“It’s Dakota now?” I ask, which really does sound bitchy as hell, but I can’t seem to help it.
There’s a long moment of silence as I carry the clothes over to the dresser and put them in one of the center drawers. My stuff looks so weird in here, a total disconnect from the space-age light fixtures, the wall of windows, and the cold white walls. But at least I feel like I’ve gotten a small part of myself back.
“I’m happy to call you Dakota, so long as you behave in an appropriate manner.”
I grit my teeth against the grating nature of her comment. Behave in an appropriate manner? You mean, just sit there and listen to her call my grandparents monsters on live TV? Or thank her for smashing my phone to pieces in the sink?
I promised I would try here. I promised. I fucking promised. To be quite honest, that’s the only reason I’m still here, that I’m putting in any effort at all. Because my family asked me to, because I might put my grandparents and Saffron at risk if I don’t appease Tess somewhat.
Because I am still a petty teenager sometimes, I unwrap a large, framed photo, grab a nail and hammer from my toolbox (my grandma always preached that it was important for women to learn to fix things themselves) and purposely head over to the pristine bit of white wall between my dresser and the windows.
“Dakota,” Tess starts, and I’m not sure what, exactly, she’s going to say, because I start hammering the nail into the perfect wall. I can practically feel her cringing behind me as I check the stability of it, and then hang the photo of me, Maxine, and Saffron right there in plain view.
“Yes?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder innocently.
Tess sighs, reaching up to adjust her glasses. Her hair is in a messy bun, tendrils hanging loosely around her face. One thing I’ve noticed about authors is how one minute, they act like they own the world. The next, they’re crying and talking about how their work is garbage and everyone hates them. At least, that’s what I heard when I sneaked down to the kitchen last night for a snack, Tess crying to Paul with her office door cracked. She looks like she’s still in the second mode right now, the crying one.
“That’s a beautiful photo,” she says, surprising me. I accidentally drop the hammer on the floor I’m so startled, leaving a dent in the bamboo. Tess blanches slightly, reaching up to tug on the neckline of her sweater with a single finger. The logo on the front of the sweater is from some author event in Australia; I remember following her on Insta, just so I wouldn’t miss the photos she was posting.
Feels like a million years ago, to be honest.
“Thanks,” I reply belatedly, moving onto a box of books and pulling them out in fat stacks to line the bookshelf I got at an antique show.
“We could get you a Kindle, if you don’t like reading on your phone,” Tess suggests gently which is nice, but also shows how little she knows me.
“I enjoy print,” I tell her, looking up and then feeling my cheeks blush a bit. “Also, these were Saffron’s books when she was a kid. I found them in the attic, and she said I could have them.”
“Maybe that was before … all of this?” Tess suggests gently as I narrow my eyes. “If they’re keepsakes, she might want them back now.”
“Because she had no idea I wasn’t her bio daughter until recently?” I quip, continuing to unpack the books. There’s an entire set of first edition Harry Potter paperbacks in here, and I smile, touching the spines. Millennials fucking love Harry Potter, don’t they? I have fond memories of Saffron reading these to me as a kid during this rare two-month stint where she lived with us. “She gave these to me, knowing what she’d done. Besides, a gift is something you give without asking for anything in return.”
I put the Harry Potter books on the top shelf before grabbing another box labelled Books #2. As soon as I open it and grab a stack, I realize my mistake.
It’s an entire stack of Tess Vanguard novels. Some of them are signed. Some of them I have in more than one cover, because I collect like that, and I couldn’t bear not to have all the editions. The blood drains from my face, and I feel suddenly like I’m naked in front of an entire stadium of people.
I look up and our eyes meet. I haven’t told Tess that I used to like her books, that I read Abducted Under a Noonday Sun so many times that the binding fell apart on my first copy. It’s in a plastic bag at the bottom of this very box, waiting to be unpacked.
“Did you know that this room has been empty since we moved in?” Tess asks softly, her eyes dropping to the books in my hands. My own are shaking, even though I try to tell them to stop, will them to, beg them to. They shake anyway. “We’ve lived here … gosh, almost a decade now.”
It’s too late, now that Tess has seen the books, so I shelve them beside the Harry Potter set where they’ve always rested, right on the top shelf. Who cares if she knows I like her work? That doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t. Because she told me that her writing isn’t art, that it’s just about money, so who cares? I feel no connection to her, none. None at all.
Lie.
Maybe … maybe I did want to find a connection with Tess? Maybe, because Saffron was barely a mother to me at all, I thought I found one in Tess Vanguard? But she’s making it so hard, so fucking hard on me. We just don’t understand each other at all.
I stay standing, one hand on the edge of a hardcover novel titled Fleeing Under a Summer Rain. Tess likes themes in her titles, obviously. This one she claims is a work of pure fiction, but it’s about an ex who mistreats his wife and daughter, so the wife flees with their kid in tow. She subsequently dies, but her daughter, despite being raised by her mother’s murderer, discovers the truth.
The end is fucking tragic, the daughter stabbing her father and killing him.
I shiver and bend back down to dig in the box. It’s mostly Tess novels in here, unfortunately, so I pretend to get fixated on an old game system that was packed beside the books. I won’t let her see the shredded copy of Abducted Under a Noonday Sun. It’s too personal, and she isn’t allowed to see it. She hasn’t earned it.
Tess stands up, and I figure she’s going to leave without answering her own question.
“It’s been empty, and it’s stayed empty,” she continues finally, and I focus really, really hard on that game system, pretending to clean dust from all the nooks and crannies with the end of my hoodie sleeve.
“I left it empty for you.” I go completely still, but I don’t look up. I can’t. Tess’ voice is too soft, and I don’t think I can look at her right now. I’m so conflicted, hating her one minute, wishing I could love her the next. “Because I knew I would find you one day. I wanted you to have the nicest room in the house, with the best view. And I was willing to sacrifice everything to make sure that happened.”
She leaves, but she doesn’t close the door. I sit there for a long time, too long maybe, but when I look up finally, I see that Parrish is watching from his own doorway.
My blood chills slightly, and I wet my lips.
“Did you hear that?” I ask, wishing that he didn’t, that he hadn’t.
He just keeps staring at me. Everything about his face, about the way she’s slouching against the doorjamb says he doesn’t care. But his fists? They’re clenched tight by his sides.