Page 54 of Passion in Bloom

“Um, yeah.” She smiled, too brightly for me to be convinced it was genuine. I hated to be this suspicious of her and think so poorly of her and what she was up to. I didn’t want to assume the worst of her. She was family. Yet, she had a pattern of acting shady.

“Nevaeh,” I said, trying to sound patient. “A half hour ago you looked like you were going to keel over and puke. Again. Where are you rushing off to now?”

She flicked her hand at me dismissively, walking toward her bike. “Oh, I feel fine.”

“You looked miserable before I went to shower,” Heather said.

“Nah. I wasn’t miserable. It was just something I ate that didn’t sit well with me.”

I hated this prickling sensation of skepticism. Something wasn’t adding up with her. Many things weren’t adding up with her. In all the times she’d waltzed in and out of my life, nothing added up. While I wasn’t so old-fashioned to count on her to have a “normal” life with the standard pieces like a job, income, and residence, her flakiness and lack of answers left a lot to wonder about. “Where are you going?” I asked again.

“Just out and about. I’m taking care of myself just fine, Uncie.”

There it was. That singsong nickname she only ever used when she was being sarcastic.

How was I supposed to be convinced that she was taking care of herself when she seldom looked well, when she came and went without rhyme or reason? It didn’t help when stole from me and broke int my place either.

“I feel fine.” Proving what she claimed, she got onto the bike with ease and started pedaling without difficulty.

Heather and I remained right where we were. Like stupefied sentinels. We stood at the front door, watching her until her blue and green streaked hair was gone.

Every other day, she seemed to have the means and funds to dye it.

How?

Where?

I’d never once found any hair coloring products at the cabin.

“What gives?” I asked. That seemed like the bluntest way to ask what was on my mind.

Heather shrugged, gesturing for me to come inside. “Your lips are blue. Go shower and warm up.”

“But what made her feel better like that?” I asked, glad to warm up in the shower.

“I have no clue. I’m just as confused as you are.”

I walked toward her bathroom, and she continued to talk while she tidied up in the kitchenette. All the while, she relayed what happened since Todd dropped her and Nevaeh off here. Her cabin was half the size of mine, only a studio with the bathroom attached, but it was such a small space that we could talk with the bathroom door open.

She shared how Nevaeh wouldn’t really tell her anything. She even went so far as to say that she felt like she needed someone to worry about her. That could’ve been an insult for me, with her implying that I, Nevaeh’s uncle, didn’t care. Of course, I did. She was family. But I’d learned the hard way that I had to provide help in a way that didn’t train her to lean on me and be enabled either.

As I stood under the hot water, warming up from being soaked and in the cold, I interpreted Heather’s comments another way. That she thought Nevaeh had no one because she herself had experienced that—having no one and no support.

I hated that thought. I disliked the idea of anyone not providing for Heather, who would like have been strongly independent her whole life and not a mooch or thief like my niece.

It was too telling that Heather could insist on no help over and over, as though she perceived letting anyone close enough to help as a weakness or flaw. A mistake.

By the time I finished showering, I tried to put aside my worries and concerns—and my confusion—about Nevaeh. I had more immediate problems of my own to solve. If I wanted to be able to offer my niece food or shelter when she deemed it necessary, I wouldn’t even be able to. Sure, I could go to that other cabin. Staying here with Heather had to be a temporary, quickly-thought-of solution.

But I had to wrap my head around the idea of looking for another place to live.

That was how I found myself a half hour later. In bed with Heather, both of us clothed and pressed together to stay warm.

I’d started a search for properties, and that led to her telling me about how shady Jerry was about that apartment she was supposed to rent from him.

“He never bothered you about that, did he?” I asked.

“No. He knew he couldn’t expect me to pay for anything. That’s how Jerry is. All bluster and wanting someone else to make life easier. Unfortunately, he’s not the one in Burton who’s ever been like that.”