My mind races, caught between wanting to let it go and wanting to process how everything happened. Mirai is here every day. If I didn’t find them, she would’ve. Why didn’t they wait until I’d gone back to school next week? Did they even remember I was in the house?
I let my head fall back against the wall and lay my arms over my bent knees, closing my burning eyes.
They didn’t leave me a note.
They dressed up. They put the dog out. They scheduled Mirai to come late this morning, instead of early.
They didn’t write me a note.
Their closed door looms ahead of me, and I open my eyes, staring across my bedroom, through my open door, down the long hallway, and to their room at the other end of the hall.
The house sounds the same.
Nothing has changed.
But just then, a small buzz whirs from somewhere, and I blink at the faint sound, dread bringing me back to reality. What is that?
I thought I turned off my phone.
Reporters know to field requests for comment through my parents’ representatives, but that doesn’t stop the greedy ones—of which most are—from digging up my personal cell number.
I reach up, pawing for my phone on my desk, but when I press the Power button I see that it’s still off.
The buzzing continues, and just as realization dawns, my heart skips a beat.
My private cell. The one buried in my drawer.
Only my parents and Mirai had that number. It was a phone for them to reach me if anything was urgent, since they knew I turned off my other one a lot.
They never used that number though, so I never kept it on me anymore.
Pushing up on my knees, I reach into my desk drawer and pull the old iPhone off its charger and fall back to the floor, looking at the screen.
Colorado. I don’t know anyone in Colorado.
This phone never gets calls though. It could be a reporter who somehow tracked down the phone, but then it’s not registered under my name, so I doubt it.
I answer it. “Hello?”
“Tiernan?”
The man’s voice is deep, but there’s a lilt of surprise in it like he didn’t expect me to answer.
Or he’s nervous.
“It’s Jake Ver der Berg,” he says.
Jake Van der Berg…
“Your Uncle Jake Van der Berg.”
And then I remember. “My father’s…？”
“Brother,” he finishes for me. “Step-brother, actually, yes.”
I completely forgot. Jake Van der Berg had rarely been mentioned in this house. I didn’t grow up with any relatives, so I’d completely blanked on the fact that I had one.
My mother grew up in foster care, never knew her father, and had no siblings. My dad only had an estranged, younger step-brother I’d never met. I had no aunts, uncles, or cousins growing up, and my father’s parents were dead, so I didn’t have grandparents, either.
There’s only one reason he’s calling me after seventeen years.
“Um,” I mumble, searching for words. “My mother’s assistant will be handling the funeral arrangements. If you need the details, I don’t have them. I’ll give you her number.”
“I’m not coming to the funeral.”
I still for a moment. His voice is on edge.
And he hasn’t offered condolences for “my loss,” which is unusual. Not that I need them, but why is he calling, then? Does he think my father wrote him into his will?
Honestly, he might have. I have no idea.
But before I can ask him what he wants, he clears his throat. “Your father’s attorney called me earlier, Tiernan,” he tells me. “Since I’m your only living relative, and you’re still underage, your parents apparently left you in my care.”
In his care?
Apparently. Sounds like this is news to him, too.
I don’t need anyone’s care.
He continues, “You’ll be eighteen in a couple months, though. I’m not going to force you to do anything, so don’t worry.”
Okay. I hesitate for a moment, not sure if I feel relieved or not. I didn’t have time to process the reminder that I wasn’t a legal adult, and what that meant now that my parents were gone, before he assured me that it wouldn’t mean anything. My life won’t change.
Fine.
“I’m sure, growing up in that life,” he says, “you’re a hell of a lot more world-wise than we are and can take pretty good care of yourself by now anyway.”
“We?” I murmur.
“My sons and I,” he says. “Noah and Kaleb. They’re not much older than you, actually. Maybe a few years.”