Anything for You (Blue Heron #5)(36)
Over the years, Jessica had read enough to get a doctorate in the subject of fetal alcohol syndrome. She’d talked to dozens of school counselors, therapists, psychologists, pediatricians, neurologists. She once talked her way into a conference on the subject—her looks came in handy once in a while—and let an expert buy her a drink and stare at her cleavage while she peppered him with questions.
In the end, they all said the same unhelpful things. But Jessica was the world’s foremost expert on her brother. She understood things like executive function, processing deficiencies, impulse control. She understood that if she said something like “Don’t hit the car with that stick,” Davey might think it was perfectly okay to hit the car with a rake.
He could read a little bit, and unless you studied his face and knew what to look for, you’d never know he had any problems. People would hear him quoting endlessly from The Hobbit, but they wouldn’t understand that to Davey, it was just a cool adventure story with swords and a dragon. Themes of betrayal, friendship, the corruption of wealth, loss of innocence...those higher concepts were invisible to her brother. And because he could quote movies and he spoke fluently, people often got frustrated with him for not understanding what seemed so obvious to them.
Like Connor. He just didn’t want to accept that to Davey, he’d always be a dog killer. The day Chico had been dragged away by Animal Control had been the worst day of his life. Worse even than when their mother died.
Connor thought he could win her brother over. He was wrong.
Davey wasn’t going to change. He wasn’t able to change.
But even putting Davey aside—which she really couldn’t, but just for the sake of argument—Jessica...well, she didn’t believe Connor. He didn’t know what he wanted. Like a lot of guys, he saw her as a challenge. Once, she’d been slutty; after that, she’d become essentially celibate.
Except for him.
She was careful to keep things with Connor controlled. They’d always had a casual relationship...well, no. That wasn’t the right word. But a fluid relationship, because that’s just how it had to be. She’d always told him he was free to find someone else. He had, in fact. During their in-between times, he’d dated a little bit, and why not? She’d had to break up with him three—four?—times for various reasons. She understood if he needed to move on. She would’ve been happy to see him with someone else.
She was almost glad when he’d had a girlfriend, that redhead from Bryer. Let him move on and leave her alone and stop bringing up all those dangerous feelings. After all the times she had to break things off, she’d have understood if he one day introduced her to a fiancée.
But he didn’t. He kept coming back instead, and Jess had to wonder why. To make up for Chico One, all those years ago? To rescue her? She didn’t want to be rescued, thank you very much. A lot of people saw her as poor Jessica, white trash from the trailer park with the drunk parents and slow brother; Jess who had worked as a waitress for half her life, and yes, for about two minutes as a stripper. She could see how people had always seen her, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman—Come here, honey, all you need is some money and a nice hot shower and some good clothes, and you’ll be exactly what I want.
No, thanks. There would be no Cinderella story here. She could save her own damn self, and Davey, too.
And she had. It took her nine years, but she got her master’s in marketing. She had a fantastic job with Blue Heron now, something she couldn’t have called five years ago, working for the family that had once brought her hand-me-downs.
She had a decent place to live. Her brother was stable and doing well with his job, packing boxes at Keuka Candles. She was practically respectable now. The last hurdle would be owning her own house, and that was only a year, maybe fifteen months, away. She was planning to buy a place in the Village, a place that seemed as magical to her as Narnia, the sweet Victorians spreading out from the town’s tiny green, views of Keuka Lake from every street. It would happen on her own terms, because Jessica had learned a hundred times that she was the only one she could count on.
Three years ago, after her mom had been gone awhile, and Davey had finally seemed to adjust, Connor and Jess had a week together, their shortest stint yet. Her appendix ruptured on the eighth day, and it was ugly. Full-blown peritonitis and everything, because that was the way things seemed to go for the Dunn family.
When the nurse had told her that Connor was there to see her, she said no. What if Davey came in? He was upset enough, terrified that she would die, and the fact that Connor was probably a little terrified, too...well, she just couldn’t take it. They didn’t have an ICU kind of relationship. It would make things seem more solidified than they were.
Her emergency drove home the fact that she had to find a conservator for Davey, and as soon as she was out of the hospital, she started talking to lawyers and trying to find someone who could be his guardian just in case. All those years, and it had never occurred to her that she could die and Davey would be alone.
Connor didn’t even bother coming over after that one. He didn’t have to. Being turned away in the ICU... Sorry, your name is not on the list... She’d been pretty clear.
And still he was nice to her. Still she came home to a fridge full of food, a packed freezer and clean sheets on her bed and Davey’s, too.
This last time she and Connor had started seeing each other, it was because of a sneak attack at his sister’s wedding. For months before, she’d suspected he’d been dating someone, and she’d been so, so careful not to let it bother her. He deserved a great relationship. A full, normal relationship with a woman who didn’t have conditions and rules and a stunted ability to trust. She hadn’t gone back to him in all that time, because she hadn’t wanted to leave him again.