“Okay.”
She’s just trying to help. She’s just trying to make sense of this with me.
I gripped the top of the doorframe, squeezed my eyes shut, and pushed out a breath. Then, I turned around to face her, still sitting on the bed where I’d left her.
“You don’t know my mother the way I do,” I said, my voice quiet and gravelly. “And I can understand wanting to believe that she’d say that stuff for a reason other than being stoned out of her mind. I get wanting to believe that she might actually love—” My voice cracked beneath the heaving weight of a pulsing need to cry, and I cleared my throat, pinching my nose and willing those feelings away. “She’s incapable of loving anything, Ray. That’s how she is, how she’s always been.”
Ray barely nodded, could hardly look at me. Couldn’t even blink without letting one rogue tear slip over her cheek. At first, I thought that tear was evidence of pain I had inflicted, and I hated it. I hated myself for speaking harshly, for snapping and bringing forth memories of her past.
But then, when she got to her feet, squeezed her eyes shut, and propelled forward until her arms were around my waist and her cheek was pressed to my chest, I realized she wasn’t upset with me at all.
She was upset for me.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, pressing her lips to my skin.
I touched my chin to the top of her head and held her body to mine. “Don’t be.”
“Well, I am anyway.”
She squeezed my waist, and my hands flattened on her back, pressing her to me closer, harder. Wishing I possessed the ability to make her atoms fuse with mine.
“How much time do you have before work?” I asked, hating that she had to leave at all.
She lifted her arm from my waist to check her watch. “About an hour.”
I tipped my head so that my lips touched her hair. “Okay. I’m jumping in the shower really quick, and then I’m making breakfast.”
She smiled against my chest. “I’ll wake Noah up.”
I watched her leave the room as my mother’s voice lingered in my head. “I love you,” she had said for the first time maybe ever, and, God, how I wanted to believe it.
But, like I had told Ray, I wasn’t sure Diane Mason was capable of loving anything—apart from her little pink pills. And I had to convince myself that was okay; I’d been convincing myself of that for most of my life.
And besides, as long as I had the love of Ray, I didn’t need my mom.
I’d never really had her to begin with.
***
The eggs sizzled in the pan as the bread hung out in the toaster, getting ready to pop up and scare the shit out of me at any moment.
Ray sat at the table with Noah, having a conversation about him helping her at the library for the next couple of days until his grandparents got back from their trip to the Poconos.
Eleven played with the dangling ends of my shoelaces, startling every few seconds when the bacon crackled and popped.
Nothing was out of the ordinary. Everything was good. Everything seemed exactly as it should. Yet a cloud of foreboding hung over my head, the same one that had brought that single crow to accompany us on our walk to the beach just the day before. An eerie feeling of unease, the notion that something was about to go wrong …
Maybe things are simply too good, I considered just as the toast popped up, making me gasp and jump.
Ray laughed. “Every single time.”
“Motherfucker,” I muttered, chuckling lightly as I grabbed the four slices of toast and popped two more in.
That’s what it is. I’m just not used to things being this good.
But Seth is out there. Levi is too. And those calls from Mom …
I had told Ray those calls were nothing. I had told her she was just obviously having a bad high. But … what if I’d been too quick to dismiss Ray’s concerns? What if I was wrong and something had—
The sound of a car door closing tore my attention away from the eggs and bacon. I looked up through the kitchen window to find a car parked outside my house, one I didn’t recognize.
Then came the footsteps, crunching over the gravel path to the steps.
“Ray, keep an eye on the food,” I said, already on my way to the door.
My stomach somersaulted with every nauseating flop as I wondered who was showing up at my door at eight o’clock in the morning on a Wednesday.
I opened the door before the visitors could knock, and when I did, my eyes met those of a ghost from the past.
“Soldier Mason?”
I swallowed at my dry throat before I could convince my tongue and lips to reply.
“Officer Sam Lewis.”
The man wasn’t dressed in the uniform I remembered, and there were more lines etched into his otherwise baby-like face. But he was the same man I remembered from over a decade ago—there was no doubt about that. But why he was standing at my door now, I couldn’t begin to imagine.
“You remember me,” he stated with a reluctant curl to one side of his mouth.
“I could never forget the guy who slapped the cuffs on right before he stuffed me into the back of his squad car.”
Officer Sam chuckled, a hint of sadness in the sound. “No, I guess not.”
My eyes left him to survey the man standing beside him. A little younger, a little thinner. Not nearly as friendly-looking as Officer Sam.
“What can I do for you guys?”
Officer Sam tipped his head, casting his gaze behind me, then offered a small smile to Ray … or maybe it was Noah.
“Um, this is my partner, Detective Miller,” he said, addressing the man beside him. “I was hoping we could maybe come in and chat for a few minutes.”
I glanced at Detective Miller, who was already staring right back at me with a glare I was sure he thought was menacing. “Sure … as long as you don’t mind watching me eat my breakfast.”
“Not at all,” Officer Sam said.
“Great.”
I opened the door fully, allowing the two men inside. They wiped their feet respectfully against the mat, then followed me to the table, where Ray was suspiciously watching as she laid the full plates on the table.
“Soldier?” Her eyes volleyed from me to the officers behind me. “What’s going on?”
“Ray, this is my old friend, Officer Sam Lewis—”
“Actually, it’s, uh … it’s Detective Sam Lewis now,” he quietly interjected with a smile, one I returned.
“Hey, good for you, man. Congratulations.”
He laughed easily, concealing the unmistakable glint of dread in his eyes. “Thanks.”
I sat down as I said to both her and Noah—who, I noticed, hadn’t spoken a word since I’d opened the door—”Detective Lewis and his partner, Detective Miller, came by to chat while we eat.” I tried not to let it show that my nerves were warning me against eating altogether. “Detectives, this is my girlfriend, Ray, and her son, Noah.”
“Ma’am,” Detective Miller greeted, speaking for the first time since they’d arrived and nodding his chin toward Ray.
“Nice to meet you, Ray,” Detective Sam said before offering his hand to Noah. “How’re you doing, pal?”
Noah glanced at me, his eyes full of suspicion and uncertainty, but I nodded my assurance. Letting him know that he could trust these guys. That, no matter why they were here, they meant him and his mother no harm.