Page 127 of A Light in the Dark
“If we started encouraging all luna moths to grow roses, we’d become Stonedcreek, Valerie.”
I spent the rest of our walk back to the dealership laughing my ass off.
THIRTY-NINE
She said I could.
After eight hoursof sleep and breakfast, I herded Joel to my car, insisted on driving, and headed to Watercrest to rescue my parents. According to Joel, my parents were in love with his parents, and I might have a fight on my hands to get them to come to Stonecreek with us. Upon arrival, shortly after sunrise, I discovered my mother with a bunch of luna moth larvae on her hands and arms, listening to Joel’s mother teach her everything she might want to know about the insects. Our fathers conferred over the grill, which sizzled and promised good things to come.
I was always game for second breakfast.
I went to my mother, took care to avoid dislodging any of her new friends, and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“You’re not a problem, Valerie. It’s not your fault you’re sick. It’s that asshole’s fault.”
Right. Without the asshole former mayor, I wouldn’t havebeen dumped in a river and forced to wander around the woods alone. Without the trip into the woods, I wouldn’t have contracted the infection in the first place. “I’m enjoying my work when I get to help add to the charges list to say the least.” I sniffed. “Are we having steak for breakfast?”
“We are. Sarine and Ronald have dealt with that infection more than a few times, and you need extra protein. They’ve seen what you’ll do to a steak put in front of you, so they got steaks from town this morning.”
“Thank you, Mom,” I told Joel’s mother, and I gave her a kiss on the cheek, too.
My mother raised a brow.
I pointed at Joel. “I’ve decided I’m keeping him, so I get to call her Mom. And she said I could.”
“We did introduce ourselves by our name with an offer to call us Mom or Dad,” Joel’s mother explained. “We’re Mom and Dad to half the town, and she’s the first woman he’s brought home to meet us. I like your new car, Valerie. It’s very pretty.”
“Her name is Blaze,” I announced with pride, gesturing to my pretty orange vehicle. “Joel wasn’t lying about me being good to drive despite this stupid infection, right?”
“You can drive and do most everything you want, but you shouldn’t do more than a few hours a day of stressful things, like work. Just listen to Joel; he’s dealt with those blasted infections more times than I care to count. We’re notorious.”
“That’s what he said.”
“We’re?” my mother asked.
“Joel’s had that blasted infection at least sixteen times. He enjoys romping around the woods more than is good for anyone, him especially. He’s into photography, and thebacteria is easiest to pick up from poor hygiene. Romping around the woods involves poor hygiene. We keep trying to tell him to take sanitizer with him, but sanitizer in the volume he’d need is heavy and might damage his camera gear. He tends to get an infection every few years. The medication your daughter is on is a good one.”
“We know,” my mother said in a soft voice, and she smiled. “Did your Joel get it as a child?”
“Several times. That one couldn’t help but shove dirt in his mouth. He had one bad case that resulted in him being hospitalized.”
I eyed my mother, wondering what she was up to. “It’s not your fault Zac died, Mom.”
“I know that. You know that. But I didn’t know other families were suffering from the same blight around here. We were the only ones in town to lose a child from that infection.”
Ah. My memories of my brother’s death were fuzzy, but the town hadn’t been as kind to my mother as I wanted, that much I remembered. “You could move here, Mom. They have good internet and they don’t like gossips.”
“Those are two strong selling points. But where would we move to?”
Joel’s mother frowned, and she got her phone out of her pocket and tapped at the screen for a while. “I suppose it depends on how much you have to buy the land.”
“We have some money. Uh, Mirage paid us a hefty sum after Zac’s body helped them develop the treatments for the bacteria. Compensation that the other medication failed to work.”
My eyes widened. “Mirage paid you?”
“We’ve never really done anything with the money. We put it in an investment account at their recommendation. At that point, we’d mostly already paid off the house, and when you got older, you were so independent we didn’t want to ruin that, so we hid it. Then you got the scholarship but used it to buy a house.”
Joel laughed. “She has one of the best houses in Stonecreek, truth be told. You’ll get to see it later today. It’s not just a house. It’s a fabulous house. And her work is going to send her to school in the evenings. She’s been accepted at several schools in Mirage, and her work is footing the bill, so she’s going to get the education she wants.”
