Feels like a million years ago, to be honest.
“Thanks,” I reply belatedly, moving onto a box of books and pulling them out in fat stacks to line the bookshelf I got at an antique show.
“We could get you a Kindle, if you don’t like reading on your phone,” Tess suggests gently which is nice, but also shows how little she knows me.
“I enjoy print,” I tell her, looking up and then feeling my cheeks blush a bit. “Also, these were Saffron’s books when she was a kid. I found them in the attic, and she said I could have them.”
“Maybe that was before … all of this?” Tess suggests gently as I narrow my eyes. “If they’re keepsakes, she might want them back now.”
“Because she had no idea I wasn’t her bio daughter until recently?” I quip, continuing to unpack the books. There’s an entire set of first edition Harry Potter paperbacks in here, and I smile, touching the spines. Millennials fucking love Harry Potter, don’t they? I have fond memories of Saffron reading these to me as a kid during this rare two-month stint where she lived with us. “She gave these to me, knowing what she’d done. Besides, a gift is something you give without asking for anything in return.”
I put the Harry Potter books on the top shelf before grabbing another box labelled Books #2. As soon as I open it and grab a stack, I realize my mistake.
It’s an entire stack of Tess Vanguard novels. Some of them are signed. Some of them I have in more than one cover, because I collect like that, and I couldn’t bear not to have all the editions. The blood drains from my face, and I feel suddenly like I’m naked in front of an entire stadium of people.
I look up and our eyes meet. I haven’t told Tess that I used to like her books, that I read Abducted Under a Noonday Sun so many times that the binding fell apart on my first copy. It’s in a plastic bag at the bottom of this very box, waiting to be unpacked.
“Did you know that this room has been empty since we moved in?” Tess asks softly, her eyes dropping to the books in my hands. My own are shaking, even though I try to tell them to stop, will them to, beg them to. They shake anyway. “We’ve lived here … gosh, almost a decade now.”
It’s too late, now that Tess has seen the books, so I shelve them beside the Harry Potter set where they’ve always rested, right on the top shelf. Who cares if she knows I like her work? That doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t. Because she told me that her writing isn’t art, that it’s just about money, so who cares? I feel no connection to her, none. None at all.
Lie.
Maybe … maybe I did want to find a connection with Tess? Maybe, because Saffron was barely a mother to me at all, I thought I found one in Tess Vanguard? But she’s making it so hard, so fucking hard on me. We just don’t understand each other at all.
I stay standing, one hand on the edge of a hardcover novel titled Fleeing Under a Summer Rain. Tess likes themes in her titles, obviously. This one she claims is a work of pure fiction, but it’s about an ex who mistreats his wife and daughter, so the wife flees with their kid in tow. She subsequently dies, but her daughter, despite being raised by her mother’s murderer, discovers the truth.
The end is fucking tragic, the daughter stabbing her father and killing him.
I shiver and bend back down to dig in the box. It’s mostly Tess novels in here, unfortunately, so I pretend to get fixated on an old game system that was packed beside the books. I won’t let her see the shredded copy of Abducted Under a Noonday Sun. It’s too personal, and she isn’t allowed to see it. She hasn’t earned it.
Tess stands up, and I figure she’s going to leave without answering her own question.
“It’s been empty, and it’s stayed empty,” she continues finally, and I focus really, really hard on that game system, pretending to clean dust from all the nooks and crannies with the end of my hoodie sleeve.
“I left it empty for you.” I go completely still, but I don’t look up. I can’t. Tess’ voice is too soft, and I don’t think I can look at her right now. I’m so conflicted, hating her one minute, wishing I could love her the next. “Because I knew I would find you one day. I wanted you to have the nicest room in the house, with the best view. And I was willing to sacrifice everything to make sure that happened.”
