Spells for Forgetting(40)

I made it to the top of the hill, peering down at the house that sat on the slope. Smoke drifted from the chimney and again, I tried talking myself out of it. The moment I’d read Eloise’s words, I’d known what I had to do. The letters weren’t just the lonely correspondence of two friends. They were evidence. A piece of the puzzle that Jake didn’t have fourteen years ago. What I couldn’t work out was why my dad had kept it from his own brother.

The sound of music carried up the road with the cadence of night in the woods. Nixie was playing a Joni Mitchell record and that boded well for me, I thought. She’d have a bottle of wine open and we’d both need it.

A sharp ping sounded as I made my way down the hill and I stopped when I spotted Dutch watching me from behind the open hood of his truck in the drive next door. His hands were covered in grease.

“Em?” He tossed the wrench he was holding into the toolbox at his feet.

My hand instantly slipped into my pocket, finding the letter. He was never home before nightfall. Not when the orchard was this busy. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

He looked down at the engine, as if confused by the question. “Working on the truck.” His voice had a tone that I knew well. “What are you doing?”

He stepped around the hood, coming to the fence that stretched between his land and Nixie’s. I hesitated before I followed, meeting him halfway.

“I was just stopping by to pick something up.”

His eyes moved over my face, deciding whether to call me on it. Dutch always knew when I was lying. “I called you earlier.”

“Sorry.” I glanced over my shoulder, to Nixie’s darkened porch. “The shop was packed all day.”

Dutch studied me for another moment before he let out a long breath, rubbing at his brow with the sleeve of his stained shirt. “What are we doing here, Emery?”

“What?”

He shook his head. “You’ve been dodging me for days. I think I deserve an explanation.”

That, he was right about. He’d had unending patience for me, waiting out my dark moods and hoping I’d come around to what he wanted. We’d been down this road many times. Now, on top of everything, I was hiding something from him.

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” I admitted.

“Why won’t you just talk to me?”

I leaned into the fence post, my mind skipping through every way to end this conversation I could think of. I didn’t have time for this. “I’m talking to you right now.”

“This feels like before. You look…” His gaze ran over my face. “Are you sleeping?”

Before. He was talking about the nightmares.

“A little,” I answered honestly. “I’m just…August being here is dredging up all of this”—I sighed—“and I had this fight with my dad…”

His expression instantly turned from defensive to concerned. “Your dad? What happened?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“Then why are you so upset about it?”

“I’m not,” I said, irritated. “I mean, I am. I just…”

“Don’t want to talk to me about it,” he finished. “That’s nothing new, I guess.” Before I could answer, he pushed off the fence and turned his back to me. “The glass for the window will be here in a few days,” he called out.

When he reached the truck, he lifted the hood up and let it slam down. Then he was stalking up the drive to the cabin. I watched him go, ashamed that I was grateful. I should have stopped him. Asked him to come back. Told him that we could talk over dinner. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t.

And he didn’t expect me to. Dutch had put up with my shit for a lot of years.

I watched the light flick on behind the windows. I’d asked myself many times if his home could ever also be mine, and even in the rare moments when I could get my mind around the idea, the answer had never been yes.

I put my face in my hands, trying to soothe the ache in my head.

There were more layers to this than wanting different things. After August and Lily were gone, we were the ones left behind. It was suddenly just the two of us and when you took away everything else, it had really just been the fact that we were lonely. Together. We became villains in the eyes of Saoirse because without August, there was no one else to blame. I figured we might as well bear their hatred together. It wasn’t a romantic story by any stretch, but it was our story. And there was no changing it.

I followed the half-sunken pavers up to Nixie’s porch, looking back once more to Dutch’s cabin. None of it was fair. To either of us.

Nixie was standing in the kitchen when I came through the door, but she didn’t look up from the cutting board. Like she’d been expecting me.

“That didn’t look good,” she murmured, tipping a chin to the window that overlooked Dutch’s property down the hill.

“Would it kill you to mind your own business?”

“Might.” She smirked, running the knife through a thick bunch of parsley. The bright, green smell of it filled the air. But her mirth gave way to something else as she gestured to the blackberry wine on the counter. Her favorite. “You here for an apology? I know I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do.” I took a glass from the shelf and helped myself, filling it with a generous pour.