The weeks tumbled forward.
Flowers bloomed in our garden that I didn’t even know Miles had planted or tended to. Though it shouldn’t have surprised me he would, being that was his job and all.
I was pulling sheets off the line, cursing beneath my breath as clothespins fell to the grass and I tried to carry my load without a basket, when the faint sound of talking echoed from the garage behind me.
Curious, I moved to the door attached to the back, adjusting my hold on the now rumpled bed linens to turn the handle. What I heard next had my hand stilling.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Silence, then, “I can’t.” A pause. “No, I know what I promised, but you’re asking the impossible of me right now, Shell.”
Shell? Who the hell was Shell? Shell as in Shelley?
With my eyes smarting and my head spinning with questions, I stayed on the small patch of grass behind the garage, unable to move even if I wanted to.
“You know that’s not true,” he continued. “But it hasn’t been that simple for a while now.”
A passing car, young children playing out on the street, and birds calling to one another in the trees beyond our backyard filled the gaping silence.
“No, I can’t. You know why.” He groaned, hissing something I couldn’t quite make out, and then the seconds kept ticking until I realized whatever conversation he’d been having, obviously on the phone, had ended.
And still I couldn’t move.
Not until I heard his truck reversing out of the drive, then fading in the distance.
“Hope,” I whispered, unable to form the word over the panic weighing down my tongue.
“Jem? What’s up? Shit, hang on.” A few seconds later, I heard a door closing. “Sorry, just locked myself in the pantry. The boys are screeching at some TV show.”
A laugh sputtered from me. “The pantry?” I sniffed, swiping at my nose with the edge of my sleeve. “You couldn’t walk into another room?”
“I was thinking quick, and besides …” A rustling sound hit my ears. “I want to snack in peace.”
Peace.
I wanted that, which was precisely why I’d left the pile of rumpled sheets on our bed and dinner uncooked on the counter, then drove until I’d reached Glenning. Until I’d reached home.
But the peace I sought and had always found here hadn’t arrived yet, hence my phone call to Hope.
I’d had some friends in college, high school too, but I guess those bonds weren’t strong enough to maintain after going our separate ways. So Hope was often saddled with my problems. Though I didn’t think she cared as she often called me to vent about the boys, Jace, or sometimes just to fill the time while she folded laundry.
Our relationship now was different than it had been when we were kids, but it was better.
After our mom died, Hope seemed to grow three feet taller in every way. As though she couldn’t be a kid anymore and needed to grow up faster. It made me sad for her now. For those years she’d jumped between the role of something she wasn’t ready for to acting out as teenagers were meant to, only worse. Though, back then, I was just sad she refused to play with me.
I now knew that without her taking the role of big sister to a whole new level, I probably wouldn’t have met the world with such an unguarded heart. She’d shielded mine by sacrificing hers, and it was sickening that I’d never noticed it much until hurt—all the things she’d tried to protect me from—started slithering into my life.
“I love you,” I told her.
“Oh, my god. Are you dying?” She laughed, then stopped abruptly. “What’s wrong? Tell me. Now.” Her mom tone had come out to play.
I smiled out the grimy window of my old bedroom. “I just thought you should know. You’re strong, and selfless, and awesome, and I love you.”
She was quiet a moment, her voice rougher as she said, “Love you too, baby sis.”
We sat in silence as memories infiltrated, and I knew she understood why I was suddenly being so affectionate when she said, “I have no regrets, Jem. None. Even if Mom hadn’t died, I’ve always been headstrong. I’ve always craved to be in charge and to have independence.”
I knew that, and it made me feel marginally better.
After a few minutes of her regaling me with a description of the mess the boys had made at dinner and how Jace was going to have to clean it because she was declaring herself off duty for the day, she got back to the matter at hand.
“Speak. Tell me what’s going on.” She paused as it sunk in. “God, is it Miles? After your phone call the other week, I’ve done some thinking, and I think I should meet this shithead.”
I laughed. “There might not be a reason for that soon enough.” It killed me to say it, but something was going on, and after the phone call I’d overheard … well, it only made my suspicions morph into something real. I could feel it crawling closer when he was near. Taste it when he kissed me. And hear no other sound whenever his phone rang.
“Shit, Jem,” Hope whispered, followed by the sound of crunching as she snacked on something.
“Has Jace ever cheated on you?”
She coughed and cursed, then croaked out, “Warn me before you ask stuff like that. Holy mother of hairy, I almost died.” She’d never outgrown her dramatic tendencies, so I waited until she finally breathed normally again. “Okay, let’s back up a bit.”
I told her about the phone, the woman at the school’s fundraiser, and how comfortable she seemed with Miles, how Tracey had said she didn’t know her, and finally, about the phone call that afternoon.
“It could be because they dated, like she said,” Hope chimed in after a long stretch of quiet.
I twirled a tassel on the blanket beside me. “Could be, I guess.” I sighed, returning my gaze out the window to the greenery that sat on the edge of our land. “Do you think I’m overthinking it?”
“You’re not one to overthink.” Hope snorted. “No offense, but you’re kind of oblivious to most things in the real world.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. She was right, though; no matter how much the truth made me frown with indignation.
“But,” she said on an exhale, “the sheer fact that you are usually oblivious means there could be something. I mean, I’m not saying there is or isn’t, but your gut is telling you to listen.”
“So,” I mused, “I suppose all I can do is keep listening.” I stood, pacing the round blue woven rug as my free hand dug into my hair. “That doesn’t help.”
Hope cursed. “I’ve been discovered.” The sound of my nephews’ laughter as they no doubt opened the pantry to find their mother made me smile. “I know it doesn’t,” she said quickly, “but that’s all you have for now. Rely on it, but don’t freak out until you have to. You don’t wanna drive a wedge between you guys for no reason.”
All true.
I tugged at my bottom lip as the boys screeched, and then one of them started crying. “You go, but thank you. I’ll talk to you later.”
“’Kay, make sure you keep me updated.”
The line went dead, and I dropped my phone to the bed, eyes drifting over my bedroom.
A photo on my dresser caught my eye, tugging at my heart and feet until I stepped closer and picked it up.
Hope and I both looked like her with our dark brown hair and dark eyes. But whereas Hope had gotten Dad’s button nose, I’d inherited the strong bridge of Mom’s, one that stood proudly on my face. Such a thing would normally irk most girls, but I’d gotten a piece of her, and for that fact, I could only love it. Love what I saw every time I looked in the mirror. Not in a vain way; though I wasn’t insecure or self-deprecating, I knew I wasn’t bad to look at. No, it warmed my heart even as it squeezed it to see some of her staring back at me whenever I saw my reflection.
“What would you do?” I wondered aloud to the picture of a woman with long brown hair and a glowing smile that she directed to the two girls on her lap. “I’m so fucking confused.”
The picture stayed still. The perfect moment captured in time and sealed behind a wall of finger smudged glass was both unhelpful and soothing.
I placed it down, sighing as I went back to my perch by the window.
My phone chirped with a new text from Miles. He was probably asking where I was. I’d answer him. And I’d go home.
I looked at the woods.
Just not yet.
I arrived home in the dark.
No lights were on except for a lamp in the living room. The uncooked food no longer sat on the countertop.
My tongue wrapped around excuses for my whereabouts the whole drive home, yet even as I thought to hell with it, I’d just ask who he was talking to, I realized it wouldn’t be that simple.
Miles was asleep, his muscular limbs sprawled over our duvet as if he hadn’t meant to pass out, the moon highlighting the dips and valleys of his broad back. His snoring was the soundtrack I needed to brush off the events of the day and get undressed.
I’d shower in the morning, not wanting to risk waking Miles after I’d been given an out.
But as I laid next to him, not touching and staring out the same uncovered window to the night sky beyond, I couldn’t sleep.
I’d been given an out, but I didn’t need one.
He did, and I’d unknowingly handed it to him.