The Rattled Bones(56)

“Who?”

Gram considers. “She never said.”

I think of the old woman with the Flame Freesia in her crude raised beds. She could have known my great-grandmother. Did they exchange garden secrets? Plants? Did my great-grandmother mourn for the nameless woman who disappeared from history?

Gram wipes her forehead with the back of her gardening glove, leaving a swipe of earth over her eyebrow. “When I was a young girl I was too busy thinking about me. I missed my chance to ask my parents about the things that were most important to them.” She sets the plants in her basket, readying to set them into the earth. She’s still considering the plant when she tells me, “I’m surprised to see ya back so soon.”

“Reed said you wanted me home.”

Gram looks to Reed, her eyes quizzical. “I think I said something closer to the fact that I wish ya were resting.”

“She will now.”

Gram looks up at me like she’s peering over glasses, even though she refuses to wear any. “I’m glad to hear it. Can I fix ya anything?”

“No. I’m good. Thank you.” I bend to kiss her on the cheek. “Reed and I are just gonna go upstairs so I can lie down.”

“Just so long as only one of ya is doing the lying down and Reed knows he needs to use the door from now on. No more climbing down my rose trellis.”

A blush rises on Reed’s neck. “No, ma’am. I mean yes, ma’am.”

Gram waves him off. “Don’t ya ‘ma’am’ me.”

Reed and I head inside, upstairs. I’m only two steps into my room when my annoyance bubbles over at Reed making me leave Sam and Malaga for nothing. “Gram wasn’t looking for me at all, was she? Why did you make me come home?”

“Because I needed to see you.”

“So why didn’t you just say that?”

“Because I wasn’t sure if you’d care.”

I go to the window, the graffiti message carved into my sill. If Reed could lie to get me away from Sam, could he have carved a plea into the wood at my window? My mind reaches for anything that isn’t unexplainable. I lift the T-shirt to expose half of the scars etched there: DONT GO! I point to the words. “Did you do that?”

“Um, no, Rilla. I did not deface your window.”

“Someone did.”

“And it had to be me because it doesn’t have an apostrophe and I’m the dumb kid with no diploma, is that it?”

I feel my face twitch with shock. “No. That never crossed my mind. I thought it was you because you don’t want me to leave for school. I thought maybe you came by, you know. Maybe you were stoned and maybe you had your pocketknife with you.”

“I’ve never hidden the fact that I don’t want you to leave, but that”—he nods to the carving—“that’s crazy.” Crazy. The word he used to describe my mother. The terrible word all the kids used to yell at me on the playground.

“Who else has been in your room?”

I hear the question behind his question. “What is that even supposed to imply?”

“Hattie said that kid was sitting by your bed yesterday when she got here.” His eyes flicker with that same caged aggression they hold after he survives a fight at home.

“Sam. You know his name is Sam, and he was only here because he brought me here, Reed. He saved me from drowning. Gram probably thought he had the right to stay and make sure I was okay.”

I see how much rage Reed is trying to tame. The pulsing vein in his forehead, his fists pumping open and closed as if in rhythm with his heart valves. “You should’ve called me after.”

“The last time you were over made it seem like you wouldn’t want to hear from me.”

“It was a fight, Rills. That’s all.”

Reed has lived his life with fights surrounding him. They’re easier for him to shake, I think. “Maybe I should’ve, but I knew you’d be hauling today and I needed—”

“To see Sam.”

“Yes. To thank him. He. Saved. My. Life. Without him I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now.”

This seems to calm him some. “What happened?” He moves to the bed, invites me to sit next to him. I slide my shirt to hide the carving and join him.

I tell Reed about the rope around my ankle, how I’d been distracted, how the trap hauled me overboard and dragged me under. Nothing about this story is new to Reed or to any fisherman. It’s just that it was my foot. My accident. My trap.

He gathers me to him, so close, too tight. I have to pull away. “I’m still really sore.”

“Right, yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Yesterday. And before the accident. If I’d been on the boat with you that wouldn’t have happened.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can, Rill. I’d do anything to protect you.”

A snicker slips from my lips. “You’re stoned every single time you go out on your boat lately.”

“So?”

“So you can’t think that’s safe.”

He stands, digs his fingers through his hair with both hands, scratching at his scalp. “I don’t want to talk about that, okay? I want to talk about you and me and fishing. Can we do that?”