Devoured: A Novel(14)

I send Kylie a couple more messages asking her if she’s going for casual or formal dress and whether she can park at the end of the driveway so Gram doesn’t see her, but she doesn’t answer either of them. I startle when I hear the front door slam. It rattles the bookshelf in the corner of my room, and I stumble off the bed, nearly breaking my neck on a pair of tall boots I left in the middle of the floor. Glancing out the window, I see my grandmother’s Land Rover sitting in the driveway, backed in so that the open trunk is closest to the house.

I heave a sigh of relief.

A moment later, Gram yells up the stairs in a noticeably tired voice, “Sienna?”

“I’m here, Gram!” I call out, slipping my feet into a pair of flip-flops.

I reach the foyer as Gram shuffles through the front door, struggling with several bags of groceries. Quickly, I scoop them out of her hands where the plastic has started to make harsh indentations on her wrists. She offers me a grateful look.

“I stopped and picked up some food for you so you won’t starve to death while you’re here. All your favorites, and I’ll even cook them,” she says, just a touch too brightly.

I can see into the back of her SUV from where I’m standing. There are at least a dozen more bags in the trunk alone, not to mention what might be in the backseat. I feel a swell in my ribcage because my grandmother is on the verge of losing her house and having to spend money to relocate somewhere else. We both know she’s not got the funds to do things like stock a house with the foods I enjoy.

Instead of pointing this out to Gram, or immediately grilling her about where she’s been, I move the bags in my right hand up and around my wrist and give her hand a tiny squeeze.

“Thanks, Gram,” I say. Then, keeping my tone as light and as teasing as possible, I add “You haven’t cooked in, what? A year or two ago, when Seth was still in high school?”

Gram lets out a throaty chuckle. “You’re worth it.”

I insist she take a breather in the family room while I store the groceries. She doesn’t give me hell, like usual, but goes willingly. It’s so obvious that she’s dead tired, so I try hard to remain as quiet as feasibly possible so I won’t bother her while she rests.

Unloading the bags is a monotonous task that reminds me of my time bagging groceries at the store up the street when I was in high school. I’m grinning by time I finish because I have images of cart-racing with my co-workers and an even more vivid picture of racing wardrobe racks on the set of Echo Falls with Vickie, the other wardrobe assistant.

If I ever got the nerve to do something like that, Tomas would shit a few bricks.

The digital clock on the stove catches my eye. 5:45. I’ll be with Kylie soon, and there’s a chance—albeit not a very strong one—that I’ll know what to do to make sure this house stays in Gram’s possession.

Speed walking into the living room, I say, “Hey, I’m going to—” But I stop short. My grandmother is asleep on the couch, snoring, her chest rising and falling. “Head out with a friend,” I whisper. Turning to leave, I notice a balled up piece of paper in the corner of the doorway. I stoop down and pick it up, unraveling it. It’s the grocery receipt from Gram’s massive shopping expedition. But it’s not the amount of money she has spent that makes my heart beat faster. It’s the city and state the groceries were purchased in.

Bowling Green, Kentucky, which is an hour drive from Nashville.

It’s the halfway point between here and the prison in Lexington that houses my mother.

Honestly, I want to feel denial or shock or even anger—God knows I’ve experienced all three emotion and often at once when it comes to Mom in the past. As I fold the receipt into tiny, even squares, though, the only thing I feel is a sharp pang in the middle of my chest.

?



Kylie arrives early—a quarter ‘til seven, when I’m finishing up the last touches of my makeup—in the giant silver Cadillac SUV. She must not have gotten my message because she parks halfway up the drive and gets out of the car. As she practically skips toward the house, and into the path of the motion detection lights, I decide she looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in her blindingly white parka and with her short, black and blue hair poking out from beneath a slouchy white crochet hat. Tennessee’s not that cold.

She pauses in the circular walkway, tilts her head up until her dark eyes meets mine, then smiles and waves. Feeling myself flush from head to toe at being caught, I wiggle my fingers back at her. Why the hell is she so friendly when she hardly knows me? A moment later, she stops flapping her hand and disappears under the covered wraparound porch. The doorbell rings.