Reminders of Him(52)

I wondered if he saw that stack of papers. I was worried he might have peeked, but if he says he didn’t read them, for some reason I believe him.

“How many letters have you written him?”

“Over three hundred.”

He shakes his head in disbelief, but then something makes him smile. “Scotty hated writing. He used to pay me to write his reports for him.”

That makes me laugh, because I wrote a paper or two for him when we were together.

It’s weird talking with someone who knew Scotty in a lot of the same ways I knew him. I’ve honestly never experienced this before. It feels good, thinking about him in a way that makes me laugh instead of cry.

I wish I knew more about Scotty outside of who he was with me.

“Diem might grow up to be a writer someday. She likes to make up words,” Ledger says. “If she doesn’t know what something is called, she just invents a word for it.”

“Like what?”

“Solar lights,” he says. “The kind that line sidewalks? We don’t know why, but she calls them patchels.”

That makes me smile, but it also makes me ache with jealousy. I want to know her like he does. “What else?” My voice is quieter because I’m trying to hide the fact that it’s shaking.

“The other day she was riding her bike, and her feet kept slipping on the pedals. She said, ‘My feet won’t stop flibbering.’ I asked her what flibbering meant, and she said it’s when she wears flip-flops, and her feet slip out of them. And she thinks soaking means ‘very.’ She’ll say, ‘I’m soaking tired,’ or, ‘I’m soaking hungry.’”

It hurts too much to even laugh at that. I force a smile, but I think Ledger can sense that stories about a daughter I’m not allowed to know are ripping me in two. He stops smiling and then walks to the sink and washes the glass. “You ready?”

I nod and hop off the table.

On the drive home, he says, “What are you going to do with the letters?”

“Nothing,” I say immediately. “I just like writing them.”

“What are the letters about?”

“Everything. Sometimes nothing.” I look out my window so he can’t read the truth on my face. But something in me makes me want to be honest with him. I want Ledger to trust me. I have a lot to prove. “I’m thinking about compiling them and putting them into a book someday.”

That gives him pause. “Will it have a happy ending?”

I’m still looking out the window when I say, “It’ll be a book about my life, so I don’t see how it could.”

Ledger keeps his eyes on the road when he asks, “Do any of the letters talk about what happened the night Scotty died?”

I put space between his question and my answer. “Yes. One of them does.”

“Can I read it?”

“No.”

Ledger’s eyes meet mine briefly. Then he looks in front of him and flips on his blinker to turn onto my street. He pulls into a parking spot and leaves his truck running. I don’t know if I should get out immediately, or if there’s anything left to be said between us. I put my hand on the door handle.

“Thank you for the job.”

Ledger taps the steering wheel with his thumb and nods. “I’d say you earned it. The kitchen hasn’t been that organized since I’ve owned the building, and you’ve only worked one shift.”

His compliment feels good. I absorb it and then tell him good night.

As much as I want to look back at him when I get out of his truck, I keep my focus ahead of me. I listen for him to back out, but he doesn’t, which makes me think he watches me as I walk all the way up to my apartment.

Once I’m inside, Ivy immediately runs up to me. I pick her up and leave the lights off as I walk to the window to peek out.

Ledger is just sitting in his truck, staring up at my apartment. I immediately press my back against the wall next to the window. Finally, I hear his engine rev up as he backs out of the parking spot.

“Ivy,” I whisper, scratching her head. “What are we doing?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


LEDGER

“Ledger!”

I glance up from packing the equipment, and I immediately start packing faster. The mom brigade is walking toward me. When they come at me in group formation like this, it’s never good. There are four of them, and they have matching chairs with each of their children’s names on the backs of them. They’re either going to tell me I’m not playing their kids enough, or they’re about to try to set me up with one of their single friends.

I glance at the playground, and Diem is still out there playing chase with two of her friends. Grace is keeping an eye on her, so I get the last helmet in the bag, but it’s too late to pretend I didn’t notice they were trying to get my attention.

Whitney speaks first. “We heard Diem’s mother showed back up.”

I make brief eye contact with her, but try not to show any sort of surprise that they know Kenna is in town. None of them actually knew Kenna in the brief time she dated Scotty. None of these women even knew Scotty.

But they know Diem, and they know me, and they know the story. So, they think they’re entitled to the truth. “Where’d you hear that?”