Her All Along Read online

  Minutes later, I stepped out on the porch and sat down on the top of the two steps.

  It was a shame, because I liked this neighborhood.

  The fishermen would be back in a couple hours, after which the silence would be filled with faint sounds of seagulls. My quiet street was about two minutes from the marina, and I lived in a modest Victorian house I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to afford on a teacher’s salary. However, if a teacher married an attorney, he might find himself surrounded by picket fences, manicured lawns, and perfectly painted shutters.

  One of the neighborhood kids mowed our lawn. Our shutters were some pastel blue. I’d become one of the people I’d envied as a child, and ironically, my envy couldn’t have been more misplaced. A fucking apple tree in the front yard didn’t make me happier.

  No, it was time for me to start new elsewhere.

  Even though I was only a teacher, I worked at a private academy and made more than chump change. Getting a mortgage wouldn’t be too difficult, although I wouldn’t be able to live in this specific neighborhood. But I wouldn’t have to leave the Downtown district entirely.

  I flipped through the pages I’d printed and saw several places not too far from here.

  Did I really want a house, though? Maybe I should venture south to the Valley and find an apartment. But then I’d have an extra twenty minutes to and from work every day.

  I was a bit spoiled in that area. Many around here commuted between our town and Seattle, approximately two hours south of Camassia. Even Vancouver was closer than Seattle. And here I was, reluctant to commute between two neighborhoods in the same town.

  I sipped my coffee and stopped at a familiar house that needed some work. Or a lot of it. It was nearby, on the other side of the playground behind my street.

  I had over two months off starting tomorrow…

  I’d seen this listing months ago, and I was sure it’d been set at a higher price back then. Hmm. Two bedrooms upstairs. Everything had to be repainted; new floors needed to be installed. The kitchen was severely outdated, as were both bathrooms. But so what? I could fix it up, couldn’t I? It was within my budget, and I’d get to stay close to the marina.

  Most people wanted something that was perfectly restored. Free of cracks and dents.

  I chose to see the potential in things that were broken.

  They just needed some care.

  This one might actually result in a profit in the end too. The house was on a good street, in a good school district, and it had the same theme as the rest of this part of town. Victorian, older, idyllic. When all was said and done, it could look much like my current house—only smaller. We had four bedrooms here, which weren’t necessary. Four bedrooms belonged to couples with dreams of future children, and I hadn’t been one of those people in a long time.

  If ever. Not with her.

  In retrospect, I knew I’d set up goals within my marriage that would make me look normal. I’d wanted things that allowed me to blend in and be one of the many. I’d aimed to have what I’d grown up wishing for.

  I decided to check out the run-down house tomorrow.

  Taking another swig of my coffee, I replaced the listings with the paper—only to remember I didn’t have to go through the headlines today. I had a graduation ceremony to attend, no classes. I wouldn’t be peering into the dead eyes of new seniors until August.

  The only students I enjoyed teaching were the AP students and the underprivileged kids the academy recruited from Camas High. Which was the first school I’d taught at, however briefly. Camas was a low-income neighborhood adjacent to Downtown, just ten minutes south of here, and it was where I’d grown up. A place I didn’t like returning to. Too many memories.

  “Oh hi, Mister!”

  Jesus. I almost spilled my coffee, and my heart jumped.

  As I refolded the paper and set down my coffee, I cast a glance toward the fence just as Pipsqueak left her front yard and headed to mine. She offered a sleepy grin while she opened the gate to my yard.

  “You’re up early,” she noted.

  I couldn’t say I was pleased with the interruption, but I wasn’t going to be an ass to Darius’s little sister. She wasn’t more than twelve.

  “So are you.”

  She scratched her messy bed head and plopped down next to me. She was wearing My Little Pony PJs.

  “It’s too hot to sleep in my room.” She shrugged. “Dad’s gonna fix my ceiling fan this weekend.”

  “Nice.” I side-eyed her, wondering if she was here to stay. I actually didn’t mind her—or her sister, who was a year older. They were both autistic, and I could always count on them for honesty. Sometimes, it was wrapped up in a brick and delivered straight into my face, but hey.

  “You look old today,” she said, scrunching her nose.

  Kind of like that.

  “Thanks.” I frowned to myself and lifted my mug again.

  She just sat there and looked out over my yard, drumming her fingers along her knees.

  She visited sometimes, randomly like this, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with her quirks. There were also the times her folks invited me over for dinner. The Quinns had half adopted me over the years, starting when I’d met Jake in college. He was quite a few years older than me and had been in the middle of switching career paths. He’d wanted to teach too, but then 9/11 changed everything, and he enlisted in the Army. Then I’d happened to move in next door to their folks, and I’d met the rest of the loud, crazy family.

  “Should we chitchat?” Pipsqueak asked curiously.

  My mouth twitched. “Do you have something to say?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t prepare anything.”

  Well, then.

  Actually, I had a question of my own. “Do you have summer school this year?”

  She shook her head. “Willow does, though.” That was her sister. Willow was nonverbal around strangers, so I was pleased to hear she would be attending classes. It was all in preparation for the coming semester, essentially helping her keep her anxiety at bay. Neither one of them was behind in any way, but they required some extra easing into new things. “She thinks her teacher sucks,” she added.

  “Your sister thinks everyone sucks.”

  Pipsqueak snickered. “She does. But she gets new teachers after the summer. Maybe they will be better.”

  Holy shit, already? Christ. She was right. Willow was starting high school this fall. That was nuts.

  I felt old.

  “Are you coming over on Saturday?” she asked next. “We’re going to move my birthday party so Jake can be there.”

  I inclined my head. “Darius invited me.” Though, I hadn’t known it would be a birthday shindig. I thought we were just having dinner to see Jake off.

  “Good! I’m becoming a teenager. I’m ready, I think.” Then she peered down into her pajama top, causing my eyebrows to lift. “I hope I get boobs soon.”

  I coughed and drank from my coffee. Okay, I didn’t mind talking to her, but I wasn’t equipped to handle any coming-of-age topics. Besides, she shouldn’t be in a hurry. When girls became women, they lost their innocence and turned into manipulative bitches.

  “Savor your childhood, Pipsqueak. You’ll never get it back.”

  She made a noise. “You can’t call me that anymore. I’m starting seventh grade soon! It’s Elise.”

  I barely refrained from rolling my eyes.

  She’d been Pipsqueak since the first day Jake introduced me to his family. She’d hidden behind her father at first, then tentatively approached and stuck her hand out for me to shake, and she’d chirped, “Hello, Mister-Jake’s-friend-Avery.”

  I didn’t know what aged me ten years that day, the graduation ceremony and all the chirpy WASPs, or the night out with Darius and Jake.

  Either way, I woke up on Saturday morning feeling like shit. With the hangover from hell, I stumbled down the stairs and wondered if Angie was around. She was sleeping in the guest room lately, whi
ch was empty now, and I had alternated between our bedroom and the living room couch, depending on my mood.

  I came to a stop in the hallway before I could enter the kitchen.

  Something was missing.

  Angie’s three graduation photos from the wall were gone.

  Then I peered into the living room and furrowed my brow.

  Seriously?

  The shelves where we’d had all the DVDs were empty. Most of the pictures were missing, aside from a few that were shattered on the floor. Knickknacks, gone. Her ugly old afghan was gone from the couch. TV was still there. So was my PlayStation.

  She had left, hadn’t she?

  And she’d taken my goddamn DVDs with her.

  I stalked out to the kitchen where she always left notes in case she—yep, there was a note waiting for me on the kitchen island.

  You win. We’ll go fifty-fifty on the sale of the house. I can’t fight anymore. I don’t even want to look at you. I’ll be staying with a friend until my apartment is ready. Don’t call. We’ll leave this to the lawyers.

  Oh, fine by me.

  Curious that she called this my win. It may have been her credit score and salary that’d landed us this mortgage, but I’d paid as much as she had. Going fifty-fifty when we sold the house wasn’t me winning; it was just what was fucking fair.

  Another raging whore bites the dust.

  I wouldn’t miss her for shit.

  One thing was clear, though. I was done with relationships. Women couldn’t be trusted.

  I showed up at the Quinns’ house at three with a bottle of whiskey for Jake and a Barnes & Noble gift card for Pipsqueak. She was always reading something.

  Lias, the youngest of the five brothers, opened the door for me, and I was surprised to see him at first.

  “Long time, no see, buddy. How’s the East Coast?” I asked and entered the house.

  “Boring?” He chuckled and shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t tell you that I’m kinda failing my economics class.”

  “Ugh.” I clutched my heart with my free hand. “You were doing so well.” I’d never had him in any of my classes. He’d gone to high school down here in Downtown, but I’d helped him study for many tests over the years. “Do your best to get through,” I advised. “You’re picking your major soon, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’m looking into hospitality management.”

  That could work. He was an outgoing guy with good manners buried underneath the ten layers of hell-raising that came with being a Quinn.

  “I can see it,” I said with a nod. “Just keep trying, and you have my email and number if you need help.”

  He grinned sheepishly. “Thanks, man.”

  “No problem.” I followed him out toward the loud voices in the backyard. I’d been told it would just be a small get-together, but that was a relative term around this family.

  I spotted the usual suspects in the seating area out on the lawn; Darius had Pipsqueak perched on his lap, and Jake and Ethan looked to be comforting Willow.

  The patio held plenty of people, some of whom I recognized. James and Mary, who had somehow managed to raise all these Irish hellions, then a few aunts, uncles, one very old grandmother, and cousins. James was manning the grill, of course.

  Mary was talking to someone, laughing, and I caught her making the sign of the cross, something she often did in a “God help us” kind of way.

  I went through some polite hellos before I managed to make it out to the lawn.

  “Hi, Mister!” Pipsqueak sang.

  “Hey, birthday girl.” I mustered a faint smile and handed her the little envelope.

  “For me?” She blushed and wouldn’t make direct eye contact. Then she whispered something in Darius’s ear, and he rumbled a chuckle.

  I turned my attention to Jake as he stood up, visibly concerned about Willow. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say she was upset because he was leaving. They were very close. Right now, though, Ethan seemed to be calming her down.

  “Make sure you come back to us in one piece, my friend.” I extended the whiskey bottle and squeezed his shoulder.

  “That’s the goal.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with his smile. “Thanks, Ave.” He cleared his throat and eyed the label of the bottle. “Can I have a word?”

  I knitted my brows together. “Of course.”

  We walked over to a vacant patch on the lawn, and he appeared to struggle a bit with what he was going to say.

  “Everything all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Just—” He glanced at the others over his shoulder, then faced me again. “With Ryan in Iraq, Darius heading to Lebanon, and me going to Afghanistan, it’s gonna be pretty empty here for a while. Plus, Lias goes back to school in the fall.”

  I nodded with a dip of my chin. “I’ll be here. I’ll help Ethan check in on the girls.”

  His hazel eyes flashed with relief. “I appreciate it, buddy. Cheers.”

  “Don’t mention it.” If there was one family I cared for, it was this one.

  They were the exception that proved the rule. Happily married parents, five brothers who were all close, and the two girls their folks had adopted about seven or eight years ago—two girls who now had all the brothers wrapped around their pinkie fingers.

  “Hey, maybe you don’t re-up next time,” I suggested foolishly. “Make this your last tour and come home so I can mock you when you get your ass back to school.”

  He smirked. “I’d make one hell of a math teacher.”

  “A wet dream for certain students and the mothers, that’s for sure,” I muttered. He was about my height at six-two, maybe six-three, but he had muscles in places I didn’t know they could exist.

  He let out a laugh and clapped me on the back. “I don’t know.” The humor faded into a low chuckle, and he scratched the back of his head. “I can’t imagine starting over again. I’ll be forty in a few years. Can you believe that shit?”

  “I mean, you could focus on being thirty-five for a while first.”

  He lifted a shoulder and shifted where he stood so he could look over at his brothers and sisters. Lias and his girlfriend, Evelina, had joined them now too.

  “Still,” he murmured. “I reckon a few of us were born to be grunts.”

  I didn’t believe that for a second. I didn’t want to.

  I knew their father was an old Army soldier, but he was bothered by so many of his boys going off to fight wars too.

  “So, Darius is going to Lebanon, huh?” That was more than he’d told me last night. I believed his exact words had been “a four-month stint in Europe’s backyard.”

  “You didn’t hear that from me.” Jake smirked.

  Sure, sure.

  My phone buzzed in the pocket of my slacks as Jake asked me how everything was going with the divorce, and I replied as I checked my messages.

  “It’s going as expected…” I trailed off when I saw the message was from my mother. It immediately shot a bout of nausea into me, and bile crawled up my throat. Oh God, no.

  kgdjfs

  She didn’t fucking know how to send text messages; she was too deranged, too frail, and her fingers shook incessantly, so this was how she reminded me of her existence.

  Another popped up.

  Ldwlweo4

  “You okay, Ave?”

  I swallowed hard and nodded shortly, hurriedly pocketing my phone. “Yes. Let’s enjoy the barbecue.” I had to clear my throat repeatedly and push down the anxiety that threatened to surface. It was slapped into place, like a vise around my chest that sent radiating bolts of pain down my arm and numbed my fingers.

  Three

  “Good morning!” Pipsqueak closed the gate after herself and trailed up the path to my house. She didn’t arrive empty-handed, I noted.

  I eyed her, tired as fuck. “Morning.”

  I’d gotten approximately two hours of sleep last night, and I hadn’t even bothered bringing the paper outside with me. Holding the coffee mug
and inhaling the caffeine was about all I could handle this predawn morning.

  “I thought your dad was going to fix your ceiling fan,” I said.

  “He did!” She sat down next to me and smiled. “I just crashed very early last night. Aunt Britt and I made lemonade all day. Want some?” She held up one of those old-fashioned glass bottles. “It’s strawberry, pineapple, and lemon.”

  I forced a slight smile and shook my head. “I’m good, thanks.” I took a sip of my coffee instead.

  This week was going to age me further.

  I’d held out all of June, but my mother’s texts were tumbling in at all hours of the day at this point. I had to go see her if I wanted her to stop. Or at least, I hoped she’d stop. Last time I’d tried, she hadn’t gotten the goddamn message.

  “Why do people lie?”

  I frowned, giving Pipsqueak my attention. “Who’s lying?”

  “My uncle,” she replied frankly. “Mom says he’s lying to Aunt Britt about something. They’re all sad.”

  I had to admit I enjoyed it when Pipsqueak came over sometimes. It was strangely easy to talk to this kid, but to give her advice she might carry with her into adulthood was fucking terrifying. I couldn’t go there.

  I could say one thing, though. “This is why you shouldn’t hurry to grow up. Adults are ten times worse than children.” I pointed to her bottle. “Stick to dolls, school, and making lemonade with your aunt. Because when you’re a grown-up, all that is gone.”

  And you were left with the thieves, abusers, cheaters, and liars.

  They’d turned me into one who was just like them.

  She pursed her lips and set down the bottle between us. “I don’t play with dolls, just so you know.” She released the two braids she’d no doubt slept in and started combing her fingers through her dark hair. “Willow and I stopped doing that over a year ago. We’re not losers.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Don’t do that, Elise.”

  She straightened and widened her green eyes. “Do what? And you used my name.”

  “Because I’m serious,” I told her. “You wouldn’t be a loser if you played with dolls.”