Blood in the Past (Blood for Blood Series) (9 page)

Lyla glowered at him.
How dare he proffer such a clichéd response.
She felt the temperature rise in her cheeks.

But CJ continued, his eyes distant like a faraway, storm-tossed sea. “I almost died once, too, you know. My parents tell me that when I was a kid, my regular babysitter had an emergency and sent over a friend to care for me in her place. The girl was in a rush, and my parents were running late for their show. Everyone forgot to tell the replacement that I had a severe peanut allergy.” Lyla gazed at him, her stare milder; he had her attention. “Well, when I got hungry that night, the babysitter fished some of my dad’s orange-looking peanut butter crackers from the top cabinet in the kitchen to tide me over until dinnertime. I was only a toddler, didn’t know what they were, and I started eating them. Immediately my mouth itched and my throat closed. I couldn’t breathe. I vaguely remember that part, that desperate feeling of fighting for air, helplessly knowing your body is failing you. I knew where my mother kept my EpiPen and tried to lead the babysitter to the bathroom, but she just ran around, panicked. She called 911, and I lost consciousness right as the paramedics arrived. It was one of the rare occasions where an emergency tracheotomy was necessary.” He rolled his eyes, presumably at his shitty luck. “I woke up in the hospital with a hole in my neck.”

“Wow,” Lyla said, engrossed. CJ tugged at his shirt collar, revealing the scar on his throat. She touched the irregular splotch of stretched skin in the center of his collar bone, surprised she’d never noticed it.

“Yeah, but the moral of the story, Lye-dye, is my parents forgave my regular babysitter and her friend. And so did I. Because things happen. Mistakes happen. Even the almighty doctors at West Philly Gen are human. Do you think you’re the first person to almost kill a patient? If you were, malpractice lawyers might have to collect unemployment.”

Lyla chuckled. She already felt better, and soon the conversation lightened to the normal hospital staff gossip. Then he asked about Anthony, the same question he always asked. “So, how’s Anthony...doing?” Each time, he asked it the same way, with a lingering pause after her boyfriend’s name. Lyla knew he hoped she would reveal they’d broken up.

“He’s fine. Concerned for me.”

“As he should be.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kinda drowning in his concern, choking on it even. And now he’s blabbering on about marriage, and I just can’t think about that. I don’t even think I want to get married after what happened to my mom.”

Lyla felt dark with melancholy again. But CJ delivered, as he always did. He calmed her with his humble stuttering and general boy-next-door affability. CJ knew how to appeal to her competitive side, the side of her that always had something to prove.

“Don’t you want to be better than your folks?” he asked. “Don’t you want to be different? Any normal person would swear off marriage, but a strong person would overcome those fears. Fall in love. Have the picture-perfect life that they deserved, that
you
deserve.”

CJ placed a hand on Lyla’s knee. His eyes were wide as they sat together in the grass, cheesesteaks neglected and cooling. She stared into his eyes. They pleaded with her, as though if she listened close enough, she’d hear him follow up with, “the life that
we
deserve.” She knew that’s what her friend really meant.

“You’re right, I know you’re right,” Lyla finally conceded. “I guess only time will tell.”

Lyla playfully fondled his thin, dirty-blond hair, ignoring the glimmer in his eyes. But with each passing breath, he drew nearer and she hoped he intended only to share body heat.

***

Night fell and CJ insisted on escorting Lyla home, even though it required two trains and a bus. They spent the end of the journey on a double-bus: two regular-sized buses joined in the center by a section resembling an accordion. Lyla jumped at the chance to drag CJ to the seats in the swiveling center, giggling as though they were riding a carnival Tilt-a-Whirl. With every rolling shift, her troubles felt further away. No dead parents. No near-fatal mistake in the operating room. No apprehensions about life or marriage for a solid thirty minutes.

When the bus screeched to a standstill at their stop, Lyla and CJ spilled out from the rear doors, dizzy from their trip and drunk from laughter. They tumbled along the sidewalk for several blocks, their arms intertwined like a pretzel. The headlights of passing cars streaked their faces and lit their way.

What little survived of Lyla’s home lay a block ahead on their right, just peeking into view. The house had been reduced to a pile of blackened rubble with charred beams jutting about in every direction—an enormous, sooty bird’s nest. As they approached the scorched and shriveled remains, a thin gasp escaped CJ’s lips. Lyla knew he had tried to restrain it and failed.

“That’s right, you haven’t seen it since the fire,” Lyla said softly.

“No. Lyla, I’m so sorry.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it as they drew closer.

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s been tough, don’t get me wrong, but I think I made the right decision to stay at my neighbors’ house while they’re in Florida. They’ve been really generous, and it allows me to stay close to things.”
This way I can keep tabs on the investigation.

“Yeah, it was lucky for you they were heading down for the winter right when you needed a place to crash.”

She stared at him until he realized his gaffe: Lyla was in no way lucky. He lowered his eyes and squeezed her hand again, an apology she accepted.

“So, the insurance is covering everything?” CJ asked awkwardly, stumbling to change the subject.

“Yeah, the insurance plus both life-insurance policies. I’m sure I could have bought a house and lived off the rest for quite a while, but it was more important for me to rebuild
this
house. I’m told the fire investigation could take several more months though.”

“Yikes.”

They both came to a dead stop, not at the full sight of the burnt-down home—they had managed not to gawk as they passed it in silence—but at the neighbor’s house. The back porch, and most of the yard, glowed. They were illuminated by candles, string lights, and white paper bag luminaries—brilliant, twinkling white stars, brought down from the Cosmos to the Earth.

It was so beautiful, Lyla felt herself crying in a way she hadn’t in a long time: tears of joy. Despite the blur of her moist eyes, she saw Anthony kneeling in the center of it all. Tall, broad shoulders without being stocky. Same dark hair as Lyla. The green in his eyes sparkled almost as brightly as the decor. He caught Lyla’s gaze. The shadows sculpted both of their faces, making them appear like a matching pair of figurines atop their own wedding cake.

Anthony, either oblivious or apathetic to CJ’s presence, shouted, “Lyla Kyle, will you marry me?” He beamed almost as brightly as the yard. Almost as brightly as the diamond in his hand.

Lyla shook her head slowly in disbelief. But disbelief soon turned to freedom. With each subtle, side-to-side movement, her mind broke free of the shackles of the past few days. It broke free from the grief, the uncertainty, and the death. She chose love and a leap of faith. She chose life.

Lyla ran to him, her long legs eating up the distance in a handful of strides. With her fears abated by her talk with CJ, she fell to her knees in front of Anthony with tears streaming down her cheeks. She grasped his face and kissed him. Hard. Heavily. When she pulled back, her voice cracked as she said, “I choose you.” Lyla breathed in a gulp of crisp air, as though she could inhale the twinkling lights and capture them within her heart. “I choose a life with you, Anthony.”

“Is that a yes?”

Without waiting for confirmation, perhaps not needing it, Anthony put the ring on Lyla’s trembling left hand and they embraced. He kissed her neck, and the tickling sensation that followed left them falling to the ground, rolling around in laughter and tears. Their joy rang louder still when they bumped into a luminary, almost setting a fire in their excitement.

Neither noticed as CJ sank back into the shadows, beyond the glowing lights and joy, to wait for the bus that would bring him back to the other side of Philadelphia.

LYLA WAITED.
Only a few months had passed since their courthouse wedding, but Lyla had already noticed the signs. The showers as soon as he came home from yet another late night. The new clothes that went straight to the dry-cleaner; Lyla could easily speculate what they were stained with. She wondered if her mother had seen the signs, too. Had she ignored them or just been naive, blind to their true effect on her? Lyla imagined the little white lies as tiny cracks in a snowy hillside growing into larger, more transparent lies that could bury a whole town in a tumbling avalanche of dishonesty. That town had once been Lyla’s mother, and now it was Lyla.

That day, the phone rang. She answered it. Her first hang-up phone call. So she waited, eerily calm. She waited for Anthony to come home and wave to her absentmindedly before bypassing her to go upstairs, which had become their frigid ritual. She sipped her chai tea and waited for him to take a shower and return downstairs. In the center seat of their sofa, arms outstretched across the back, legs crossed at the ankles, feet resting on the glass coffee table with the jagged driftwood base, Lyla waited.

Anthony lightly jogged downstairs. His wet hair dampened his shirt collar. He was still fumbling with the buttons as he entered the room, his glistening chest disappearing inch by inch. He was handsome. Just like her father. In more ways than one.

“Did you get her scent off?” Lyla asked calmly. She knew it came across as far more frightening than shouting. Anthony’s mouth opened, caught in amazement and wonder. She put a finger to her chin, mocking thoughtfulness, before she added, “I think I still smell her. Maybe you should try more cologne.”

“You smell my secretary?” he said with a laugh that sounded forced. Anthony rounded the love seat to sit across from her. She imagined his mind squirming. His eyes betrayed him. “I told Edna not to hug me. I’m not that great of a boss.”

“Please don’t try to diffuse the situation with a joke. I know what you’re doing.” Lyla removed her feet from the coffee table, planted them on the floor, and pressed forward like a predator closing in on its prey. In a hushed tone, she said, “Besides, your secretary called out sick today. And
you
never returned to the office after you left for lunch. You forget, I have your law firm on speed dial, my love.”

Anthony didn’t speak. He rose from the love seat and strolled around it, placing a barrier between himself and his accuser, as liars often did. Lyla still smiled sweetly when he faced her. His body stiffened, rigid arms hanging at his sides. “I had errands to run.”

“So her name is ‘Erin?’” Lyla said with a sly smile, trying not to enjoy herself.

“No, her name is not ‘Erin.’ She doesn’t have a name. There is no
her
, there is no
she
. God, Lyla, you’re so paranoid! Paranoid about us becoming your parents. You should really see someone or something.”

Lyla could not count how many times her husband rolled his eyes in an effort to avoid her glare. She chuckled. A laugh of pity, most definitely. She was trying to decide whether she pitied herself or Anthony when his cell phone rang. Lyla lunged for the vibrating phone on the coffee table. Her delicate, red bone china teacup tilted on its saucer and spilled cooled chai onto the cream-colored carpet. Though they scratched at each other’s hands, Lyla managed to grab the phone first and answer it.

Lyla kept her husband at bay with her free arm extended, blocking him as he swung wildly to snatch the phone from her. She heard a high-pitched, yet sultry voice echo “Hello” several times before hanging up. Lyla imagined the phone call her mother had received the night before her death while her father sat smugly at the dinner table. Just like Anthony stood smugly before her now.

Lyla opened her mouth to say something, but her rage took the form of momentum—strength and power, not words—and she shoved her husband with all her might. Caught off guard, Anthony’s eyes widened, and he lost his balance. He teetered and fell backward onto the coffee table.

Lyla watched her husband’s descent for what felt like an entire minute, as if he fell from a much higher distance, as if each body part was in its own separate free fall. She held his gaze, feeding on the fear and horror in his pupils. Glass exploded around them and still Lyla stared him down. The branches of the driftwood base impaled him. Shooting toward Lyla through Anthony’s torso, they reached for her, raised in genuflection.

Anthony lay there, pinned like an insect on display, as he tried to wriggle free, flailing his arms and legs. Blood erupted from his mouth and nose, rolled down his face, pooled in the crook of his neck, and seeped steadily into his shirt. Lyla wanted to stomp on his chest. Fury smoldered within her, itching to drive the wooden stakes of revenge deeper into his cheating heart.

Lyla was shocked by those feelings at first, but she soon found herself basking in the blazing empowerment that grew within her. Its warmth spread from her gut out to her limbs and into the tips of her fingers and toes. Just like the night she lit the fire that burned down her childhood home. Lyla understood: That fire would stay with her forever. Death truly was her story.

Lyla poured herself a glass of Bordeaux. She sipped it, wishing she could watch Anthony rot. Instead, she called the police after summoning fraudulent tears, another similarity to the night of the house fire. As she recited her address to the operator between sniffles, Lyla couldn’t help but wonder if some people lived their whole lives without ever calling 911. Then she found herself amused by the fact that two of the three times she had done so was the result of her own doing.

Lyla toasted her husband’s blood-drained body with a soft chuckle and gulped down the last of her wine.