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I’m a failure.
The cuckoo clock on the wall next to me ticks loudly in the small space, lecturing me like a cross grandparent. Reprimanding me for a crime I didn’t commit.
The last time I was here, the smell of fresh-baked cookies filled the air. This time, it’s the burnt stench of the Wakefields’ disappointment—the wince on Tuuli’s face when she let me into the house—that weighs me down.
To the left of the clock, a large painting of maple trees and a bubbling stream hangs. The tree where Aiden carved the name of the girl he was crushing on in high school is beyond the maples captured on canvas. To this day, I have no idea if Tuuli or Robert ever stumbled across the rough letters.
Aiden and I spent our childhood on that land, camping and climbing and becoming men.
My gut clenches, tightening into a fist-sized boulder wrapped in regret and anger and shame and guilt. Whoever is responsible for the narcotics being in my house, for setting me up, had a reason. A vendetta. A desire to get me out of the way. A need to destroy me.
A way for me to let down those I care about.
Again.
Tuuli parks a coffee mug in front of me, and she and Robert take their seats on the other side of the table. She wraps her paint-stained fingers around her own mug, green and blue freckling her pale skin.
“Can you tell your mom that I’ll be bringing my raspberry sponge cake to next week’s book club meeting?” Tuuli asks, her Finnish accent faded from living in the U.S for the past forty years. She and Mom are the founding members of their book club, which has been going on since before I was born.
“Will do. I don’t suppose you’ll save me a slice?” I flash her the grin that used to always earn me a slice of cake when I came barreling into the house after school on book club meeting days. “Your text said you wanted to talk to me.” I take a sip of coffee. My guess is they didn’t call me here to discuss the dessert for Tuuli’s book club meeting.
Robert shares an unreadable glance with his wife.
She smiles kindly at me, and removes the silk scarf that pulls her gray hair away from her face. “Before we get to that, we were wondering if you’ve heard anything new about Rose. I can’t believe anyone would hit that sweet woman with their car and not even stick around to make sure she was all right.”
My stomach bottoms out at Tuuli’s news, and dread-filled shock hitches my voice. “Rose was involved in a hit-and-run? When? Is she okay?”
And how come no one has mentioned this to me until now? Not even Mom. Or my friend Samuel, who’s an ER doc at Maple Ridge hospital.
Another emotion flashes hot inside me. Not because no one told me, but because someone hit Rose. Aiden’s grandmother.
A woman who is like a grandmother to me.
“It happened yesterday morning. We only know that she didn’t require surgery and doesn’t have any broken bones. With rest, she’ll make a full recovery.”
Thank Christ for that.
“And rumor has it, Simone will be returning to take care of Rose. It will be wonderful to see her again. I can’t remember the last time she was in Maple Ridge. I know her grandmother has missed her immensely.”
An image of Simone flickers in my head, one I replayed plenty of times while deployed. She was wearing a pale-yellow sundress, like a ray of sunshine, her dark, reddish-brown hair tied in two loose braids. And she was standing ankle-deep in Tuuli and Robert’s stream, like a water nymph, smiling shyly at me.
The memory is from right before I made love to her on the bank.
Something that Tuuli and Robert don’t know about. And will never hear about from me.
“Maybe we should get to the real reason we asked you here.” Robert throws his wife the same patient look he gives her whenever she goes off topic. “We heard you were arrested, Lucas.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Hope coats my tone like maple syrup.
“We know things are not always what they seem,” Tuuli says. “But we are concerned that you were arrested. It was one thing when we looked the other way when it came to Kellan’s time in prison. He’s worked hard to overcome the negative prejudices against him. And he has done a lot with the youth in town to make sure they don’t follow his old path.”
“You’ve decided not to sell the land to us?”
Shit, I’m on a roll when it comes to letting down people who are important to me. I screwed up when my best friend was struggling with PTSD. I wasn’t there for him, and he committed suicide. I failed his sister because I hadn’t kept her brother alive.
And now I’ve failed the vets who would’ve benefited from the outdoor program, and I’ve let down my brothers. The project was important to them, too.
“We haven’t decided yet.” Robert picks up his mug. “We greatly respected your grandfather, and we know the program that you’re planning was important to him, too. But we also love Walter and Crystal’s plans for the romantic getaway.”
