Page 32 of Everything You Hate
Henry gets his phone out and turns it around to show me a picture of a tall man with soot on his face, the Haven-Kinsella eyes, and a grin like Colter’s. Yellow shirt, hard hat, arms spread wide in front of a ridge that’s burning behind him.
“That’s my Knox,” he says. “The family’s daredevil.” Then adds for the table’s benefit, “He’ll call when he can.”
“Of course he’ll call.” Mimi sets her hand over Henry’s hand and squeezes. They stay like that a beat too long, and when Mimi looks at Henry, there’s a softness in her face that makes my chest hurt.
I glance around the table.
They’re all scared. Every one of them.
And that’s what finally breaks me open.
Not the food. Not the noise. Not eight people making room for a stranger without asking her a single question about the last eighteen months. This. A table full of people frightened for the same person at the same time, carrying it together.
When my mother had her stroke, I found out from her assistant. Four days after, and only because I had to make the decision to remove her from life support.
This family would never.
I set down my fork. “Excuse me,” I say, to no one in particular, and I’m out the door before anyone can ask if I’m all right.
The night is cold, salt-damp, thick with hay and the smell of water somewhere past the dark fields. The barn is a black shapeagainst a sky with more stars in it than I have seen in twenty years.
I grip the porch rail and breathe.
The tears come without asking. Hot, silent, running down my face before I’ve decided anything. I don’t sob. I don’t make a sound. I just stand there in the dark with salt on my cheeks and a hole in my chest the exact size of everything I never had and didn’t know to miss.
Behind me, the screen door creaks open.
Chapter Seven
Dean
I catch the screen door before it bangs.
She doesn’t turn around. Her shoulders are tight, her hands white-knuckled on the railing, and I consider backing out. Pulling the door shut. Leaving her the dignity of falling apart without an audience.
Too late. She’s heard me. Her spine straightens, her chin comes up, and by the time she turns, the tears are gone. Or hidden. Her eyes are dry and her mouth is curved in the ghost of that camera smile, and the performance is good enough to make my chest ache.
“You okay?” It’s the only thing I can think of that doesn’t sound like pity.
“Fine.” Clipped. Professional. “Just needed some air. It’s warm in there.”
It’s forty degrees on this porch and her breath clouds in front of her face. She’s shivering. She’s also too proud to say so.
I shrug out of my jacket and hold it out. “Here.”
She looks at the jacket. Then at me. “I’m not cold.”
“Your lips are blue.”
“They are not.”
“They’re getting there.” I keep it extended. “Take it or don’t. Your call.”
The farm stretches out around us, dark fields and darker forest, the barn a solid shape against the stars. Something rustles in the grass near the steps. Noodle, probably, patrolling for trespassers. The kitchen noise filters through the screen behind us, muffled now.
She takes the jacket. Her fingers brush mine, cold against warm, and I don’t pull away fast enough.
“Thanks.” She pulls it on and it swallows her. Sleeves past her fingertips, collar folded up around her jaw. She buries her hands in the pockets and hunches her shoulders. “Better?”
