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“Merry Christmas,” we chorus, Evie’s face delighted. She loves to say Merry Christmas. Miss Lily excuses herself and heads to the register to pay, and when Evie finishes her last chicken strip, we also head home.
“I’m so relieved you felt good enough to eat your whole lunch,” I tell her as we walk.
“Me too. But I’m tired now. Can I take a nap?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I tell her. “I think that would be very smart of you.”
“Me too,” she says, yawning. “And that way, you’ll have plenty of time to talk to Henry and fix everything.”
And my jaw drops as she skips ahead, not looking tired at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Henry
Ireadthetextagain.
PAIGE:Can I come talk to you and tell you a sad, sad story I never tell anyone?
It’s not normally the kind of invitation I receive. Not that I receive many invitations at all. But if I did, this one would distinguish itself. I don’t know what it says about me that hearing a “sad, sad story” is irresistible, but so it is.
Paige and I have taken far too sharp of a turn from the path toward friendship to fix that, but it will at least give me a chance to apologize for signing the petition. I text her to come over.
A few minutes later, she knocks, and I open the door to let her in. She walks past me, that familiar smell of vanilla wafting up, and I resist the urge to reach up and touch her hair. Why? Why would that be my impulse, given that I haven’t spent even a second running my fingers through it?Pull it together, Henry.
“How are you?” she asks, stopping and turning.
“Fine.” I wave her to the sofa and take an armchair. Last time we were both on that sofa, it didn’t go well.
She sits. “How do I start a conversation where I puke up my emotional guts? Is there some sort of preface to that?”
“Your text was, I suppose.”
“I suppose,” she repeats with a small huff that’s almost a laugh. “Here we go then. First, I’m sorry I laughed when you told me about your grandmother. It’s not funny. Nothing about it is funny. But ever since I finished my degree, I keep having these laughing fits, and they stress me out. I’m sorry you lost her. It’s really sad, and I understand why Christmas is hard for you.”
I nod. She sounds utterly sincere. “I appreciate that.”
“But there’s more,” she says.
“The sad, sad story?”
She gets up and runs her fingers through her hair, dropping them and leaving it a mess. Again, I feel a strong desire to reach out and touch it, to perhaps smooth it.
“In the spring of my senior year, my parents died in a car accident. It was awful. Our family was already small, just the four of us. And just like that, we were half as many. I went through the end of the school year in a state of shock, doing things on autopilot. That worked for me. I was a good student, and I could regurgitate what I needed to for tests. My grades stayed up, I graduated, and it was that final day when it hit me. When I looked out and only my brother was there. No parents.”
I can’t even imagine. I may not have the most expressive parents, but I would miss them fiercely if I were to suddenly lose them.
“I got into UVA.” She flicks a glance at me to see if I’m impressed.
“You must have been a very good student.”
She nods. “My parents’ life insurance money came about a week after graduation. A hundred thousand dollars. It should have been enough to pay for me all the way through school, but the idea made me angry. That what would make it easy for me where Noah had struggled was blood money. I didn’t want it. I wanted my parents. And when Noah handed me the check from the insurance company, it unlocked all the feelings I hadn’t been processing after their deaths.”
She returns to the sofa but settles on the edge and hugs one of the throw pillows against her chest, quiet for a minute. I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk or ask something here, but I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
Eventually, she starts speaking again.
“From the second I had that check in my hand, all I felt was anger. That doesn’t even feel like a strong enough word. Rage.Rage.” She squeezes the pillow then flings it aside. “I would be terrified to even feel a fraction of that again. It took over, and suddenly Granger was too small to hold it. The house was too small. The town. The state of Virginia.
