Kill Me If You Can

27

Through a fog of sleep, I heard Sam calling my name.

I jerked awake. “What’s wrong? What happened? Who’s here?”

“Come on. Time for church.” Sam yanked the covers off, exposing my boxer jammies and very white legs.

I tried to sit up. I crashed back onto my pillow. “I can’t go today.” Every muscle in my body screamed in protest.

“Get up. You’re going.” Sam grabbed my ankles and swung them off the edge of the bed.

I yelled my pain. “Knock it off! I’m too sore.” Yesterday, after our talk, my grandfather had saddled up Goldie. In my excitement, I’d ridden her in the round pen for hours, carefully listening to Puppa’s instructions and attempting to execute them. Now, I was paying for my enthusiasm.

“It’ll hurt worse tomorrow if you don’t move around today.”

The woman had no mercy. She sat me up and walked me down the steps, past a snoozing bodyguard, and to the bathroom where she started the shower.

“Okay, okay. I think I can take it from here.”

She shut the door behind her. I moaned as I struggled out of my nightclothes. I had no idea so many muscles were involved with riding a horse. I stayed under the spray extra long, letting the hot water relax my tendons. I toweled off and went for my toothbrush. Gone. Not like I could have found it among the jars and bottles Sam had left all over the countertop. I opened the medicine cabinet. Evidence of Sam consumed every shelf. I opened the drawer. Sam. Everywhere.

“Sam!”

How could this have happened? She’d agreed not to move my stuff.

She poked her head into the misty bathroom. “Yeah?”

“My toothbrush. Where is it?”

“Oh. I put all your stuff in that basket under the sink.”

“What do you mean? We talked about this and you agreed to leave my things alone.”

“I said I didn’t want to put you out. But by the time I got everything unpacked, there just wasn’t room for your things on the countertop and I didn’t want them to get mixed up with mine. So I stuck them underneath.”

My face must have flashed fifty shades of red. I opened and closed my mouth so many times I must have looked like a silent Tourette’s sufferer. My chest felt like a hundred-pound weight got dropped on it. Gradually, the pressure decreased. I spoke.

“Okay. Whatever, I guess.”

“Great.” Sam gave a fling of her hair and disappeared.

I opened the lower cupboard. The door smashed against the wall.

“You okay in there?” Sam called.

“Yep.” I yanked out my basket of essentials and slammed the cupboard shut.

“You all right, Tish?”

“Hunky-dory.” I brushed up and put on a dab of makeup. Finished, I stomped back to my room.

A few minutes later, I was dressed and downstairs.

“Ready?” Sam asked, looking like a knockout in her tall leather boots, short denim skirt, and white ruffled blouse. Sheesh. All I had on were tennies and jeans.

“Stand right there,” Sam said and disappeared into her room.

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. She emerged carrying a fluffy white scarf.

“Put this on. It’ll look great with that T-shirt.” She wrapped it once around my neck. “Perfect.”

I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. “Sam, this is so not me.”

“Come on. You need something that screams, ‘Here I am!’”

I stared at her. So. Brad was through with me. He was just using our friendship to help his sister. And in return, she was going to help me find a new boyfriend? Thanks, but no thanks. I didn’t need Brad. I didn’t need any man.

I pulled the scarf off. “Enough. Let’s get to church.”

“I’m driving,” Sam said, heading out the door.

“Wait a minute. I’ll drive.” I had to run to keep up with her.

“No. I want to drive. I love the highway up here. There’s no traffic. Besides, my vehicle gets better gas mileage.”

I bit my tongue and got in the front seat of the bus. The thing lurched into drive, nearly hitting the back end of Joel’s parked car. Then off we went, feeling every pothole in the road as if the tires were made of wood.

We made it to church, vertebrae intact. Once in the pew, I phased in and out of the service, too distracted by grumping ligaments to hear more than the main idea, something about loving your neighbor. If it had been about loving your roommate, I would have zoned out entirely.

Afterward, Sam flat out refused to leave without schmoozing the crowd. It seemed she had the whole coffee klatch sidling up to her, hoping for attention from those baby browns.

I stood to one side, smiling politely, wondering how I grew up to be wallflower stock, coming from a beauty like my mother.

I thought back to my conversation with my grandfather last night. We’d put Goldie back in the pasture. Above the white fences, stars popped out against the blue-black sky. The slow croak of a frog came from the direction of the lake.

“Let’s take a walk, Patricia,” Puppa had said.

We crossed the lawn and took the shore.

“I want to tell you about your mother.” Rocks clicked under our feet. “She came into our lives like a beam of light shining through a wall of death. Jacob had lost his mom so young. I’d done my best, but it was tough going. Raising him required skills I didn’t have.” He rubbed at his temple. “By the time Jake was a teenager, he was out of control. He met your mom at a community-college dorm party. She was a student, he was tagging along with friends. I’m not sure what she saw in him, but there’s no doubt she was in love.”

I tried imagining my parents slow-dancing in a crush of college-aged kids.

Puppa continued. “She did everything for him. Even pretended she’d been driving when he crashed into a tree. She took a ticket for careless driving that night. But Jake had been drunker than a skunk.” He shook his head. “They were both lucky to walk out of it alive.”

My grandfather stopped and stared at the bay. The moon’s reflection swam on the water. “Jake was a better person when your mother was around. But he couldn’t stop the drugs. He grew marijuana right here on my land. Every summer I’d take out the gas torch and destroy any I found. I was a cop, for heaven’s sake. What was he thinking?”

He turned and trekked back toward the house. I stayed beside him, careful of my footing in the near-darkness.

He finally spoke. “Then news got around that she was pregnant. I told him to marry her, but Jake had been in trouble with his ring boss. Got the headlights on his new truck smashed out. They’d even threatened Beth. She’d had enough. She was going to run on account of the baby. But I convinced her to stay. Bribed is more like it. But I didn’t care. You came along and soon Candice was in my life. It was heaven on earth. But Jake couldn’t keep clean. I cut a deal with his associates, my own brother one of them, to get Jake out of the loop. It cost me my job when the captain found out.”

We walked silent before he started up again.

“Jake was out of the ring, but the higher-ups didn’t like him running loose. If he ever decided to talk, more than one neck would hang. Next thing you know—”

“Tish. Hello? Are you going to stand there daydreaming or are you going to get in on our jam session?” Samantha’s voice pierced the cloud around my brain.

“Jam session? I’m not hungry.”

Sam laughed like I’d just told the funniest joke she’d ever heard. “You crack me up. Come on. We’re meeting at the altar.”

She dragged me down the aisle like a reluctant bride.

I looked around at the group huddled on the riser. A couple of guitars, a stand-up bass, a piano player, some fiddles . . . I looked down at my hands. And a pair of maracas.

I shook my rattles to the beat, hoping if I put on a good enough show they’d let me go home.

They were singing some song I’d never heard of. In my mind, I snuck back down to the beach with my grandfather.

We cut across the lawn toward the house. A few windows glowed with lights. What had Puppa been saying? Oh, yeah.

“Jake was out of the ring,” Puppa explained, “but the higher-ups didn’t like him running loose. If he ever decided to talk, more than one neck would hang. Next thing you know, my brother Sid and Candice’s husband Paul are stinking up the sky in that big fire. They’d been the ones covering for Jake all those years. When she heard about their deaths, Beth panicked that the goon squad would be after Jake next. He’d been keeping a low profile. But they’d been keeping an eye on Beth, figuring sooner or later, she’d lead them to Jacob. I was the one stupid enough to tell her where he was.”

“Gosh, that was fun.” Samantha’s voice broke into the dead-of-night drama playing out in my head.

The maracas left my hands and I stumbled clueless after Sam. We got back in the VW and were at the cider mill before I even realized we’d left the church.

“Yeah. That was a good time,” I said.

“Tish, are you okay? I said how fun it was back at the church, and I feel like you’re just now responding.”

I looked at her. Her brow was scrunched with concern.

“Wow. I’m sorry. My brain is definitely somewhere else.”

“I can tell. You’ve been a zombie all morning. Anything you want to talk about?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I’ve just got a lot of thinking to do.”

“The offer’s always open,” she said.

Back at the lodge, Joel had fixed lunch. We took turkey sandwiches and lemonade out to the lakeshore. When we finished eating, Hannah splashed around in the cool water of Valentine’s Bay. Next to her, Melissa dipped Andrew’s toes under the surface, earning screams of laughter.

Watching them, my smile broadened. The frolicking children and happy adults were just what I had in mind when I bought this place.

I only wished I didn’t have to sell it, even more so after Olivia’s guilt trip about the property belonging to her father, my great-great-grandpa, and a Belmont, no less.

There would only be a drop of money left over after I fixed this place up, especially after the new heating system consumed its share. But if I got a job at the Grille with Samantha, I should be able to cover the taxes, mortgage, and bills. I’d have to shop at Goodwill for the rest of my life, but who cared? I’d be close to what was left of my family. And besides, Sam seemed to love her job. I was sure I would too.

As I made my plans, a nervous spasm shot across my chest. But inside my heart, I felt at peace.