“I’m so fucking sorry, Ed,” Blaine says through tears in the backseat. “For doubting you or your sanity for one fucking second.”
Matt pulls to the side of the road about two miles from the stand and envelops me into his arms. He says fiercely into my hair, “No apology will ever make up for what I put you through when I doubted your brother was real. I can promise you that anyone that I find out contributed to what you both went through is going to pay. I’m going to make them pay, baby.” I shake as I sob in his arms and Blaine wraps his arms around us both. Ducking his head down into my hair.
The drive past Clive’s trailer is tense. I see the shell of the abandoned trailer and overgrown grass surrounding it and my stomach flips. I ask Matt not to stop. He steps on the gas and on the trip back into town when we turn around, he takes an unpaved out of the way road to avoid me having to see it again.
“I’m embarrassed that you both had to see that.” Anguish over the way my life started pours through me. “That’s where I come from.” My shoulders drop and I look out at a group of kids playing baseball at the ballpark diamond on the edge of town. Even in somewhat raggedy clothing, I know that Embry and I often looked worse. Wearing the same falling apart clothing for days.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Ed. Not a damn thing. None of this matters.” Blaine squeezes my shoulder.
“No one has any choice over who they’re born to or how they grow up. You know that, Eden,” Matt admonishes as he captures my hand in his. “It’s the luck of the draw.” Both of them got lucky and I didn’t. At all. It eases a little anxiety to realize that what they’re saying they mean completely. Still my anxiety over this day still has my chest tight and my mind a flurry of dread. My childhood memories have always been a catalyst for depressed thoughts and feelings. If there’s a hell, I hope that’s where my mother is.
We stop for ice cream at a Mr. Twisty Cone in the next town over. “What do you remember about Willa Peterson, the school counselor at your elementary school?” Matt leans forward and licks the dripping ice cream off my cone. That tongue… Jesus, that tongue is arousal at its finest. Why is he asking abouther?
“She was nice. I stopped telling her anything because she never helped.” I shrug and wink back at Matt while licking up the side of the chocolate cone He groans and adjusts his shorts. Blaine snickers.
“Makes sense. She knew Embry?” He tosses the rest of his cone and wipes his hands off.
“Of course. She made a couple of visits to the trailer. She even gave us presents sometimes. Clothes, books, toys, and things like that. I told her to stop though because mom would get angry and destroy them. Then usually beat one or both of us.” Talking about this makes me lose my appetite and I chuck the remainder of my cone, too.
“Sounds like a shit school counselor,” Blaine offers. “I want to know why she didn’t back you up about Embry.” Blaine sets his shake down and makes a face. “What kind of person does that? Makes a twelve-year-old out to be delusional?”
Matt’s cell phone rings and he looks at it confused. “It’s a local number, but I don’t recognize it. Speak of the devil probably.” He gets up to take the call outside.
“How are you feeling about all of this, today?” Blaine massages my hand. “We pushed you to do this, and I’m happy it led to you getting your brother’s picture and some proof, but…” He looks at me intensely. “Are you okay passing that trailer? Talking about all of it?”
“I never want to come back here ever again. Ever,” I say it with conviction because I mean it more than I can even say. “Home is with you guys. Just like you said before. It’s not a place. It’s people. Embry and I spent a lot of time dreaming about escaping this place. Now that I’ve gotten some time and distance from it, the fact that I don’t know where my brother is… it’s a painful hole in my heart.” I stop to get some composure. “I lost him here. It feels like a gravesite.”
Matt comes running back in. “We have to go. Right now.” He claps his hands together. I’m not sure what set his ass on fire, but he looks worked up.
“What’s the emergency?” I jab him with my elbow.
“That was about your school counselor. She killed herself last night.” My mouth drops open. “She wrote on her wall in sharpie ‘Time is Now.’ My card was pinned on the wall next to it. That was the county sheriff. Let’s go.” Matt all but pushes Blaine out the door of the Mr. Twisty Cone.
27. BLAINE
I’m going to throw up with car sickness if he takes another corner like that. “You’re going to kill us if you keep driving like a maniac.” I grab the bar meant for hanging a garment bag with one hand and wince as he disregards me and tears around another corner.
Eden isn’t talking. It might be shock. Just one more event today that will haunt her. A watermelon in the back smashes against the side of the rental SUV and I imagine there is a mess back there. I’m driving back to the hotel. Enough of this fucking shit.
Before I can start harping at him again about his fatalistic driving habits, we pull up to a split level in a quiet roundabout. Three squad cars are parked on the street and in the driveway. “Stay here… both of you please.” He leaves the SUV running but fuck that. I’m not being ordered to stay here. Both Eden and I follow, after I turn the SUV off and pocket the keys.
Matt pulls his badge out and shows the deputy at the door. He looks over his shoulder. “No. Please go back to the car.”
I shake my head and Eden’s glassy eyes survey past him into the house. I look in and see a plump, older woman in a housecleaners uniform sitting on the couch blubbering.
Matt is ushered in and we’re right on his tail. No one questions it. Maybe it’s the lack of experience of the deputies. They likely don’t see things like this often. Matt looks back at the deputy who is almost as dazed looking as Eden. “Where are her kids?” That’s when I notice pictures of two small children all over the place. Who look so much like Eden that I do a doubletake.
“Not here,” Another deputy says as he comes down the stairs. “Might be with a sitter.”
“Or… she was killed and the person responsible took the kids?” Matt says incredulously. “Mother fucking hell.” I might be rubbing off on him.
Eden pulls at my sleeve. “Look.” She points to a picture on a bookshelf in the living room area. “I know… I know that person.” She steps up to the picture but stops herself from touching it. “Why would she have a picture of herself with Sinda?”
The picture shows the follower that volunteered at the stand with her and Peterson. “Couldn’t they know each other. There aren’t many people living in this area, right?”
Matt follows the deputy back upstairs and I’m cool with not seeing that whole scene. Dead bodies? Nope. Eden looks over at the traumatized woman with the Happy House cleaner’s jumpsuit on and asks her, “Can I get you anything?” She’s always concerned about others, more than herself.
The housekeeper sniffles and says, “It’s not her normal cleaning day, and she called me to come. Said she had a friend stopping by.” She shakes her head and starts crying again. “I have a key and… oh, I wish I’d never seen that. Those poor babies of hers.”
