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Firemen were able to put the fire out with a large extinguisher. It was mostly contained to the front of the trailer, but with the smoke damage, the trailer was ruined. Every possession that family had was gone—and I knew better than anyone that they hadn’t had much to start with. Now they had nothing. Despair filled me, for them, for all of us.
I stuck around while everyone discussed what they had to offer the family when they came back from the hospital. Cora Levin was going to take the two older children in and Cheryl Skaggs had room for the parents and little MaryJane.
Standing there listening to everyone band together made my heart fill with pride. These people, as destitute as they were, had always attempted to help their own if they knew they needed assistance of some kind. They were good people—good people who barely had a pot to piss in. And yet they were offering up anything they had to give.
“I have a little money in the bank,” I said. “I’ll go into town in the morning and buy the kids some clothes.”
There was a bevy of nods. “Thanks, Tenleigh.”
I looked over at Kyland and he was focused on me, only me. I couldn’t think about him right now. I couldn’t think about the lie he’d told me anymore. I didn’t have the strength.
I turned around and walked back to my trailer. When I was a few hundred yards away, the emotion came full force and I wanted to fall to my knees. I stumbled. The overwhelming sadness came for all the pain and hardship these people had to endure, some their entire lives. It came for the family who had just lost every single possession they owned—the ones who would struggle to replace even a few of those items. It came for the way it hurt to be back here…and the way it felt so right at the same time. I was weary, so very weary. And yet a release felt just out of reach. I’d held it back for so long, I didn’t know how to access it now.
I sat down on my front steps and put my head in my hands. No one could see me from here.
“Hey.”
My head snapped up and there was Kyland standing several feet in front of me with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Hey,” I said quietly. I was sure I looked like a complete and utter mess. But Kyland looked pretty bad too—soot on his face, his shirt torn and dirty. He looked kinda like a man who had just run into a burning trailer to save a little girl.
I scooted over on the step and tilted my head toward the space I’d just made. He looked briefly surprised by my gesture but then moved immediately toward me and sat down, our bodies close. I could feel his warmth. I remembered his warmth so well, the way it’d felt at my back in the middle of the night, the way it’d surrounded me.
I turned toward him and leaned back against the rickety handrail. “That was brave, what you did.”
“Nah. Those people, they would have done it for me too.”
“Yes,” I said. “They would have.”
He nodded, not taking his eyes from me. “All those years ago, sometimes, you know, a basket of rhubarb or a couple tins of beans or something would show up on my front porch. I still don’t know exactly who it was, but…I think, I think they probably knew I was lying about my mama still living with me. I think they were doing for me what they could. It kept me alive some months.”
I was silent for a second, absorbing his words. “The rhubarb, that was Buster,” I said quietly.
He nodded, sawing his teeth along his bottom lip in a way that left it plumped and reddened when he finally let it go. I blinked, tearing my eyes away, back up to his.
Who are you now, Kyland? I don’t know you anymore and why does that hurt me so much?
“Is that why you gave them the idea of the lavender?” I asked.
His eyes widened. “Who told you about that?”
“Buster.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I, yeah. I read about it and thought maybe I could give back. You know, to those who were interested in the idea. Really, it’s nothing.”
“Sounds like it’s working out pretty well for several families.”
Despite the nonchalant way he’d spoken of his idea, a glint of pride came into his eyes. “It is.”
“Ky?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s something. It’s a whole lot of something.”
He let out an exhale. We were quiet for a second before Kyland finally met my eyes again and said very softly, “I’m so sorry, Tenleigh.”
I stilled. “For what?”
He ran his hand through his hair and looked up at the sky. “For treating you the way I did the other day and then at Al’s.” He shook his head. “You didn’t deserve it. I just… God, Tenleigh, when you got out of here, I thought…I thought you’d finally escaped this place. To see you come back…and to see that you… Well, it made me crazy. It made me”—he let out a laugh that sounded anything but amused—“crazy.” He paused. “Crazy and mean. I’m sorry.”
