Jaxson's Song Read online

  “Didn’t you think I would want to be there?” Kate was saying now. “How could you do this, Lilly?”

  “I’m…sorry,” she choked, a tear falling freely and splashing onto her bare leg. She swiped shaking fingers over her thigh, and the weight of her guilt threatened to crush her. “It just happened.”

  Kate was silent on the other end of the line, and then: “Oh, my God—you’re pregnant, aren’t you? Who did this to you? Who is he?” she demanded, zeroing in on Lilly’s imaginary groom, not unlike a dog with a bone.

  “No! I’m not pregnant. His name is Chad. We met in Georgia and we’ve been seeing each other. I’m sorry I never told you, I didn’t…I just…didn’t think you’d approve. That you would say I’m too young.” She recited the explanation she’d been practicing ever since crossing the Florida state line two days ago.

  “You are too damn young! What were you thinking?”

  “I—”

  “Where is he? Put this Chad on the phone,” she said, twisting the name with the same inflection one might use for “bird flu” or “genital warts.” There was real fire in Kate’s voice and she could picture her sister crossing her arms over her chest, could practically see her eyes narrowing.

  “He’s in the car, Kate. We only stopped so that I could call you and tell you I’m okay. Everything’s okay.”

  “Okay? Okay??”

  Right. Maybe that wasn’t the best word for their current situation.

  “What do you mean you only stopped long enough to call me. Where are you?” Kate asked, her voice faltering as the full implications of Lilly’s statement hit her.

  “We’re headed north.”

  “Where?” Kate pressed.

  “Um, probably somewhere near Reno.”

  “Nevada!” Kate exploded. “What are you thinking?” she repeated, sounding like she was on the verge of hyperventilating. “You’re supposed to start classes in less than two weeks.”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “So, okay, you’re m-married now. Okay, now what? What about your plans? You wanted to go to school. Since your sixteenth birthday, you’ve been talking about becoming a nurse. What happened to those plans?”

  Lilly swallowed, and the fingers of her free hand curled into a tight fist; her sister had just managed to hit a major nerve. “I’m still going to go to school—next semester.”

  “But—”

  “Kate, look…” She inhaled the sweet, fruit-laden air and felt her stomach lurch in response now. “It’s done. Chad and I are in love, and I wish you would support me in this.”

  “I will always back you up. Always. But you are making a mistake,” Kate warned.

  “But it’s my mistake to make. Mine and…Chad’s.” She lowered her eyes to her toes, unpainted and slightly dirty from kicking around the trails behind Alexandra’s house. Worn sandals that had started out as bright orange slapped the floor as she rose from the couch and pushed against the front door. The screen banged shut behind her.

  “What was that?”

  “What?” Her eyes went wide.

  “That noise.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” she said, raising her voice a little to be heard over the rain and the wind that was steadily picking up.

  “Lilly, I wish…”

  “I’ve got to go, okay? Chad’s waiting. But, um, I thought that maybe you could come with me.” Here was the important part of her plan, the true prize she kept her eye on. She forced herself to speak slowly, willing the words to not simply rush out in a desperate torrent. “I mean, if you want to. I thought you could sell the house and come to Reno with us. You could stay with me—with us. If you want to.”

  “You want me to live with you and Chad?” Kate’s voice was filled with disbelief.

  “We can rent a duplex or something. We’ll figure it out, but…yeah. Yeah, I do.” Lilly swiped at her cheek.

  “Oh,” Kate breathed. “Well.” She paused for several long, tense moments. “Okay.”

  “You’ll sell the house? We’ll start over, then?”

  “It looks like you’ve already started over,” she retorted, then sighed. “Yes, I’ll put the house on the market. Are you sure about…all of this?”

  “I’m sure.” Lilly’s voice held a conviction that was at once bone deep and strangely terrifying. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life, and yet nothing was certain. She felt like she was kneeling on a raft and using a jagged blade to saw through the rope that anchored her to the dock; behind her, the ocean waited, big and vast and eerily silent. In the next instant, she’d ripped through the final threads. “This is what I want, Kate.”

  “I’ll call the realtor first thing in the morning. I’ll need to give notice at the hospital, probably two weeks. At least,” she muttered. “Will you be all right until then?”

  “Yes. I’ll call you when we get to Reno, and I’ll have an address then. Probably just a hotel, but…”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be out there by the end of the month, and we’ll get a more permanent place. It’s going to be okay. We can fix this.”

  “There’s nothing to fix,” she lied, her tone softer now.

  “Uh-huh. Do you need anything right now? I mean…anything?” Kate asked, her voice cracking a little at the end.

  “No. I have to go. I’ll text you tonight.”

  “Lilly—”

  “I love you,” she blurted, snapping the phone shut a moment later.

  The world continued to spin; the rain still fell in ugly gray sheets. Her life was still a hot mess. She blinked back the fresh wave of tears that threatened, reminded herself this was only temporary. But would Kate ever forgive her for this deception? For manipulating her like this? She sighed. The time for reflection was about fifteen minutes past.

  “Lilly?” Alexandra poked her head out from inside the house.

  She turned and glanced at her cousin.

  “It’s raining.” The normally perky blonde was uncharacteristically cautious as she eyed Lilly.

  “Yeah.” She tried for a smile. “I just got off the phone with Kate,” she said, for lack of anything more profound to point out at the moment.

  “Yeah…how did it go?”

  She shrugged. “It went. She’s selling the house and meeting me at the end of the month.”

  Alex’s riotous golden curls bobbed. “Good, so the plan worked.”

  Lilly nodded, moving through the doorway when her cousin held the screen door open and moved aside to let her pass.

  Aunt Carrie was waiting for them in the kitchen. “Does someone want to fill me in on what just happened?” Her china-blue eyes filled with concern as she pulled out a pair of glazed pine bar stools and motioned for both girls to sit. She tucked a chunk of light brown hair behind Lilly’s ear, her fingers grazing one of the beaded silver hoops in her niece’s ear. “I can’t believe how you’ve changed. You and Alex are all grown up now.” She slid mugs of cocoa and plates of warm peach pie in front of the girls. “What’s wrong, Lilly Ann?” she finally murmured, taking a seat at the opposite end of the white marble kitchen island.

  She met her cousin’s wide blue gaze and sighed, focusing her own gray-green eyes on Aunt Carrie. “You’ve talked to Kate since Aunt Viola passed away?”

  “Only for a few minutes at the funeral, and once, about a week before the two of you left Georgia. I know Viola left the house to you girls.”

  Lilly’s expression must have betrayed something of her feelings, because her aunt peered closely at her.

  “That was good news, right? From what Kate said, some of the pressure was off, she was hoping to finally get on her feet and save some money for the two of you. Is…that not the case?” Aunt Carrie’s brow furrowed when Lilly looked away.

  She jerked her head in some semblance of a nod. “But I couldn’t let her do it. I can’t let her—” She inhaled and placed her palms flat on the smooth, cool marble in front of her, on either side of her mug and plate. “It’s too much�
��Kate cannot stay in that house.”

  When her aunt only stared at her, she took a fortifying sip of cocoa and sighed. “That house does not hold good memories for Kate,” she began, glancing at both of the kitchen’s other occupants, even though she’d already confessed all of this to Alexandra. And, just like last night, she was careful of how much she revealed. But Aunt Carrie immediately drew her own conclusions.

  “It has to do with your uncle Stan, doesn’t it?” Carrie tutted, full of sympathy. “You girls used to visit every summer, until…” She shook her head.

  “You think this is about Viola’s husband committing suicide?” Lilly asked, refusing to refer to Stan as an “uncle,” even now. Her memories of him were dim, faded with time, just snatches of conversation and a sandy blond mustache that twitched up in one corner when he smiled. She couldn’t even clearly recall his face, but she remembered that smile. She hated it. She hated him, even ten years later, for the harm he’d inflicted upon her sister.

  “I heard that Kate found him hanging, but I never—it must have been awful.”

  Lilly frowned. “Kate didn’t find his body. Viola did.” She took a deep breath. “They’d come home one evening, and Viola was the first one in the house. He was swinging from a plant hook in the front parlor, er, from a rope, you know what I mean…” she said awkwardly, and took another sip. “Viola covered Kate’s eyes and got her back outside in a hurry. Or so I’m told. That was the summer I got the measles, and I’d stayed home with Mama while Kate was sent here for the usual visit with Aunt Viola and Stan. She was eight that year, I think. Aunt Carrie…please promise me this doesn’t go any further than right here, right now.”

  “Lilly…?” Her aunt leaned forward. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Stan wasn’t what anyone thought. After he died, Mama came here and stayed to help Aunt Viola clean out his things. They were boxing his clothes and books, stuff they planned to donate to Goodwill, and they found pictures of Kate.”

  “What do you mean pictures of Kate?” Carrie raised a hand to her chest. Beside Lilly, Alexandra shifted uncomfortably on a stool.

  “Pictures of her at school, at the park, pictures of the two of us walking home from school. He had cut me out of all the photographs. There were even shots of Kate’s bedroom, of her in bed sleeping, taken through the gap in the curtains.”

  “Oh dear Lord,” Carrie gasped. “How did he—”

  “He’d been lying to Aunt Viola. There were never any business trips. Stan became obsessed with my sister…apparently he’d been stalking her for years.”

  “Dear Lord,” Carrie repeated and buried her face in her hands. Her head snapped up a moment later. “Was he abusing her? Oh, God, he did, didn’t he? What did he do to her? Oh honey, did he hurt you, too?” She turned stricken eyes to her own daughter. “Alex?”

  “No, Mom. He never hurt me.”

  “He never did anything to me, either.” Lilly pushed her plate aside. “He didn’t exactly hurt Kate, either…not really.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t do—what you’re thinking. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no doubt in my mind he would have, eventually. But Mama said Kate denied that he’d touched her.”

  “But he could have.” Carrie sighed.

  “Maybe,” Lilly acknowledged. “Mama seemed to take Kate at her word. But…he scared Kate.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m not sure. If Mama knew, she didn’t tell me that part of it, but Kate didn’t speak at all for weeks after that visit. Not one word. Something had her spooked, bad. My sister spent months looking over her shoulder and jumping at shadows.” Her mouth tightened into a grim line. “So, now you know why I can’t let her live in that house. She doesn’t think I know what happened all those years ago. But Mama told me everything, the summer I turned fourteen. I’d always asked why we never went back to Florida, why you and Alexandra and Uncle Mark came to see us every couple of years instead. Why Aunt Viola hadn’t been up to see us in years.”

  “After Stan killed himself, Viola rarely left the house,” Carrie murmured.

  Lilly nodded. “That’s what Mama said, too. She’d always made excuses, but that year, she finally told me what had happened when Kate and I were kids. I don’t know why she chose to open up then. She was sick by that time, so maybe she figured it was her last chance to tell me.” She chipped at her nail polish before meeting her aunt’s gaze again. “I told my sister I eloped today. And that I’m on my way to Nevada. So, now she’s selling the house and getting a place with me at the end of the month.”

  “Oh, Lilly, tell me you didn’t—”

  “No, of course not. And I’m not really going to Nevada.”

  “You bet you’re not. You will stay right here with us.” Carrie sniffed and came around the counter to envelop her niece in a fierce hug.

  “Thanks.” Lilly returned the embrace and began to feel a little calmer, a shade stronger. “But I can’t stay here. I can’t take the chance of running into Kate in town. And what if she ends up stopping here for a visit?”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “Alexandra’s driving me to Alabama. I’m staying with Aunt Sylvia for a few weeks, until Kate is free.”

  “And then you’ll have to come clean with her,” Carrie mused. “Are you sure it wouldn’t have been simpler to be straightforward with her? She’s always seemed like a reasonable young woman.”

  Lilly shook her head sadly. “My sister has spent her entire life taking care of everyone else. And she can’t help it, but she’s stubborn. She’s sacrificed so much for me already…now it’s time for someone to look out for Kate, for a change.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Bait

  “I love you too,” Kate murmured to the dead air that was left behind when her sister hung up. She stared down at the cell phone she was barely aware of holding, before clicking it off and placing it carefully on the coffee table. Long moments passed while she sat perched on the edge of the gold-and-floral print couch, statue-still, while image after image of her sister assailed her reeling senses.

  Lilly on her first day of kindergarten, standing proud in brand new white socks and a purple daisy patterned dress, holding tight to Kate’s hand while Mama and Daddy instructed them to smile for the camera. Then Lilly had turned around and insisted they hurry and get a picture of her My Little Pony backpack before the school bell rang… Lilly’s purple sneakers squeaking as they walked down the crowded hallway a year later. She’d wanted Kate, not their parents, to walk her to the classroom, because she was a big girl.

  Lilly curled up, fast asleep in Kate’s bed—the space closest to the wall—after a storm had awoken her in the middle of the night.

  Lilly, head bowed, pressed to Kate’s side as the rain poured around them and they stood over the casket and said their last goodbyes to Daddy.

  Crayons, dress-up, lightning bugs in a jar, whispered secrets, pretend games, and summers at the local pool… Doctors, tests, hospitals; Lilly perched on a striped green chair pushed close to a small round table, working on her spelling words while Kate spooned ice chips into Mama’s mouth.

  Boyfriends, hopes and dreams and broken hearts; Lilly breaking curfew.

  As for herself, Kate couldn’t remember ever having a curfew. Not that it had mattered; she’d only been out a few times. Memories continued to flood her senses. Late nights long gone, her candle burning at both ends until it was nothing but a ragged, frayed wick and a puddle of melted wax.

  The final images crested on the wave of Kate’s emotions before crashing and evaporating into nothingness, into the past. Where it belonged. Lilly. Stiff shouldered, arms crossed at Mama’s funeral, broken-hearted and convinced she was forever done with everyone and everything. Lilly screaming, slamming the door. Unreachable.

  A stray tear tracked its way along her cheekbone, and she automatically reached for the phone. She keyed in the first four digits of her sister’s number before
she changed her mind and dialed Lindsey’s instead.

  “Hey-hey Kate. Whatcha up to on this fine day?”

  Kate smiled, in spite of the fact that her life was in the process of crumbling in tiny, dysfunctional pieces. “Hey,” she said, clamping her lips together when she heard the shakiness of her own voice.

  “Uh-oh,” Lindsey intoned, falling silent for a few seconds before curiosity got the best of her. “What happened?”

  “Am I that easy to read?”

  “Yes,” Lindsey said, automatically. “What’s wrong?”

  Kate sighed, and the urge to hang up the phone—and toss it into a drawer—was suddenly overwhelming. The words that a moment ago had been begging to come out, to be forced into some sort of order that made sense, now stuck in her throat. Talking it out with Lindsey, or anyone, wasn’t going to help, she realized. For a problem of this magnitude, she needed alcohol.

  “Kate?” Lindsey prompted.

  “Lilly called this morning.”

  “O-kay…”

  “She’s married and on her way to Reno.”

  On the other end of the line, the sound of glass shattering accompanied a whole lot of clattering and a muffled curse before Lindsey voice boomed in Kate’s ear, “Did you just say—”

  “Yes,” Kate interrupted, her own voice grim.

  “Oh. My. Gawd.”

  “Pretty much. Does the name ‘Chad’ sound familiar to you?”

  “Chad? No. Why? Is that who she ran off with?”

  “She says they dated in Georgia. I’ve never met him.” Kate cradled the cell phone between her ear and shoulder, slipped into her shoes and began to hunt for her purse. “I thought maybe you might remember seeing him around, or have heard of him.” Damn it, where had she put it?

  “No. The only guy Lilly ever brought home was Troy. Junior year, wasn’t it?”

  “She had a couple of dates with someone named Brandon. Beginning of her senior year, but nothing came of it.”