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is offering me a bunch of excuses. “Please help him. He’s not a criminal. He’s not using or dealing drugs. He doesn’t even remember his dad.”
“Raquel,” Mr. Cade says, his voice deep and authoritative. I flinch, almost expecting to get chewed out. Mr. Cade stands, so I do, too. He puts a hand on my shoulder, and a few seconds too late, I realize he’s in lawyer mode. He peers down at me, the fine lines etched around his lips from years of working around the clock. “You should let this go. A kid like him probably can’t be helped, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.”
The words sting worse than they should, because I know they’re all untrue. Maybe he’s still bitter from losing his daughter, and that’s why he’s refusing to help me. I don’t know what’s changed, what’s happened to the Mr. Cade I’ve known most of my life. But after seeing Sasha’s last video, I guess it’s officially true: the man before me isn’t who I thought he was.
Chapter Thirty
Jarrah places a slice of coffee cake in front of me. It’s still warm from the oven, and the smell should make my mouth water. On any other day, I’d be shoveling the whole thing into my mouth, but today, I can’t stop staring at the pathetically small pile of cash on the Thanksgiving tablecloth.
I pick up my fork and poke at the cake. “Do judges negotiate bail, by any chance?”
Mr. Reinhart stares at the money. Thirteen hundred and forty-two dollars. He’s also holding his fork midair, also not eating. I notice his missing pinky, wonder what happened to it, but I know it’s not the time to ask. This measly stack of green is all the two of us could come up with in the last five days.
“I think,” he says, reaching over and taking some bills off the stack of cash, “bail isn’t the problem here.” He slides my three hundred and forty-two dollars across the table to me. “Even if he gets out, it’d only be for a little while, until the court date. And then what happens? He gets thrown back in jail?”
“But he’s innocent.” My forehead drops to my palm, and I stare at the perfectly cut piece of coffee cake. “This can’t be how this works. Life can’t be this bad. First it takes my best friend and now it’s wrongly punishing her brother.” My other half. My first love.
My voice cracks on the last word. I am so sick of crying. So sick of hurting. “Elijah never had parents, or a home, or a sister he got to meet,” I say as the ceramic pumpkin salt and pepper shakers blur beneath my tears. “Now he won’t even have his freedom. He won’t even have a chance to live his life.”
The room goes so silent I’m not even sure the Reinharts are still in here. I close my eyes and wipe away the tears, and then Jarrah’s hand is warm on my shoulder. “I have an errand to run,” she says simply, her voice a little thick. Or maybe it’s just my imagination. She grabs the stack of their money and slips out the door, leaving her coffee cake untouched.
“Well, that was weird,” Mr. Reinhart says a moment later. “Guess she wants it back in the bank where it belongs.”
“What are we going to do now?” I reach for my money and shove it in my pocket, where it makes a lump in my jeans. A shameful reminder that I’m not the right person to fix this for Elijah. I’ve let both him and Sasha down.
Mr. Reinhart takes a bite of his coffee cake. “We hope for the best.”
***
We get the week off school for Thanksgiving break, and the reprieve from homework couldn’t have come at a better time. I am worried about Elijah, missing Sasha like crazy and filled to the brim with guilt over the whole situation. But at this point, flunking out of chemistry would only be a blip in the vast galaxy of everything that is wrong.
My parents have to work until Thursday, so I spend my days at Izzy’s helping her with the rush of Thanksgiving orders. Unlike at school, where I am a catatonic zombie, I find that I can focus on my tasks here in the flower shop. It’s peaceful arranging flowers, and after all the hours I’ve spent standing at this counter, Izzy’s feels more like home than anywhere else.
She takes my wrist on Tuesday morning, turning it upward while she hums along to a David Bowie song on the radio. “You are stressed about something,” she says, rubbing an essential oil onto my skin. It’s a mixture of peppermint and maybe thyme, and she applies a lot more than usual. “Maybe even ashamed. If I were a betting woman, I’d say you’re worried about Thanksgiving dinner with the Cades.”
My eyes dart to her. “How do you know this stuff?” I ask. She just shrugs and turns back toward the cash register, her skirt sweeping along the floor, taking fallen petals with it.
Though my head is swimming with worries, I could definitely tack down Thanksgiving dinner as one of my bigger concerns. I haven’t talked to the Cades since they all but threw me out of their house last week. Then Saturday morning, Sasha’s mom called my mom and invited us all over for the holiday. Mom happily accepted — having no idea what had happened — and I’ve been weird about it ever since.
I haven’t told my parents about Elijah, and I’m guessing the Cades won’t bring him up. If I know them as well as I think I do, we will probably all enjoy a large and delicious meal without any mention of things that are awkward. But how can I ever look at them the same way again? These are the people who would have happily given their own lives to save Sasha, yet they couldn’t be bothered to consider helping her brother. Not once, but twice, they had the chance to save him. And both times, they walked away.
When I get home from work and find Mr. Cade’s SUV in our driveway, I can only guess he’s here to talk about Thanksgiving dinner. Too bad that nagging feeling in my gut, the sensation a luckier person might call intuition, is telling me otherwise.
Mom and Dad are sitting with Mr. Cade at our kitchen table. On the counter, the coffee maker is gurgling and spewing out a fresh pot of my mom’s go-to drink for company.
All eyes turn to me. Mr. Cade is dressed for work in a suit that probably cost as much as my car. He looks so out of place at our dinky kitchen table, his hands clasped together over our plastic tablecloth. Any other time he’s come to my house, it’s been for fun things like dinner parties or dropping off Sasha for a sleepover. Now, though, seeing him here is all wrong.
My purse is slung over my shoulder and I hold on to the strap like it’s a security blanket. There’s a vibe in this room and it’s not that of a friendly chat.
“There she is,” Mom says, her cheeks rosy from her heavy-handed makeup application. “Walter came to talk to you.”
“Okay,” I say, my heartbeat ratcheting up to unsafe levels. “Is it about …?”
“I was hoping to speak in private,” Mr. Cade says. “If it’s okay with your parents, of course.”
“Not a problem at all.” Mom doesn’t even look at me as she puts her hand on Dad’s arm. “We’ll go outside and get some fresh air.” Funny how they still think Mr. Cade is this wonderful man with upstanding morals. They’re not even questioning why he’d be here to see me.
When they’re gone, I pull out a chair and sit across from Sasha’s dad, somehow feeling like I’m in trouble for something, even though I’m not the one who abandoned Elijah. Mr. Cade takes off his glasses and sets them on the table. He pinches the bridge of his nose, an action that only takes a couple of seconds but feels like an eternity.
