I grabbed two cups of coffee and headed to the music room. She didn’t look up when I came in, so I stood and watched her.
Perhaps this was what it took to perform at her level, this single-minded focus, but to me, she didn’t even look like she was enjoying herself.
“Do you want something to eat?” I asked, grateful as the final notes echoed in the room.
“No,” she snapped, “I have to…” She looked up and flushed. I could see pale circles under her eyes. “I am so sorry. Wow. I am just. Yes. I could use a break.”
I handed her the coffee. “How long have you been practicing?” I asked.
She hesitated. “Too long? I really am sorry. I did not mean to land on your doorstep and lay claim to your piano. But it is funny. Playing the Prelude on this piano, in this room, maybe in St. Hilaire. It feels very different.”
“Yup, no one does ‘different’ as well as St. Hilaire.”
She looked at me through her lashes, and I was overwhelmed with the reality of her being here in this room with me. Not only playing my family’s piano, but that I was bringing her coffee and just…talking. I wanted it never to end.
“Thank you for this,” she said. “For the coffee. For…everything.”
“Anytime,” I said and meant it. It struck me that she could have come to St. Hilaire two years ago before I knew who she was, or a month from now, when I’d be gone. It was the first time in a long while that I felt lucky.
She gave me a quick hug that set every nerve in my body buzzing, and said, “I think I need a shower. And maybe to lie down,” and headed up the stairs.
Behind me, the door opened. “Hey, I’m guessing you didn’t get my message?” Russ called. “Alex is on his way. I’m assuming you aren’t inviting him in?”
“Hell, no,” I said, still reeling from Annie’s hug.
We stepped out on the porch. I knew I should tell him about the letter from the Guild. I’d never kept anything from Russ, but I wasn’t sure where to begin.
I put the letter out of my mind when the bright sun and the smell of my mom’s wildflower garden, now overgrown with weeds, took me somewhere else. Somewhen else. “You know what this reminds me of? Those dirt bikes.”
Russ flushed. “I always knew your dad didn’t get that second bike for free like he claimed.”
“He wanted you to have one too,” I said. It would have been nice to be able to turn back the clock to a time when we spent the bulk of our summers racing through the woods around town. None of the futures that I could imagine included the space and time for us to be able to do those kinds of things again. Russ would be in the Youth Corps and I’d be gone, or worse, here and miserable.
Our friendship felt impossibly complicated these days.
“Not putting your flag up, then?” Russ asked, shading his eyes and pointing toward the flag bracket on the front of the house.
I stared at him in shock. “Are you seriously telling me that you have?”
He shrugged. “It’s a stupid rule, I agree, but it’s just a flag. Could have been better designed, I guess.”
My reply was thankfully cut off by the Mustang screaming up the road, followed by Colin’s elderly rust-colored Nova.
When Alex got out of the car, he slammed the door hard enough to make me wince and made his way up the steps. Without a word, he held out the keys. I let Russ take them.
On the street, Colin sat in his car, waiting to drive Alex home and who knew what else. It was a bad day to be Alex Mackenzie.
“This isn’t the end,” Alex said. “It isn’t over.”
Russ held the keys in front of him. Clearly, they were heavier than they looked and as impossibly shiny as the car itself. Sunlight flew off the metal and reflected against the columns of the porch. I looked away from the lights, the way you’d look away from an eclipse. Staring at them felt dangerous.
Russ closed his hand around the keys and stuffed them into his pocket. “It seems pretty over to me,” he said.
Alex knew better than to tangle with Russ, so he leaned in to me. “We have unfinished business, Hampton. I’m planning to finish it. Consider yourself warned.”
I nodded with a rush of anticipation that made me feel both guilty and alive. Alex Mackenzie hadn’t killed my parents. But he was here and he was a pain in the ass. Those were enough for me to allow my anger to boil over. “Ian’s dead, Alex. He’s not coming back. You need to get over it.”
I’d gone for the most painful target I could, and Alex didn’t disappoint. He slammed me hard against the door frame, before I responded by barreling my fist into his face.
“Enough,” Russ said quietly. Alex and I froze as if we had no other choice. “Enough.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. I felt better after the release, but Russ was right. This wasn’t the time or place. Alex swung his head, shaking a nice amount of blood over the wooden slats. Harriet was going to be furious.
As if she knew I was thinking about her, Harriet opened the screen door with a look of disgust on her pinched face.
“I don’t want to know what this is about,” she said. “But whatever it is, it’s not going to happen on this porch.”
* * *
I watched Russ settle into the Mustang’s driver’s seat through the curtains, then I went to join Harriet in the reading room. I was surprised to find Laura and Annie there, too, huddled over cups of tea, laughing like old friends.
I felt energized. On fire. Annie was here. Russ had the Mustang. I was…leaving.
Harriet said, “I’ve been thinking…”
There was little Harriet could say that wouldn’t make me cringe, but these words were the worst of all. Harriet was always thinking. And usually she was thinking about ways to make me miserable.
“Hope you didn’t pull anything,” I said.
Harriet looked bored. “Sit down. I want to know what Clive Rice meant about the piano not being ours.”
“Who knows, Harriet? Maybe great-grandpa never paid the bill.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do I need to remind you…?”
This time, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “That you gave up hope of ever having the life you dreamed of so that you could serve as our super-reluctant legal guardian until we turn eighteen. No, I think we heard you the first ten million times.”
“Sit down, Daniel,” she repeated. “And watch your mouth. I also don’t need to tell you that you don’t want to get on my bad side.”