Definitely jealous.
I’d never led Travis on. Despite the closeness we’d always shared, I’d been honest about my lack of desire to date—him or anyone else. “It’s not like that. Remember the psych project on dreams I had to do?”
The silence stretched between us. Unable to stand it, I continued. “Well, I started this group on a social network site. Collin, my psych mentor, helped me set it up. It’s called the Baker’s Dozen. Named after me and the fact that there are thirteen of us in the dream study.”
Nothing.
“Anyway, there’s also Luna, Fell, Indie, Brutus, yeah, well. Thirteen. Including me and James. And we still keep in touch online.” I fiddled with my hem again, waiting for Travis to answer.
When he did, his voice was still tight. “Is James the one you call Angel all the time?”
My snort cut through the air. “Seriously? No, Angel is one of the Dozen. She’ll probably be a nun someday, and James is so broody and angry. They’re complete opposites.”
Travis relaxed slightly, but his knuckles stayed white on the steering wheel. “So, you’ve never met them?”
Yeah, there was that. “I’ve never met any of them, but they’re still my friends. We just clicked. And it’s easier to talk to people about things when you don’t actually have to, you know, look them in the eye at school the next day.”
“Easier than talking to me?”
Guilt swallowed me, even as a small thrill tickled my stomach. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous.”
Travis pulled me close. Close enough for me to feel the hard muscles of his arm under his dress shirt. Close enough for my pulse to quicken. “What with all the love you give me, how could a man be jealous?”
It came out in jest, but stung just the same. My Karen Webber-esque crush on him was too new to be real—probably nothing more than raw emotions after Granny’s death—but I didn’t like the sound of his comment, as if it didn’t matter whether I liked him or not. Hurt, I resorted to our default mode of sarcastic banter. “Nothing like stroking your ego. I’m surprised you can make it through the day without me fawning all over you.”
He gave me a sideways glance. “You do sometimes.”
Again, the undertones that had been present at Granny’s house confused and frustrated me, like he knew something I didn’t know. “Never. You’re like the big brother I never had.”
Trav’s arm tightened around me—possessively and not brotherly at all. “Gemi, you have…how much do you remember from when you were little?”
I stifled a yawn and settled against his side. “Not much. You?”
“More than some, I guess. Either that or my father and grandfather keep the memories alive better than most.”
“Is this about your mom?” Travis had never talked about her, not in the four years I’d known him.
“No. It’s about you.”
“Hmmm.” My eyes closed. “I remember virtually nothing before I moved in with Granny. I don’t even know how old I was. In my mind, I’d always lived there.”
“And you don’t know why?”
I shook my head against his arm, releasing the unique scent of Travis. I breathed deeply and snuggled in a little more, too tired to support myself and completely immersed in the head rush of feeling him in every nerve of my body. That very question of why had been tugging at the corners of my mind, right behind the ever-present headache, since Granny’s death. “I don’t honestly know. I don’t even know why I moved back in with my parents. Granny’s cancer, maybe. I think she got too sick to take care of me.”
His hand found the back of my neck. Gentle. Sweet. A perfect fit. “Maybe she just wanted us to be together.”
“She didn’t know you, silly.” My words came out slurred. Half-formed by the sleep that threatened to over-take me. I closed off my mind to the pain above my temple and reached up to lace my fingers in his. He squeezed them in return, sending hot fire down my arm and into my heart.
“Gem, I…”
Love you.
The words wrapped around me like a blanket.
“Hey, Gem.” Trav’s voice mingled with the classical music lilting from the speakers, waking me up. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but I seriously couldn’t keep up with the emotional roller coaster ride since Granny’s death. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
He handed me a plastic bag. “Don’t forget your phone.”
“What pho…?” My words broke at the spark in his eyes. Panic stirred in my chest. I must have blacked out again. “Aah…thanks.”
Travis pulled me to him, his grip on my wrist not hard enough to hurt, but enough to hold me. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing. I just forgot is all.”
“Forgot that you just spent forty minutes in the store picking out your new phone?”
Heat burned my cheeks, and frustration welled at my inability to remember anything lately. I tried the easy route. “You know me. Miss Forgetful.”
Trav’s jaw tightened. Easy wasn’t going to cut it. His voice came out raw. “This isn’t a basketball score this time, or forgetting the name of a movie we just watched. It’s not even forgetting what you got for Christmas last year. You took so long finding the perfect cover I left you there and ran errands of my own. How do you forget that?”
“Sorry. In case you didn’t know, I’ve had a lot on my mind.” I pulled away and reached into my left pocket—the only place I carried my cell. It came out empty. I searched in my head for something—anything—that would help me not feel so helpless and terrified. The vision of my phone plunging into the toilet at the church popped into my mind. Relief followed this small snippet of memory.
Travis sighed. “Your old one is in the bag, along with another new phone number. You know you can keep the same one so I don’t have to keep changing your info.”
I grimaced, not quite sure of why I switched numbers, and settled on a reason I knew he’d believe. “My dad got a hold of the last one. Again.”
Concern of a different kind crossed Trav’s face. His eyes glinted with something feral. “Come home with me now. Stay with me.”
I wanted to. I’d never been more tempted in my life to accept the safety and love he so readily offered, but something held me back. Something always held me back. “Travis, you are the most amazing person I know. I wouldn’t survive without you. Honestly. But I can’t live with you, as nice as that offer sounds.”
His face softened. “Do you want me to come in?”
Into the kitchen with plate shards still on the floor?
Rae’s quiet voice of reason.
“No thanks. I’ve got it covered.”
But he wore his worry in the lines across his forehead. He didn’t believe me. I reached up and ran my fingers down his cheek, along the firm line of his jaw. My body ached at the touch, and I wanted something more. It was a foreign feeling, and I wasn’t sure I welcomed it. Not now. Not yet. “I’ll pull myself together. I promise.”
His hand caught in the hair at the nape of my neck, and he held me there, our foreheads pressed together. “You better, because I miss you.”
* * *
When the house grew quiet, Angel climbed out of bed, crept down the hall and knelt on the hardwood floor in front of her parents’ bedroom door. She folded her hands and prayed for the forgiveness of all their sins.
Chapter 8
I woke the next morning feeling more refreshed than I had in months. No dreams littered my night, just a quiet sense of peacefulness. When I went downstairs for my morning cup of chai, Mom greeted me in the kitchen with a pan of homemade cinnamon rolls. She must have seen my body tense because her red-rimmed eyes flickered to the floor.
“I’m sorry for yesterday, honey.”
I poured milk into my mug and watched it spin in the microwave.
She shifted to lean against the wall. “And the day before. All of them, really.”
The timer beeped. I scooped powder into my cup and watched the mountain of spices sink into the froth.
“You’re right. I’m an alcoholic. There. I’ve said it. Does that make you feel better?”
I stirred my tea, unable to look at her. “No. It doesn’t. I don’t want you to be an alcoholic. I just want you to be my mom.”
“I’ll quit. I promise.”
Finally, I turned. Nothing was harder than staring into the sober eyes of an alcoholic and witnessing a thousand apologies staring back at you. I took Mom’s hands in mine, her icy fingers leaching heat from my own. “We’ve been here before.”
She shook her head. “Not like this. I can’t…I can’t stand what your father has done.”
My pulse quickened. The Big Secret was within my grasp. “What has he done?”
Mom chewed on her bottom lip. “Gemi, I can’t. We’ve both made mistakes. We all have.”
“Tell me. I need to know. I need to know what this huge secret is that everyone seems to know about.”
Mom paled. “How do you know about that?”
“I heard you and Dad talking in the car on the way to the hospital and Dad making Granny promise something. Even the old lady at the funeral knows what happened. Everybody but me.”
“Remembering doesn’t help anyone.” She laughed, the bitterness echoing in the kitchen. “Alcohol helps you forget. But what he’s doing…it isn’t working anymore. It just has to stop.”
“You have to stop.” My voice sounded harsh in the quiet kitchen. Mom was stubborn enough to keep quiet about the past, but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook for her drinking. “Both of you do.”
“I will.” She squeezed my hands—fumbled—and pulled me into a hug. Her freshly washed hair smelled of orange ginger. Clean and strong. Maybe this time would be different.
Unless…“Where’s Dad?”
Mom shrugged. “Out. He’s taking this harder than you think.”
I let the comment go. The only thing my father ever took hard was his liquor.
“Will you help me, Gemini?”
“Do what?”
“Decorate for Christmas.”
I grimaced. “Isn’t it a little late? I mean, it’s already Wednesday. Christmas is in three days.”
“Three days to enjoy the holiday season.” Mom deliberately ignored my reluctance and grinned as if our previous conversation had never happened. Even sober, she was a master at forgetting. “Come on, Gemini. It’ll be fun. It’s been so many years since we’ve pulled the tree up from the basement, I’ve forgotten what it looks like.”
Sadly, so had I. After finishing our cinnamon rolls, Mom carried the decorations down from the attic while I straightened the kitchen. In the process, I dumped out the last third of whiskey and tossed the bottle into the trash. Dried rice tumbled down over the plate shards from my tantrum the other day—a grim reminder that I also had some things to work on.
With my dad gone, we cranked the music and retrieved the artificial tree from the basement. When other kids had recited Humpty Dumpty, I’d been enamored of the folksy lyrics of Johnny Horton. Singing his songs with Mom was one of the few memories I had from my childhood. Usually, though, we were restoring old antiques like Granny’s cedar chest.
We set the tree down in the middle of the living room and surveyed the area, trying to find an uncluttered space big enough for the seven foot pine. I kicked a roll of carpet pushed against one wall. It had been there since the roof leaked two years ago and molded the wood floor underneath. It was another of my dad’s unfinished projects, and like the rest of the debris, it had become integrated into our daily living, collecting a hodgepodge of worn outerwear that had been stripped off in favor of warmer indoor temps.
“What do we do with this carpet?”
“Burn it.” Mom’s eyes glowed with conviction.
I scooped the various sweatshirts off the carpet and threw them in the laundry room on top of the dirty clothes. When I turned, my sleeve caught on a nail sticking out of the wall where the lathe and plaster had been busted out to make way for new sheetrock. To date, the hall still had exposed wood beams for walls.
Prying myself free of the nail, I scowled at the hole in my favorite sweatshirt. “I hate this house.”
“Me too.”
I hadn’t heard Mom following me, and instantly felt a stab of guilt. “It’s just…”
“It’s nothing like Sophia’s home.” Mom fiddled with the trash bag in her hands. “You don’t have to explain. Even though I grew up in this house, I feel the same way.”
Wary of a trap, I stepped around her
“I’m not the enemy, Gemini.”
That stopped me. Something pushed against the wall I’d built between us. It terrified me to think of what might lie behind it. “Then what do you plan on doing?”
She didn’t answer until after we lugged the heavy carpet to the front yard beside the burn barrel. When the lighter she brought wouldn’t ignite the musty roll, Mom grabbed the lawnmower gas and doused the remnant. This time, flames engulfed it and lit up the front yard, casting orange shadows over the snow.
We ran back to the house to escape the noxious odor and watched the carpet burn from the upstairs landing.
“I’m going to leave him.”
“Where will you go? You don’t even have a job.”
“I have my…someone I can stay with.”