I couldn’t forget that. No matter how familiar and inviting, the cottage and the family within weren’t mine anymore.
Izzy threw a sharp glance over her shoulder and guided me into the kitchen. I tried not to care when she bolted the lock. Ofcourse, they didn’t want anyone from town to know I was here after everything that had happened.
“You hungry?” Izzy glanced out the window as she spoke, clearly trying to be gracious in light of Eva’s sudden flight.
“No, thank you.” But even as I said it, my eyes flicked to the honeypot on the top shelf. Not the one Jack kept hidden in the vent but the everyday pot I’d dipped into time and time again, to slather on toast or stir into tea.
Sometimes I dreamt of it. On bad days, their honey had been one of the only things I could stomach. My summer here had ruined me for other honey. I’d tried other brands and farms, but nothing compared.
I’d spent the last eight years chasing the way it had made me feel. Warm. Alive.
“Why not ask to take some with you? Jack wouldn’t begrudge you that.”
I gave a minute shake of my head. No, we couldn’t beg for favors. We couldn’t owe Jack anything more, even if the very thought of raw honeycomb made my mouth water like an animal’s.
Izzy plucked a carved wooden box off the side table in the parlor and dumped the contents—pencils and stationery, by the look of it—into the junk drawer beneath. She motioned for me to uncup my hands and let the ashes in my palms pour into the box’s velvet-lined interior. I did as instructed, a lump in my throat.
Izzy latched the box shut and rushed from the room. A tap squeaked on in the bathroom, and she returned with a damp rag in hand. She passed it to me, careful not to touch my skin. “You’ll stay for dinner?”
I swallowed my guilt and shook my head. This place was a drug. I had to get out before it wormed its way back into my system. I’dspent too many years looking back on that summer with a hole in my gut. “I can’t, Iz.”
Izzy’s mouth pressed into a frown. “You just got here,” she said softly.
The sadness in her protest took me aback. I didn’t deserve her affection after all I’d put them through. But then, the Moreaus had a thing about taking in strays.
“She’s right,” Jack said as he filled the kettle and set it on the stove. “Sit down a minute, son.”
A flare of heat startled to life in my chest to hear him call me that. Jack’s tone brooked no argument, so, like a moth to a flame, I plopped onto the nearest chair, wincing at the discomfort to my injured tailbone.
I cast my gaze over the familiar walls. I’d always loved this warm, close room. It was the kind of rustic, lived-in space that made you set down all your worries. Antique gold frames were littered across cherry-print wallpaper, anything that could be cast ironwascast iron, and the burnt-orange tiles featured timeworn cracks like stars that mapped the floor in a tale of teatimes past.
Sometimes I wondered if the Moreaus were too wrapped up in their family bubble to see their own magnetism. They drew people in, even those who didn’t want to be drawn, those who fought tooth, nail, and claw to be free of them.
“Like us?”
“You still like it with milk?” Jack asked, ladling a generous spoonful of honey into a mug. My breath quickened. It was pathetic towantlike this. Too often, I felt like an empty bucket that couldn’t get full. Moreau honey had a way of curbing my appetite, just as its keepers had always been able to quiet the monster in my head.
“Should I check on Eva?” Izzy asked softly.
Jack shook his head. “She won’t go far.”
The words fell like a slap and a soothing hand at once. That was one of the things I liked about Jack’s youngest daughter. She was roots. She was soil.
And my return had upset her. Of course it had.
“Where do you think she’ll go?” Izzy asked.
“The pond.” I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud until Jack and Izzy swiveled to face me. My cheeks burned with a new kind of heat. But if Jack remembered my youthful indiscretions with his daughter, he didn’t care to rehash them. Small favors.
We sipped our tea, tension brewing in the building silence. Jack swirled his teacup. “So.”
My chest panged. “Yes?”
Why had I agreed to this? The room was steeped in discomfort. What could we even talk about? The tree bursting out of his half-buttoned flannel shirt? The pile of ashes spread over the grass?
It would have been so much easier if Mom had simply had her ashes sent to Jack directly. What had she been playing at by playinguslike this?
Jack took a sip. “I didn’t see a car.”
