Page 39 of Violent Skies
The kitchen is immaculate, no trace of either of them as the guys tumble through into the living room. The dining table is empty and it’s then that the smile forms on my face.
When we were little, and Mom was exhausted, she used to dump everything out on the coffee table and let us pick at it while we watched cartoons. As we got older it evolved because we all started to find our favorite foods and family dinners became something of a potluck. Once a week we’d pile into the kitchen, make a mess, and leave it to watch a movie, which was picked based on a specific rotation. Koa had picked last. We watched The Land Before Time.
It’s immature, and if anyone walked in on us, we’d lose just about every ounce of credibility we gained, but it was our tradition. It was how we did family dinners. Cress sets down a bowl of vegetables—it looks like slaw—and turns just in time to brace herself for the hug Murphy wraps around her. Rafe kisses her cheek, and they both settle in on the floor, leaving Birdie to the open chair with her bowl of cereal and us to the couch. Together.
She made everyone's favorite for them: chicken tacos for Rafe, mashed potatoes and gravy for Murphy, and in the middle of the coffee table there’s a bowl of strawberries to go with a pile of shortcake beside it.
“It must have taken you hours,” I whisper, settling onto the couch next to her. She tucks herself into the brown cardigan she’s wearing and turns to look at me. The rogue curls around her face beg to be touched but I reach out and grab a beer instead.
“Birdie helped.” She shrugs like it was nothing.
“No, she didn’t,” I laugh. “That girl would rather trade in five fingers than cook.” I shake my head and bring the bottle to my lips.
“Everyone got their favorite.” Her eyes meet mine, and I’m forced to swallow the urge to find her lips, even briefly.
“Are they homemade?” I ask, looking at the shortcake biscuits.
She nods. “So is the whipped cream.”
“You spoil a man, Cress.” It slips out in a muffled, husky tone and I watch her cheeks turn the color of the strawberry syrup. “Sorry,” I apologize, licking my bottom lip as Rafe and Murphy start to argue over what movie they want to watch.
I bang the bottle against the table gently, just loud enough to get their attention. “Cress cooked. She picks.”
“Oliver and Company,” she says quickly as she grabs a taco from Rafe’s plate. Once they stop grumbling about her choice, Murphy finds the VHS and throws it into the TV just like always.
It’s been a long time since we did anything like this, together or apart. But definitely together. Birdie keeps flicking Rafe’s ear with wet fingers and Murphy’s glasses are abandoned for squinty eyes and full cheeks. Seeing them so relaxed and happy causes the muscles in my shoulders to unfurl and my heart rate to slow into a pace I don’t recognize.
I think about what Rafe said, about her just showing up. Needing us after all this time and without an apology. We’ve been working so hard to forget everything that happened that we also forgot how to be ourselves. How to be a family.
But even in her grief she remembers every single little thing. She always knew exactly how to take care of them, individually, and with way more love than Koa and I could ever figure out.
We’re a unit with or without her, but with her, there’s so much more heart to us.
“Why do you love this movie so much?” I ask her after a while. The second song has finished and I’m pushing around the rogue strawberries in my bowl after eating two servings of dessert for dinner.
“I have a soft spot for the scoundrels.” She steals the last strawberry with her fork before I can get it with mine.
I roll my eyes at her comment and she giggles. I missed that sound and I find myself leaning into it, maybe a little too much. “Hey.” I nudge her thigh with my knuckle to make her look at me. “You wanna go for a drive?”
She pauses, thinking about it, and every single reason that used to stop her ran through her mind, each one solved because the thing that used to give her hesitation is gone.
“Yeah,” she says after a moment, and a feeling I believed long dead surfaces at the base of my chest, just warm enough to heat up my heart and make it race again.
“Yeah?” I ask, almost confused that she even agrees, but she nods to confirm her decision. “Okay.” I rise from the couch, stepping over a half-sleeping Murphy, who’s in a food coma after cleaning out the entire bowl of potatoes. Birdie looks up from her slouched position and gives me a careful smile, which I return with a wink as I take Cress’s hand and pull her from the living room.
“Where are we going to go?” she asks as I pop the door for the mustang and let her in.
“Anywhere we want.” I lean on the door frame, staring down at her, and she smiles up at me brightly. In that moment I can see the sparkle in her eye, the one I thought Koa took with him when he died.
The engine roars to life and I whip it from the driveway just to hear the sound she makes in surprise—it brings me back. The second we hit the highway her window is down and her hand is out, letting it roll over the wind as she closes her eyes. She lets the rumble of the car and white noise drown everything out. I don’t say a word, I just let her find peace in it. Happy enough to be included, even for a brief second.
When she’s finally done, she lets her head roll to look at me, and all I see is sixteen-year-old Cress. Completely unburdened by the trouble that Koa and I bring. She’s full of color, there are no bruises on her body, her eyes still have that light…
“I’m sorry,” I say to her, letting the word roll off my tongue.
“You’re going to have to be more specific, Riggs.” She tucks a curl behind her ear and I watch the humor leave her expression. It softens into a ‘are we really going to do this?’ state of mind. And usually I wouldn’t. Koa was every emotion at any given time. He filled up all the spaces with himself in such a suffocating way that it became natural to suppress everything.
But she opens every window, she lets all the fresh air in, and suddenly I can breathe.
