“Probably because you spent the whole day napping.” She says the words matter of fact, and then stabs her fork into the frozen lasagna I found in the freezer. “You never used to nap like that.”
My stomach sinks, the kindness of my mother instantly drowned with a guilt trip. “I drove twenty-four hours straight to get here,” I reason, scraping my fork against the plate on accident. I wince at the way it sends a chill down my spine and reminds me of the strange knocking noise I’d heard earlier this morning.
Probably just an animal.
“I still need to get someone to fix the hole,” Mom changes the subject. “That’s how I hurt myself, you know. I had to fix that damned hole from the water damage on the second story. If Mr. Wilson would’ve just fixed the leaking tub when I asked him to,the floor wouldn’t have fallen apart—and I wouldn’t have broken my ankle and wrist.”
My stomach lurches, and I set my fork down. “Didn’t Mr. Wilson die?”
My mother rolls her eyes. “Yes, but the ceiling started crumbling well before that.” She pauses for a moment to chew before continuing. “Now Martha lives alone in that little house. I don’t know why she didn’t just move to town.”
I could say the same about you.I glance back to the window holding my breath as Bullet squirms, his little body bouncing and then freezing in rapid succession.Maybe he’s just losing it.
“That place of Martha’s has really fallen apart since the Anders moved,” Mom hums, taking a sip of water with her uninjured arm. “I always liked them.”
My brow furrows. “You mean Noah’s parents?”
Mom stills, holding my gaze for an extra beat too long before clearing her throat. “Yeah,Noah’sparents. His father really kept the place looking tidy.”
“His father also beat him,” I say flatly, my chest tightening as my memory conjures up the long-lost past—one that’s buried beneath the trauma that came after. “I wonder what happened to them.”
“No clue,” Mom looks down at her plate. “They all moved away after that horrible divorce.Noahwas only thirteen.”
“Hmm.” I ignore the weird way she draws out his name, like it pains her to even say it. She never liked him, anyway.But Dad did.
And that has my stomach knotting up in grief.
My dad never made it past the summer after everything happened, his heart giving out one afternoon while hiking. It’s my fault. My secret was too much for him to carry.
“I think I’m going to go for a walk,” I say, suddenly desperate to get some air. “Bullet looks antsy.” I shove back from the table, the chair squealing against the dull hardwood floors.
“Um,” Mom raises her thick, gray eyebrows. “I think there’s dinner to be cleaned up first. Let’s not forget why you came home. To help. Not to go for walks in the woods.”
I slowly rise to my feet, swallowing my response. “Right. I’ll do that first then.” I take a deep breath and grab my plate and then hers. I dump the entirety of mine into the trash and set the empty plates into the sink.
“Nancy asked about you at church.” Mom’s words have my hand pausing as I turn on the water. “Everyone asks about you—even more so than Eliza.”
“Hmm.” I nod without looking at her. I don’t want to think about Nancy Zendetti, Matthew’s mother. I can still hear her excruciatingly pained cries at the funeral.
And all it does is remind me of the thief of a son she raised.
I reach for the scrub pad and start washing dishes, digging into the ceramic as my mind races. Everyone forgets how shitty people are once they get murdered. Every fucking obituary, documentary—whatever the media—claims whoever died lit up every goddamn room they walked into.
Well, you know what?
Matthew neveroncelit up a room.
He was a conniving, backstabbing thief, who thought he owned me.
The plate cracks in my hand and splits in two, each piece crashing against the metal sink and slicing my skin. Red liquid squirts from a fresh cut across my palm. I shake my head as I hold it under the warm water, my eyes tearing up at the sting…
And the way the blood runs parallel with my worst scar.
My mother lets out a grunt and then a heavy sigh. I squeeze my eyes shut just long enough to convince myself not to launch afragment of the broken plate at her head. I conjure up the image in my brain for a moment, and then mentally banist it from the realm of possibilities. Instead, I scoop up the plates—including the nonbroken one—and toss them both into the trash.
Mom says nothing as I rinse out the sink and put the leftover lasagna away in the fridge, which hasn’t been cleaned in a good few years.
I wonder if cleaning the fridge was part of Mr. Wilson’s job, too.
