The Best I Could (4 page)

The hell I don’t!

“Make her leave then,” I commanded.

“I told you he hates me!” my mother cried,
her lips quivering. A fat tear slid down her cheek. It wasn’t real.
None of it was real with her.

“You want a new pair of shoes for that tear,
Ivy?” I asked.

She didn’t like being called Mom. Being a
mother meant admitting she was older than she wanted to be. Being a
mother meant giving up things.

Jonathan sucked in air. “Eli!”

My fists clenched.

“One more offense, and I’m done with the both
of you,” Pops warned. “You two,” he pointed from me to my mother,
“have a lot of issues to work through. This place. This summer.
That’s it.”

“Go to hell,” I repeated.

My eyes bored into
his.
You want me to stay here with her?
After everything?

“You hear him?” Ivy bawled. “You really want
that kind of anger in this house?” Her eyes widened, mascara
streaking her cheeks. “He could murder us in our beds!”

The attention-grabbing behavior was the worst
part, no matter how obtuse she was about it.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” I roared. “You missed
your calling in life. You would have made a damned fine
actress.”

“I should leave,” Ivy insisted. “His attitude
is toxic.”

“I learned from the best.” I laughed, my eyes
hardening. “Your name suits you, you know? It takes an Ivy to
produce a poison.”

“Eli,” Jonathan huffed.

Pops’ face darkened. “Elijah Bradford
Lockston, you are better than your birth, better than your mother’s
tears, and most definitely better than the man who sired you. Try
acting like it.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

Pops pointed at my chest. “Then I was wrong
about you, but I’m betting I’m not.”

“Are you insulting me?” Ivy glared at her
father.

“Do you care?” I asked her.
“Piss him off,
Mother,
and you lose your frivolous money.”

“Stop it!” Jonathan cried. He stepped up
beside me. “Who do you think passes the Kleenex to her now?” he
whispered, looking up at me. “I know why you dislike her, Eli, but
hate is a whole different thing.”

“You don’t know,” I murmured under my breath.
“You don’t know what she did to me.” All of the confusion, the
years spent in a fog that stole my childhood. No one knew, except
Pops and my mother. Time was supposed to heal people. It had
strengthened my resolve. “I was doing fine on my own.”

Ivy laughed coldly. “DUI.
Second offense. You were doing
so
well.”

My fingernails dug into my palms, leaving
half-moon impressions, my eyes drifting to my mother’s. “That whole
murder in the bed thing is starting to sound awfully
appealing.”

“Dad!” she cried.

Pops sighed. “It’s one summer.” He nodded at
me. “There’s a new boxing club in town, Rebels Boxing. You’ll do
your community service there teaching troubled youth. You’ll also
be doing work for Refuge Rescue, a part of Refuge Animal Hospital.
All of it has been approved through the courts.” He glanced at Ivy.
“As for you, you can start by acting less like a child.”

I glared. “I don’t like animals or
children.”

“You don’t have to like them.” He frowned.
“Just be grateful you’ll be spending time inside of a gym. It’s
boxing, Eli. Go with it, and you can train, too.” He gestured at
the house. “Now get settled in.”

When I didn’t move, Ivy stomped through the
door and slammed it behind her.

“What’s going on between you and Mom?”
Jonathan asked.

“Eli,” Pops warned.

My gaze landed on the front door. My mother,
the epitome of everything I hoped never to be.

“It’s nothing,” I told my brother’s upturned
face. At six foot four, I was taller than him, but it wouldn’t be
long before Jonathan caught up to me. He was made of good stuff, a
lot better stuff than I was.

Eyes on me, Pops left the porch, stopping
when we stood face-to-face. “You’re not the mess you think you are,
son,” he said quietly. “People rarely are.”

“I’m not up for your philosophy, Pops.”

“Yeah, I know.” His somber gaze flicked to
Jonathan and then back to me. “Do me a favor, Eli. Show me I’m a
better grandfather than I was a father.” His shoulders slumped, and
for the first time, I was taller than him. It unsettled me. “You
don’t have to stay in the main house.” He inclined his head at the
lane leading into the orchard, to a small red-roofed residence just
off the path. “I had the guest cottage readied just in case.”

“Thank God for small favors,” I muttered.

Beside me, Jonathan fidgeted. “This summer is
going to destroy me, right?”

Surprised, I glanced at him. “You’re fine,
Jon. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“Yeah, it is. She’s my mother, too. We all
feel the tension between you. You’d have to be blind, deaf, and
mute not to.”

Shrugging, I stuffed my hands into my
pockets, my thumbs hanging over the sides. So much like Pops and
yet so different. Squinting at the cottage, I mumbled, “I dumped
all of my shit at the hospital.”

What I left unsaid was how wrong it felt to
bring my bag, to wear the clothes I’d trudged through days of
therapy and moody introspection in, as if they somehow carried the
part of me that craved sweet oblivion. The part that wished my
mother was dead. The other part that felt guilty for thinking
it.

“I had the things from your apartment brought
up,” Pops informed me. “Your boxing equipment, too. It’s in the
cottage. I had your punching bag put up in the guest room.”

By the tone of his voice, I
knew he’d seen the words etched into the bag. Knew he’d seen more
of me
through
them
than I wanted him to.

My eyes shot to his. “Why did you do it? Why
did you take the apartment from me? I was paying for that. On my
own. It was the first real thing I had.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Pops studied me. “You can’t
have something if you don’t appreciate it, son. Paying for it
doesn’t make it yours. It just makes it paid for.” Turning away, he
stalked into the house, his words echoing behind him, authority
etched into his shoulders.

“One summer,” Jonathan supplied
helpfully.

My eyes cut to the sky, to the slow moving
clouds overhead. “You ever felt like you were drowning even though
your head was above water?”

Before he had a chance to answer, I stomped
away, my feet carrying me to the cottage.

I was back in my mother’s world. A world of
tears. A world full of flash flood warnings where drowning was the
best case scenario.

Tansy

Turns out the
house full of pets
thing
was an understatement. Hetty didn’t just have a house full of them,
she had a
building
full. Refuge Rescue, she called it.

Her house—a modest brick home—sat nestled
between two identical gray-blocked buildings; the refuge clinic and
the fence-wrapped rescue league associated with it. An empty,
overgrown lot bordered all of it. Hetty had been offered the
residence at little cost if she agreed to manage the clinic.

“It’s convenient living near your work,”
Hetty pointed out.

Opening the back of her van, she pulled out
suitcases and bags and handed them to us.

“The whole place stinks,” Deena complained,
her fingers hovering over her nose.

The stench wasn’t as bad as the van. It was
dingy and antiseptic, a mix of bleach and medicated animal dips. At
the rescue, barking dogs pawed at the chain link fence, tongues
lolling.

A middle-aged, portly man with knee-high
rubber boots and a wide grin waved at us from behind the
barrier.

“They’ve missed you, Ms. Hetty!” he
called.

“I’ve missed them, too, Danny! And you!” she
called in return.

His smile grew, enveloping his entire face.
His features screamed childlike innocence despite his age.

I glanced at Hetty.

“He’s mentally impaired,” she informed me,
her gaze encompassing all of us. “Before any of you consider being
rude or difficult with him, I will warn you that there isn’t a
single person in this town who wouldn’t take up for that man.”

“Must love animals and retards,” Deena
mumbled, ticking off her fingers. “Got it.”

“You really like being an ass, don’t you?” I
hissed, brushing past her.

“I could just off myself,” she suggested.

I froze. “That isn’t the least bit funny,
Deena.”

“I didn’t mean it to be.”

I stared, animosity digging trenches in my
forehead, preparing for battle. “You’d want to do that? After
everything? For someone who hates her father so much, you certainly
seem inclined to be just like Dad.”

“That’s not funny,” she jeered.

“I didn’t mean it to be.”

“Is this what it’s come down to?” Hetty
asked. “Ceaseless bickering?”

Shaking his head, Jet pushed forward,
entering the house ahead of the rest of us.

The home was box-like and small. A tiny
kitchen opened into a square living room where burgundy furniture
waved at us as we slid past. A short hallway opened into four
separate bedrooms, two on the left side of the corridor and two on
the right, a bathroom between them.

Though unnervingly clean and tidy, the house
had an unmistakable quirk. Cats—lots and lots of cats—and a single
dog. The dog was a mutt, a golden retriever mix. It panted, its
amber eyes watching us. Purring, the cats rubbed against her. I
counted seven felines.

“Are you for real?” Deena asked, gesturing at
the animals.

Hetty grinned. “They’re named after the seven
dwarfs. The dog is Snow. Sue me, I’m a fairytale romantic.”

Throwing a disgusted sneer at the creatures,
Deena mumbled, “Kill me now.”

“You did know that pets can carry the bubonic
plague, right?” I asked. Or maybe that was fleas? Which still came
back to pets and rodents.

Hetty pushed the bedroom doors open, relieved
us of our suitcases, and tossed them on the beds. “There’s no
plague here.”

“Don’t you dare let them touch me!” Deena
cried. One of the cats stalked her, and she stumbled over her feet,
her shoulder slamming into the wall. Shrieking, she added, “I mean
it!”

“They’re friendly,” Hetty assured.

“I don’t care if they’re frigging angels, I
still don’t want them near me!” Deena screeched.

Hetty stared at her. “Are you afraid of
them?”

“No, they’re just dirty and … weird.”

“No more unusual than you,” Hetty pointed
out, “and they’re likely a lot cleaner.”

The dog crept to my side, her cold, wet nose
nudging my palm.

“Snow,” I whispered, smirking as I brushed my
hand over her muzzle. With her golden coat, the dog looked like ice
after it had been peed on.

My hand stilled, and Snow nudged me
again.

“This is it,” Hetty announced, changing the
subject. She gestured at the house. “It isn’t much, but with just
me and the critters, I didn’t need much.”

“It helps when you’re half animal,” Deena
mumbled.

Hetty’s gaze swung in her direction. “Are you
done with the attitude and barbed comments?”

Deena shrugged, her face impassive, but by
the look in her eyes, she knew she’d gone too far.

“We’re just getting started here, Deena,”
Hetty told her. “If you keep pushing buttons, you’ve got an
interesting few years ahead.”

When it came to family, Nana was it. Our only
choice. Dad didn’t have any remaining immediate relatives. With my
GED, I didn’t think she’d balk if I found a job and a place to go,
but Deena was stuck.

Leaning toward me, Deena hissed, “This is
shit.”

Hetty stepped away from the corridor, leaving
us alone without the privacy. Because of the house’s size, unless
you were outside, the chances of being overheard were high.

“It’s better than being with Dad,” I
replied.

“You really believe that?” Jet asked, his
lanky figure leaning against the wall.

Deena glared at him. “What
do you care,
brother
? You’re abandoning us, too.”

Spots of pink developed on his high
cheekbones. “I’m going to school.”

“It’s summer, you imbecile,” Deena spat.
“You’d just rather wile away your time doing student work on campus
than be here with us. You’re running away.”

“Shut up,” he growled.

Deena shrugged. “Truth fucking hurts, doesn’t
it?”

“Your mouth,” I warned.

She snorted. “You cuss as bad I do, Tansy,
and don’t go throwing the whole age shit at me.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You’ve done it.”

“Yeah, well that was before … all of this,” I
whispered.

Silence grew between us.

Deena’s shoulders slumped. “I’m tired.”

Jet sighed, his oily bangs lifting with the
exhale. “We all are.”

Angry tears reappeared on Deena’s reddened
cheeks. “Can I be something nobody else is for a minute? Can I say
something and it not be followed up with ‘me too’ or ‘I know how
you feel’? Can I be broken alone? Just once?” She stormed into the
bedroom and slammed the door.

When Jet attempted to follow her, my hand
flew out, snatching his arm. “Don’t. Nothing you say is going to be
okay right now. She doesn’t need your self-pity on top of
hers.”

He jerked away from me. “My self-pity?”

My eyes burned, a lump forming in my throat.
Unexpected anger spilled out of me. “You can’t stand it, Jet. You
always have to hurt worse than everyone else. You can’t stand just
letting people be. Remember when Mom died? Afterwards? The way you
screamed. The way you just checked out on us. The way you ate up
all of the attention the girls at school gave you. Like Da—”

“Don’t you dare say it!” he hollered. “Don’t
you dare fucking say it!”