In Place of Never (4 page)

Pru refused eye contact. She’d screwed up big-time but, in her defense, it was nice having Dad home all day, even if it was to make sure she didn’t leave.

When we were excused from the table, I stuck the pizza in the refrigerator and went back to my room. I stayed there searching for information on Cross. I couldn’t find anything on the Lovells’ website indicating his full name or his part in their show. News articles and Yelps about the sideshow didn’t call anyone by name. Maybe Cross was his last name. I traced a fingertip over the number scrawled on the little sticky note. The answers I sought waited on the other side of those ten digits. All I had to do was dial.

The sudden squealing drone of power tools purred and cried downstairs. The hair on my arms stood at attention. Pru’s screams began anew.

“What the hell are you doing?” She pounded her fist against the stairwell.

I pulled to a stop on the landing above her floor. Dad stood before her with a power tool, pinching and releasing the trigger. Goggle straps wound around his thick sandy hair and gripped his forehead. He lowered the plastic glasses over narrowed eyes and turned the screwdriver to Pru’s door.

I slapped a palm over my mouth and dropped into a more comfortable position.

Pru shoved Dad’s shoulder. “Stop!” She pounded on his back, stormed into her room and back to his side. Nothing fazed him.

A few seconds later, Dad lifted his hand. A set of screws lay in his open palm. Pru screamed. Dad pocketed the screws and turned back to the door. I scrunched my nose against the dry scent of sawdust filling the air. Two handfuls of screws later, Pru landed on her knees beside Dad.

I rested my chin in my hands. Whatever the rest of the town was up to today, it didn’t compare to the action at the Porter home. We hadn’t been this loud in years. It was as if a sinkhole had swallowed our entire house. Poof! Right through the looking glass.

Pru sobbed. “I am so super amazingly sorry, Daddy. Please don’t do this.”

I rolled my eyes.
Oh boy.

Dad wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He scrubbed the cloth over the back of his neck and stuffed it into his pocket.

I hadn’t seen Dad in parent mode for so long, I’d forgotten how formidable he was when provoked. Faith had loved to provoke. Did Pru remember those days? She was only twelve when Faith died. I’d assumed she’d slept through all the hoopla when Faith broke curfew, snuck out, and got caught, or kissed her dates good night too long on the front porch. Seeing Pru in action made it hard to believe she hadn’t taken notes back then.

Dad faced the door. “Move.”

Pru scurried up the short flight of steps and collapsed at my knees. “Can you believe him?”

Kind of. Yeah.

A few creaks and groans later, paint chips popped off the hinges and speckled the hallway floor. Dad wrenched the door away from the frame and dragged it down the steps.

Pru growled and slapped the wall. “He took my effing door.”

She’d lost the battle, but the war was only beginning. She chased Dad downstairs, claiming injustice, misquoting the right to privacy act and fabricating a slew of other broken laws before pounding back up the steps to her room and slamming her closet door a hundred times.

Who knew a little premarital nudity would bring Dad back to life?

There might be hope for us yet.

* * * *

I woke several hours later with a jolt. Limbs of the old oak outside my window clattered against the glass. Wind bent younger trees over like brown-and-green candy canes in our yard.

My stomach ached and growled. I picked my way to the kitchen for a bite of cold pizza. Pru lay still in her bed. She looked peaceful for the first time all day. The door to Dad’s room was open, but he wasn’t there.

Our television flickered blue light through the first floor, illuminating a giant set of cowbells hung over the front door. A West Virginia alarm system.
Funny.
Dad’s recliner blocked the back door. He snored loudly from a fully reclined position. His fleece blanket covered one leg and draped onto the floor. His Bible rose and fell on his chest.

I rearranged the blanket over Dad’s chest and legs and pulled a small glass wedged between the cushion and arm of his chair free so it wasn’t crushed when he straightened the chair in the morning. A black cap appeared beneath the glass. Something else was crammed deeper down. I wiggled it free and stared. Blackberry brandy. Huh. I pressed both his secrets back into place and covered them with the blanket. I guess today had taken a toll on both of them.

I freed a slice of pizza from the fridge and headed back to my room. A slippery idea formed with every step. Dad was asleep on brandy. Pru had thrown a fit equivalent to a marathon. She’d sleep until noon. The doors were barricaded. No one would check on me anytime soon.

I chewed the pizza without tasting it. Maybe the solitude was a gift. I’d be reckless to waste an opportunity I’d waited on for so long. I wrapped the pizza in a paper towel and tossed it in the bathroom trash.

I scrolled through the contacts in my phone where I’d added Cross’s number. Midnight was too late to call a stranger, so I sent a text.

“R U up?”

I dropped my phone on my desk and mentally kicked myself. Well, I’d never sleep now. At least he wouldn’t know it was me.

The phone buzzed.

“Yes.”

My heart thundered. Holy crap. He was up. Now what? I rubbed my palms together.

The phone buzzed again. I snatched it off the desk.

“Hungry?”

I dashed my thumbs against the screen.

“No, this is Mercy.”

Buzz.

“I know.”

He knew? How could he possibly know? I shook my head. Showmen. It was all an act. I probably could’ve said I was Elvis or Prince Harry and he would’ve played it off like he’d known all along.

“You like bonfires?”

I eyeballed the window. He’d be lucky to light a candle with all the rain we’d had. Even if they traveled with dry firewood, the wind would put out a bonfire before it started.

“When?”

The phone grew heavy in my hand. I was so incredibly stupid.

“I’ll pick you up in 10.”

“No!”

“No?”

“I can’t. Sorry. Thanks for asking.”

Gah! I was such a complete and utter spaz. What if this guy was a lunatic? What if the Lovells were horrible people, and I’d just asked one of them to deliver me to the lair? I tossed the phone away and marched in a tiny circle with my arms covering my head. I’d get caught and Dad would kill me or have that stroke I’d worried about earlier. He thought Faith had snuck out to meet the Lovells. If he caught me doing the same thing, and he survived the shock, he could go from distant and uninvolved to catatonic. Not good. Pru definitely needed Dad present and aware. Guilt twisted through me. Dad was wrong about Faith meeting the Lovells that night, but I couldn’t tell him.

The phone vibrated. Okay.
Be calm
. I picked the phone up and looked with one eye.

“Everything ok?”

“Yep.”

“Tomorrow night?”

No. Not tomorrow night. This was my chance. I tugged my lower lip between my thumb and first finger. This was a really bad idea. A really terrible idea. I marched in place, praying for divine reasoning. I wanted to ask the Lovells about Faith more than anything in the world. A tiny crack split the side of my calloused heart. Hope was powerful like that.

I pulled in a long breath and tapped the phone. If a car pulled up to my house at midnight, Dad would know. Cars were big and loud and identifiable. People were small, dark shadows. Stealthy.

“Tonight’s better. Can we walk instead?”

Jeez. I sounded like an idiot. The storm’s aftermath raged outside and I wanted to walk. I didn’t have a choice.

Embarrassment touched my cheeks. Cross didn’t have to sneak away. Curfews and preachers were probably alien concepts to him, but he’d rolled into my world this morning. I couldn’t just waltz out at twelve fifteen for a bonfire with complete strangers, especially not the Lovells. Never the Lovells. Muscles tightened in my chest.

Faith. Wasn’t that a good enough reason to go? I could ask all those questions I’d waited three years to ask. Maybe fourteen-year-old me was wise to think the Lovells had answers. Maybe current me was overthinking. Maybe I deserved some answers before I left this town.

Moments ticked past. I pulled on my favorite jeans and hoodie before the phone buzzed again.

“Anywhere special you want to go?”

Yeah. I wanted to question his friends. I tapped the back of my phone. How could I answer that?

“Bonfire works.”

“Should I throw rocks at your window when I get there?”

“Ha-ha.”

Click. Scratch. Click
. The branches tickled my window. My heart stopped then sprinted. Only the wind.

I dragged a brush through my hair. What was I thinking? The whole scenario was insane. I unrolled red-and-white-striped knee socks and pulled them on under my jeans. I owed Cross a thank you for earlier. I’d meet him outside, thank him, ask a few questions and then move on with my life. Simple. Not a big deal.

“Ready?”

I clutched my phone. No. Not at all. I hadn’t climbed off the roof in more than a year. The window had once been my nightly escape route. The fresh air and silent streets helped me sort things out. My walks normally ended at Faith’s grave. No matter how well I slept during the day, nighttime sent my mind into overdrive. I’d fixate on every awful possibility for Faith’s last night. Every gruesome scenario was my fault. I should’ve stopped her.

“Yeah.”

I stuffed my feet into the muddiest shoes in my room and opened the window.

Ding!
The sound cut through howling wind. I held my breath and scanned the yard below. My phone was on vibrate.

Cross emerged from the shadows, waving his phone like a beacon in the dark. “Hey.”

I stretched a shaky leg over the window ledge and took one last look at my room. This was it. I swiveled around and hopped onto the mudroom roof. My window slid shut with a clatter. Leaves bustled over the shingles and my feet. I scooted along the rain-slicked roof to a wide oak limb and grabbed ahold. Water rained over me as I swung my body down. Every leaf in the tree dripped with two days’ excess. My tiptoes scraped a lower limb and I tested it with my weight. A gust of wind nudged the tree, but the limbs held their place. Using the overhead limb to guide me, I walked toward the tree’s two-hundred-year-old trunk where I’d nailed three hunks of wood as a makeshift ladder. The only thing keeping my mind off the stranger below was my intense desire not to slip and land in the muddy grass at his feet.

I breathed easier as my right toe touched the earth. A warm hand curled under my elbow, for support, I hoped. Marching willfully to my abduction was a move too dumb to contemplate. I had to trust my gut this time. He’d covered for me earlier. I owed him a thank you. To my relief, Cross stepped away the moment my other foot reached the grass.

He looked taller in the moonlight. Paler and more foreboding. My room looked a hundred miles away.

I dusted my palms together. “You got here fast.”

Cross shoved his fingers into his back pockets. “Small town.”

The wind gathered leaves and twigs at our feet and grass fell over the tops of my shoes. I squinted through the misty wind and pulled a swath of hair off my face. “You have a bonfire going in this mess?”

Cross lifted his gaze from my arm to my eyes and shrugged. “Sort of.”

I pulled the cuffs of both sleeves down to my palms and folded my fingertips over, anchoring the material in place. This night wasn’t about my secrets.

I tilted my head and looked into his eyes for a sign I shouldn’t go. He seemed at ease in the dark, windy yard. Of course, it would take a colossal moron, or someone the size of Anton, to abduct Cross. He had nothing to worry about.

“Thanks for not telling my dad we met earlier today. He’s a little overprotective.” Lies. Dad was gone. Absent. Uninvolved until eight hours ago, but unloading our whole ugly story with my thank-you seemed wrong. “Why did you invite me out tonight?”

He shifted his weight, foot to foot. “I don’t know.”

Was I making him nervous?

Cross glanced at his shoes. His gaze bounced back to me. “Why did you agree to come?”

There was no right answer, so I turned toward the sidewalk with a shrug. My muscles itched to move. “Lead the way.”

Cross kept his distance, staying a half step ahead. We walked in silence to the corner and made a turn toward the riverside campgrounds.

I hooked flyaway hair behind both ears and hid my hands in hoodie pockets. “How’d you know which room was mine?”

He slid his eyes my way. “Your light was on.”

“What if someone else was awake and that was their room?”

“Nah.”

I made a face at his back. “Nah? What’s that mean? Nah.”

He slowed, matching my pace. Confliction rose in his brow and my palms slicked with nerves. “It was the attic. Most people use the attic for storage, but it’s too late at night for anyone to be in the attic unless it’s a bedroom.”

Fine. That was a reasonable and intelligent conclusion. Cross wasn’t a dummy. Good to know. It reminded me of the way he’d watched Jason and his family earlier. What did he see when he looked at them? Something else hit me. “That doesn’t explain how you knew the attic was my room. What if I was in bed for the night when I texted you?”

He ducked his head, shooting me an apologetic expression. “I don’t think you sleep. There are purple crescents under your eyes and you seem edgy. I think you’re troubled and lonely. I think you’d choose the attic for your room because it’s as far away from people as you can get inside your house.”

My mouth opened and my feet stopped moving. The scars on my arms heated with accusation. He’d seen the cuts when I climbed off the tree. Despite the wind and the darkness. Despite the hoodie. Despite everything.

I clutched the cuffs of my hoodie inside my pockets. Cutting was taboo. No one talked about cutting, or cutters, in public. Everyone gossiped vehemently about both in private. The town would’ve cared less if I’d shown up pregnant in middle school or had a trendy flaw like heroin addiction. Anything but cutting. Cutting was ugly and my scars offended them. My mouth dried. The scars were forever and there was no earthly forgiveness for them.