His father nods, grins a little. “Yep. We’re going shopping this weekend, you and I. Get you some decent, family-oriented clothes for election-year public appearances. Starting with a graveside memorial on the anniversary of Amber’s death.”
“You—”
The sheriff makes a tsking sound with his tongue. “People mourn in different ways, son. Always remember that.”
“Really? That’s your explanation?”
His dad crosses his massive arms. “You think I don’t miss Amber?”
“I think you’ve been relieved since the day she died.” Arden’s voice is full of venom. He knows it’s dangerous, to get his dad riled up about Amber. But poison like this festers inside you for so long, and then foams up until you have no way to contain it sometimes. And this is one of those times. “She was your daughter and her illness was a cancer to your campaign. You grieve more over your team losing a football game than you grieved over Amber’s death. It was all about you, never about her. You killed her, same as if you gave her the pills yourself.”
Strong fingers lace around Arden’s neck. “Shut your mouth, son. Have you forgotten how many times I’ve saved your ass from juvie? And what about your girlfriend? You want her going to prison for her little stunt while I deport her family? Then. Shut. Your. Mouth.”
Arden manages to wriggle out of his father’s grasp—it’s a move Glass taught him—and stands eye to eye with him. He’s as tall as the sheriff, and his shoulders are just as wide. “One of these days you won’t have a quick fix,” Arden says in a low voice. “One of these days your house of cards will come crashing down on you, and the edges will be razor sharp and they’ll make their marks on you. One of these days you’ll suffer like you’ve made everyone else suffer. And I hope to God I’m there to see it.”
The sheriff flinches, taking a step back. His face softens even though he’s scowling. “Do you remember when I was a deputy like Glass? And every night, I’d come home and turn on the flashing lights for you and Amber. And every night, you told me, you wanted to be just like me when you grew up. Do you remember?”
It was a lifetime ago, but Arden remembers. “I was five years old. Everyone wants to be like their dad when they’re five.”
The sheriff shakes his head. “Remember in sixth grade—that would have put you at right around eleven or twelve years old—you asked me to come to the school for Bring Your Father to Work Day. You still respected me then.” He rocks back on his heels, tucking his thumbs into his pockets. “I’m trying to figure out at what point I lost you, son. Was it Amber? Do you truly blame me for her death? Or was it before that?”
Arden feels his eyes brimming with tears. “Get out. Now.”
“If you need someone to blame for Amber’s death, I’ll be that person for you, Arden. I will. I only ever want what’s best for you. Always will.”
“I said GET OUT NOW!”
His dad backs away then until he reaches the threshold of the door. “Your sister had a lot of friends who want to remember her, grieve her loss. I can’t deny them that on the anniversary of her death.”
Amber hardly had any friends, because their father whisked her away from society. From curious glances and busy tongues and aggressive rumor mills. He couldn’t risk letting anyone witness a meltdown, not in his house. Not in his county. Not on his term. This graveside memorial is strictly for the sake of sympathetic voters.
And this whole I-grieve-in-my-own-way sermon is just another mind game.
Isn’t it?
Twenty-Seven
I take the new cell phone out of its box and marvel at it. Maybe not at it, really, because I’ve seen and used Arden’s multiple times, but I marvel that I now have my own.
I have a cell phone number. I have Internet at my fingertips.
Because of me. Because of the two jobs I work.
I want to call Mama and tell her, give her my number, but I’m too ashamed of getting kicked out of the house. I’m sure Julio has already told her what’s happened, but calling her myself would force me to present my side of the story, and the more I think about it, the more my side of the story falls infinitely flat when told in things as common and ordinary as words. I wish I could explain with feelings instead, because then I think maybe she’d understand. Maybe.
So I dial the only number I can dial, who also happens to be the only person who doesn’t want to talk to me. Julio doesn’t pick up.
It’s after five o’clock, so he’s probably at the restaurant working. He hates when I call the restaurant to tell him anything. He thinks it reflects poorly on his work ethic. My guess is that Julio is the best employee they’ve got and that if he needs to take a call, they’ll be more than willing to let him. So, against my better judgment, I dial the restaurant.
He picks up, after about two minutes of waiting for him. “Hola,” I say neutrally.
“Hola.”
“I have a new phone number to give you so you can reach me.”
“That couldn’t have waited until I got home?”
“I just wanted to make sure you have it, is all. It’s a cell phone. Do you have a pen and paper?”
“Oh. Now I see. You just wanted to call and gloat about having a cell phone. Well, congratulations, Carly.”
I knew he would read something into this call. The problem is, he has every right to. Because I am bragging. I’m proud. But there is another real purpose to my call. “I need a way to get a hold of you. You’re still my brother.”
“You can’t just use that old white man’s phone you’re staying with? Or the help’s not allowed to use the phone?”
“I’m not the help, Julio, I’m his guest. Because, you might remember, my own brother kicked me out of the house.” That’s a low blow and I know it.
Silence. I know it bothers him, that he kicked me out. No matter how much he thinks I deserved it, it goes against everything he believes in: family, unity, sticking together. I wonder how he explained my absence to our neighbors. To his friends. It must have been hard for him.
“What do you want, Carly? I’m working.”
“I just wanted to give you my cell phone. In case you needed to get in touch with me.”
I hear shuffling on the other end of the phone. “Okay, what is it?”
I tell him the number. “If you don’t reach me, leave a voice message and I’ll—”
“Fine. Anything else?”
“No.”
“I have to get back to work now, Carlotta. Good-bye.”
“Bye.”
I hang up and toss my phone on my bed. It feels weird to call it my bed, since my bed is still in the trailer I used to share with Julio. This bed used to belong to Cletus’s niece—Arden’s mother—and this used to be her room when she visited over the summer months. It’s all white frilly lace turned slightly yellow with age and silk comforter and brass bed and furniture complete with a vanity and a book nook in the window. I wonder what it was like to live in such a magical little room, to play dolls in here and take breaks to snack on lemonade and cookies. I imagine the echo of childish laughter that must have once resounded through the mansion.
I make my way down the servants’ stairs in the back; it’s the quickest way to the kitchen. Cletus refuses to let me pay rent, so I earn my keep by cleaning and cooking. I’m no chef, but as far as I can tell from the stacks and stacks of Hungry Man meals piled in his chest freezer, he’s not either. I pull out the fixings for a homemade sauce, skimming the cavernous pantry for all the spices I’ll need (Miss May gave me the recipe and I nailed it the first time, thankyouverymuch).
As the sauce simmers, I hear a yawning moan. I can always tell when Cletus is stirring because he sleeps in the ballroom, and it carries his grunts and stretching sighs all the way to the kitchen. I begin to boil the water for the noodles and remove the sauce from the heat. I went to the grocery store after my shift at the Uppity Rooster so I have fresh French bread for him to munch on, to help him absorb some of the alcohol I know
will make his trip to the kitchen table a wobbly one. At best, he’ll need my help. At worst, I’ll have to deliver dinner to the ballroom.
But at least he’s not driving anymore. I’ve persuaded him to let me run his errands for him, and take him with me if he’d like, so that he doesn’t have to drive anywhere. He’s persuaded me to drive his big truck to all my work shifts, because for some reason me riding my bike everywhere makes him nervous.
Which is nice. Nice to be appreciated, nice to be needed. And it’s nice to take care of someone who cares about me. I wonder if Julio had the same sense of accomplishment, knowing he was taking care of me. Maybe I wasn’t a burden after all. Maybe I was just family—and to Julio, family could never be a burden.
I want to convince myself that Julio is the exception. That not everyone in my family is as accommodating, as hardworking as Julio. But I have a strong suspicion that they are. I have uncles back in Mexico on my mother’s side whom I’ve never met; they’re practically strangers to me. Would they be as good to me as Cletus is?
The answer is probably. You can’t unweave generation after generation of a family.
“Uncle Cletus!” I yell across the house. He has this rule where we use absolutely no etiquette because when his wife was alive he was “made to follow etiquette to a damned T” and he “ain’t gonna do it anymore.” Plus, he says I have soft feet and scare the bejesus out of him when I sneak up on him while he’s sleeping. “I forget sometimes that I’ve got a guest in the house,” he said.
I set the table in the kitchen for two, and pour Cletus a big glass of sweet iced tea. I’ve learned how to make decorative lemon slices at the café, so I do one up for Cletus’s glass. He’ll pretend like it’s too girly for him, but secretly I think he likes to be bothered over. “Uncle Cletus!” I yell again when I hear no shuffling down the hallway. “Dinner’s ready!”
I sit in my seat and fold my napkin across my lap. If I were eating alone, I wouldn’t do this, but out of respect for the etiquette Cletus claims to no longer respect, I do it. After another five minutes have passed, and the steaming pile of spaghetti on my plate has become a congealed pile of spaghetti, I decide to go check on him. I don my flip-flops and stride down the hall to the ballroom. The door is slightly ajar, which means he’d been expecting a call for dinner from me. I can’t help but smile.
We’ve fallen into a routine, he and I.
I push the door open the rest of the way. I’d just polished the floors in here yesterday and the lavender scent of the cleanser still hovers in the air. From across the room I see Cletus’s feet hanging over the end of the couch; it’s his usual napping position.
When I reach what I call his man-corner, I lean over the couch to determine how soundly he’s sleeping. He’s become somewhat of an insomniac himself lately, like Arden is, and I worry that these daily naps won’t get him the true rest he needs. If he’s in a deep sleep, I won’t wake him; I can always reheat his dinner for him before I leave for my shift at the Breeze. If he’s awake and just got a case of naptime lethargy, then I’ll wake him all the way up and we’ll have a proper meal together.
“Uncle Cletus,” I whisper, giving him a little shake.
And that’s when I realize he’s not breathing.
Twenty-Eight
Arden takes a huge swig from the water jug on the wooden bench. It’s been a three hour practice—on a Sunday, no less. Coach Nelson wants him in top form for the next game. Arden has to admit, playing ball again is not as bad as he thought it would be. The physical exhaustion alone helps him sleep, even though dreams of Carly haunt him well into the early morning hours. And it gives him something to do with his hands, even though they ache to hold her, touch her instead of the glistening pigskin of a game ball.
This thing with Carly isn’t over. It will never be over, not for him. He might have to put on this gut-twisting performance at school, this sickening act to keep up appearances. To force his eyeballs to focus straight ahead in the hallways instead of watching her smooth silhouette melt into the crowd of kids. To ignore the tantalizing curves of her figure as it takes up the doorway on her way out of social studies. To look the other way when she wears a new outfit, or styles her hair to cascade around her face. To pretend not to notice when a guy is talking to her, trying to coax her out of her stubborn shell—to pretend not to want to break his nose.
He might have to convince the world that he is no longer interested in Carly Vega, that their story has ended. But his heart knows better. His heart knows there are endless unwritten pages left between them.
He can’t, he won’t lose her for good.
Which is why he’s been scheming with Cletus. The old man has made good on his promise to keep him informed of all things Carly. And if the old man is right, she’s suffering as much as he is. Oh, she keeps her head high. She knows how to play this quiet game too, to the point that it almost drives him mad. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t speak to him, doesn’t grace him with a secret smile when nobody could possibly be looking. One time she ran into him in the hallway and while he was tempted to let the contact linger, she pulled away as if she’d been struck by lightning.
But Cletus says she listens in when she thinks he’s on the phone with Arden. That any mention of his name sends her into a disturbed, fidgeting silence, one that she doesn’t recover from for sometimes hours later. That she turns on the radio to the local station that covers the football game every Friday night before she goes to her shift at the Breeze.
So together, Cletus and Arden have hatched a plain and simple strategy. When Carly’s parents arrive, they’ll just have to become legal. Period. Take all the steps, classes, swears and oaths and what have you. Cletus will help them file all the paperwork to become US citizens—he was the county sheriff back in the day, after all, with his own connections. That way, the mighty Sheriff Moss will have no sway with them. Nothing to hang over Carly’s head. Her family will be legal, and Carly and Arden can finally be together again.
Cletus gets regular updates from Carly on their progress to the States. Just last night, Carly told him her family had started on their journey the day before. They are already on their way.
The plan is already in motion.
The revered Sheriff Moss is already undermined.
Right? How hard could it be to get them legal?
It’s such a transparent, naïve little plan, the least conniving and most uncomplicated of all his schemes, but Arden has to believe this will work. He has to believe that the universe is not so unfair as to keep them apart indefinitely. Not when staying away from her tortures him like this.
The only problem left for him to solve is how to get out of going to Amber’s memorial tonight. Today is the anniversary of her death and though Arden would normally be the first one to arrive, it’s somehow been cheapened by the sheriff’s insistence that the visitation to her grave be public. Arden doesn’t even want to go now. And he knows Amber would understand.
His thoughts are interrupted by his cell phone ringing in his gym bag on the bench. He doesn’t recognize the number displayed on the screen. “Hello?”
“Arden, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know who else to call.”
Carly. Her voice invades his senses, sending a shiver of sweet familiarity through him. But … she sounds rattled. Fear snakes through his veins. Is she hurt? Arden is aware of what his father used to threaten Carly to stay away from him; Cletus told him everything. For her to be breaking that oath with the sheriff and calling Arden right now, she’s either got some incredible woman balls, or something is very wrong. And Arden is guessing she wouldn’t be risking her family like this, woman balls or not. “Is everything okay? What’s going on?”
“It’s Uncle Cletus. I had to call an ambulance for him. He wasn’t breathing. They’re taking him to Sacred Heart on Highway Ninety-Eight. I’m following the ambulance now.”
He wasn’t breathing. Oh God. “I’ll be right there.”
* * *
&nbs
p; Arden barges through the automatic double doors to the emergency room almost before they give him room enough to do so. The waiting room is packed, but he finds Carly standing in the corner, out of everyone’s way.
He grabs her hands as soon as she’s within reach. They are cold and slightly shaking, but he revels in the feel of her touch. “Any word?” he asks. Sheer willpower keeps him from pulling her to him.
She shakes her head. “He’s been back there awhile. I think they pushed him ahead of all these people.”
Arden glances around the waiting room. A kid in a sling, a lady with a swollen eye, a man with what looks like the flu, a screaming baby. All bad off, but breathing. “I’m sure he’ll be okay,” Arden says, his voice speaking volumes to the opposite, he can tell. He can also tell that Carly’s not buying it. “He’s a tough old coot.” Tough and stubborn. But sometimes tenacity loses its battle with death. He’s seen it happen before.
“I don’t know what could have happened,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. Her hair is pulled back into a thick braid, and wisps of it frame her face. Her eyes brim with tears. “He was fine last night.”
Carly’s tears slide down her cheeks now, small rivulets of worry that disintegrate his willpower down to mere memories of good intentions. Arden stops fighting it, the need for her. He grabs her wrist and pulls her to him. She’s startled at first, and attempts to resist, drawing herself back. It’s something he’ll never forget, this subtle but pointed rejection in the emergency room of Sacred Heart Hospital. He meets her eyes then, pleading. “I need you,” he whispers. It’s not what he meant to say. He meant to say that he’s here for her, that she doesn’t have to worry alone. “I’ve needed you for so long now.”
Indecision washes over her. That, and anguish. But he can tell the moment she relinquishes her hold on the resolve that made her pull away. This is the beauty of Carly—the ability to let go when it counts. She comes to him then, rests her head against his chest. The feel of her in his arms again almost brings him to his knees. He hates his father even more for keeping this from him. “How are you holding up? Are you … are you okay?”