The Spite House(35)

Emily’s jaw slacked and she shook her head quickly. “I’m sure I didn’t do that at all.”

“Not directly, in a roundabout way. You know, pretty much saying, ‘I don’t mind what happened, I mind the way it happened.’ The Juneteenth-recognition thing, for example. That jumped out, you not being on board with that.”

“Oh Lord, sir, with all due respect you misread what I was saying there.”

“No, I think I got it. You said you were okay with the idea—”

“More than okay—”

“—you just didn’t like how it came about. Lots of people take that sort of stance when they don’t want to come out and just say what they’d really like to say.”

In her eyes now, he saw more than just surprise and confusion, he saw hurt that would be hard to fake. Not impossible, but difficult. She might have been telling the truth—her truth, at least—about him misreading her intentions. But who was she anyway? Someone whose biggest grievances with the woman helping his family amounted to “She oversteps in her successful efforts to make this town a better place.” Why would Emily Steen’s intentions matter to him more than Eunice Houghton’s?

“All I can say to that,” Emily said, “is that if you’d read any of my other work—any of it—you’d know that that’s not who I am.”

“I’ll take you up on that. I could use something new to read,” he said. “In the meantime, if you don’t mind, I am growing a little concerned that you might say something unfit for my girl to hear. If you want to reach out to me in the future, as long as you run it by Eunice or Dana to make sure it’s all on the up-and-up, I might be open to a conversation.”

Emily looked at him like she no longer spoke his language. This meeting had gone somewhere she hadn’t thought it could get to. It had flown free of her grasp when she didn’t know it had wings.

She walked away with her head low and Eric thought he heard her muttering to herself. At her car, before she got in, she turned back to him and said, “If I may, just … ask Dana or Eunice—whichever—ask them about the memorial. Tell them you heard it from me or not, it doesn’t matter. Just mention it to them and see how they act. I think, at minimum, you really should know what’s motivating all this.”

As she got in her car and started the engine, Eric heard Dess behind him say, “What was that all about? What memorial?”

“Why didn’t you like that lady, Dad?” Stacy said. “Because you thought she was going to say cusswords?”

“She just seemed a little rude,” Eric said. “It’s okay to introduce yourself to your neighbors, but you should at least give them time to have some breakfast, don’t you think?”

Stacy nodded. Eric turned to Dess, who asked again, “What memorial? Who even was that? Does she know Eunice?”

Before Eric could answer, Stacy said, “She said her name is Emily.”

“Aren’t you chatty today,” Eric said.

“I’m sorry,” Stacy said.

“That’s okay. This is just time for me and your sister to talk, okay?”

“Okay.”

Dess said, “Just Emily? She didn’t give a last name?” She was still out of breath and had more questions than Eric thought she’d have. What was going on with her?

“If she did, I forgot it already. It’s not important, Dess. She said she was just here to check on us, basically. But she wasn’t with Eunice so I just, you know, played it safe. Told her we were okay so she doesn’t need to come back around like that.”

“Did you tell her about last night? Did she have anything to say about that?”

“None of that was her business to know. Look, let’s get some breakfast first and then talk later. We need to discuss you sneaking out without telling me where you’re going anyway. Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, all right.”

Eric knew what that meant. He remembered the first time Tabitha had translated his daughter’s words for him. One “yeah” means yes, two “yeah”s means “not really.”

I thought that was “yeah, nah,” he’d said.

That just means “no.”

He was surprised she didn’t have more of a comeback for him. She wasn’t likely to say something too defiant. It wasn’t in her nature, and even if it was, she minded her words around Stacy. Still, he expected a small quip. Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk about that, and everything else. She was past him and moving toward the house before he could really measure what was in her eyes, what he might have missed. Was last night worse than she had let on? Or had something else happened that morning? He thought about how fast she’d been running. She might have just been pushing herself, but she also might have been hurrying to get away from something. By the time he caught up to her in the house, she had put a braver face on.

“How was your run?” he said.

“Pretty good,” Dess said, and he knew that was all he’d get out of her.

After they got ready he took the girls into town for breakfast—where everyone who saw them said “Hello,” and “Welcome,” and smiled their broadest smiles like they were politicians glad-handing during a campaign. Later he called Dana to tell her of Emily’s visit, and later still, while Stacy napped, he talked to Dess about what happened to each of them the night before, adding her account to his journal.