me and frowning. For the first time since I laid eyes on her again, I notice how much older she looks, the frown lines etched around her lips, her brows kitted together. “You must get it too. The way they talk about him, as though—as though he was the one who started that forest fire!”
She shakes her head. “It’s ridiculous,” she huffs. “He did what any sensible businessman would do, and yet he gets treated like some kind of ogre, even after he passed. It’s not fair. I don’t want to hear it, not if I can help it.”
I grit my teeth. It’s not that I think she should be the one to bear the brunt of it, but at the same time, surely she can understand where these people are coming from. As easy as it might have been for her to live with his choice, given that she got to reap the benefits of it in every way she wanted, the rest of this town had to fight just to right itself again.
Before I can say another word, I feel eyes on us—and I look down the street to find someone staring up at us from just outside the grocery store, eyes fixed like he’s looking for a fight.
My mother rolls her eyes at me, shaking her head. “You see? He’s one of them,” she tells me, gesturing down to him. “Jacob, I think his name is. He always has something to say to me about your father, and I just don’t think that it’s?—”
“You the Devin boy?”
Suddenly, the man is upon us, right in front of us and glaring us down like he’s trying to start a brand-new fire right then and there.
I nod, trying to keep my voice even as I reply, “Sure am.”
“You’ve got some nerve, showing your face around here,” he tells me, his nose wrinkling. He looks to be around my father’s age, with thinning gray hair and a bloated belly like he’s been putting away the better part of a six-pack a night for at least the last decade.
“You don’t get to speak to him like that?—”
I squeeze my mom’s hand, letting her know that I’m capable of handling this. I don’t want her stressing herself out for no reason, not when I feel like this guy has a right to talk to me about this stuff. It might not be what I want to hear right now, not as I’m trying to get my mom out of the house for a change, but the harm my father did doesn’t just vanish because it’s inconvenient for me.
