The Best I Could (9 page)

He shoved the cigarette he held back in his
pocket. “What’s jaded you? Aren’t women obsessed with romance?”

“I told you about my dad, remember?” I
swallowed hard. “He died because he couldn’t exist without my mom.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die because I can’t make it
without someone. I don’t want to hold on so tight to someone that
everything else just doesn’t matter.”

Eli gazed at me, his face and body immobile.
“Makes sense I guess,” he said finally.

A light switched on in my grandmother’s
house. Eli stepped back, sinking into the shadows.

A door opened. “You coming in soon, Tansy?”
my grandmother called. “You’re going to get eaten alive by
mosquitoes out there.”

“Yeah,” I answered, my gaze on the shadowed
lot. “I’m coming.”

Hetty retreated, the door clicking shut
behind her. Eli remained in the shadows.

“You working at the rescue tomorrow?” I
asked.

A lighter flared, highlighting the hard
ridges of his face. The cigarette from before dangled from his
mouth. Puffing on it, he removed it.

“I’m helping out at a boxing club in town.
Training troubled youth.”

“Boxing? One of those things you’re into,
right?”

“Yeah.” He was silent, and then, “You know
that sister of yours should really consider it. All of that
rage—”

“By fighting?” I interrupted. “How does that
help? She’s already angry. She doesn’t need to learn how to hit
someone.”

Eli stepped back into the light. “It’s not
like that. It’s a way to channel the anger in the right kind of
environment. Trust me, boxing helps. I’d be in a lot more trouble
if I didn’t do it.”

I studied him. He wasn’t broad the way some
guys were, the kind of guys that lived in gyms. He was lean, his
body honed but not fake honed. He looked fit in a fast, ‘I can take
a punch and deliver it’ kind of way.

My eyes dropped to his fingers. “You should
probably quit smoking then. Can’t be good for your breathing.”

He smiled, and then exhaled smoke. “I’m
working on it.”

“Looks like it.”

Behind me, another light switched on.

Eli walked backward. “Think about it … with
your sister.”

I took a step back, the distance growing
between us. “You’re going to be okay, right?” It was the same
question he’d asked me on the hospital roof.

He laughed. “You’re not pitying me, are you,
roof girl?”

My cheeks reddened, and I was suddenly
grateful for the darkness.

“I’m always careful,” he added.

I caught the lewd suggestion in his tone.

Backing toward the house, I watched the
darkness. I couldn’t see Eli, but I could feel his eyes. Even with
clothes on, I suddenly felt naked, stripped to the core.

Halfway across the yard, I stopped.

A car engine started up. Headlights flashed
down the road behind the empty lot, swinging as the vehicle turned
around. It crawled onto the street next to the clinic.

The windows in the Porsche were down, and a
radio popped on. “Renegade” by Styx blasted into the darkness.

Shaking my head, I stumbled toward the house
feeling like I’d just survived an earthquake. Maybe I had.

Eli

There are some things you wake up regretting.
My jaunt to the animal clinic in town and my conversation with
Tansy were definitely on that list. My mother and my anger were
heady drugs for me, drugs that carried me off the beaten path and
made me do things without thinking them through first.

I still felt like the kid with a spoonful of
medicine in his mouth. The kid who wanted to fight but who kind of
liked the calm feeling that came after the syrup.

Maybe that was why I hated my mother so much.
Maybe it was because I was still chasing that feeling after all of
these years.

A pounding noise reverberated throughout the
cottage, growing more insistent with each knock.

Sitting up, I groaned and ran my hands over
my face before throwing my legs over the side of the bed.

The front door crashed open.

“What the hell were you thinking?” my brother
cried, his voice echoing.

Jonathan marched into my bedroom, the
cottage’s spare key dangling from his fingers.

I eyed it. “Why bother knocking if you’re
just going to come in?”

He glared. “Why bother getting your license
suspended if you’re just going to jack my car and drive?”

“About that—”

“Did you know Mom wanted to call the police?
She went into complete hysterics. Pops was dangerously close to
locking her in one of the bedrooms.”

I couldn’t help myself, I grinned. “Tell me
you got that on video.”

Stunned silence.

“This is not a joke!” Jonathan roared.

My face fell, weariness sinking into my
bones. “No, it’s not.”

“You’re not telling me
something, brother.” Jonathan leaned against the bedroom door, his
gaze studying me. “Not just you.
All
of you.”

I glanced at him. “You’re the one everyone
looks to, Jon. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you, and no one
wants to mess that up.”

He cringed. “And I’m supposed to be okay
being kept in the dark? Don’t you think it’s just as hard having to
overcompensate for you and Heather all of the time? Don’t you think
I want to know what happened to you?”

“Heather doesn’t know either,” I assured
him.

He snorted. “Are you so
sure? Look at her, Eli. She’s run away from home five times, and
she’s been
in
trouble more than she’s been out of it. Something’s going on
there.”

My hands gripped the side of
the mattress.
Could Heather
know?

That thought and the conversation with Tansy
the night before loosened something inside of me, and I met
Jonathan’s gaze, my eyes full of steel. “Mom used to drug us, Jon.
All of us.”

He froze. “What?”

“Codeine cough syrup,” I continued. “At least
I think that’s all she used. It doesn’t really matter.”

It took a moment to register on Jonathan’s
face, but when it did, he stumbled forward, his fists clenched.
“You’re lying.”

My face shut down, going stony and
unreadable. “You asked, Jon. I told. Do me a favor and go ’fess up
to Pops. I’m all for him kicking me out right now.”

Jonathan sat hard on the end
of the bed, his head falling into his hands. “You have to be
lying,” he whispered. “Our
mom
?” He looked at me. “Eli,” he
begged.

My chest hurt, but I didn’t back down. “Do
you want me to tell you it’s a lie? I can tell you anything you
want me to tell you. I can pretend whatever you want me to pretend,
but the truth remains.”

Jonathan inhaled, exhaled, and then inhaled
again. “To us?” he asked. “She did that to us?”

Standing, I started pulling clothes out of
the bedroom closet. “If it makes you feel better, she started out
doing it to protect me from my father, from his angry outbursts. He
hit me once, or so I’ve been told. I don’t remember it. A mutual
friend of Mom and Dad’s told Mom that a little cough syrup would
help keep me quiet. She tried it, it worked, and the rest is
history.”

Jonathan tracked my movements, watching as I
pulled on a pair of workout shorts and a T-shirt. “How do you know
if you don’t remember?”

I shrugged. “What Pops didn’t tell me, I
discovered through police reports and people who knew Dad.”
Stepping into my tennis shoes, I stooped to tie them. “I remember
more than I want to. Mom drugged me until I was eight. She quit
sooner with you and Heather.” I paused, my gaze distant, and drew
in a breath. “There was a drug raid after Mom remarried Dad. DHS
got involved. She lost custody of all of us voluntarily. You went
to your dad, Heather went to her dad—until he abandoned her at
Pops—and I went to Pops. I don’t know the specifics. I don’t know
what Pops did to get Mom off or what he did to adopt me. Honestly,
I couldn’t give a shit. I just know that she moved in with Pops and
continued to drug me because I was too much to handle. It wasn’t
until Pops walked in to find her giving me cough syrup that he
discovered what she was doing. When you and Heather went through
withdrawals after the raid, the authorities assumed it was Dad,
that he was the one giving us drugs. I really don’t know what she
was giving us.”

Jonathan stared, horrified. “Pops didn’t turn
her in?”

Anger consumed me, the inferno of emotions
blazing through my body, and I struggled to tamp it down. “He
covered it up. Mom’s …” I paused, my fists clenching and
unclenching. “Mom needs help. She sees people, and she takes
medication when she feels like it, but …”

“Pops thinks she’d commit suicide,” Jonathan
finished quietly.

My gaze rose to his. “She’s
not stable, and she refuses to stay focused on any kind of
treatment.” I studied his face, my voice dropping. “You’re the only
one of her kids who doesn’t see her as a monster. I don’t know what
Heather does or doesn’t know, but she and Mom don’t click. Mom
needs to feel …
loved
.”

Jonathan laughed, the sound short. “And Pops
thinks that if I know what she did, that if I start treating her
like everyone else does, that it will push her over the edge.”

It was a burden my brother shouldn’t have to
bear, but it was there.

“I agree with him,” I admitted. “It’s why I
haven’t said anything.” It took every bit of compassion I had left
in me to add, “Don’t hate her, Jon. She’s got enough people hating
her right now. I don’t think there’s any room for more. Just don’t
ask me to love her.”

Jonathan stood, ran his
fingers through his hair, and then straightened, his shoulders
back, his face stoic. “I don’t think I
could
hate her. I just need to think
about all of this. You know, I … I feel kind of sorry for all of
you.” He pushed past me. “I don’t blame you for any of this, Eli. I
want you to know that, but could you … I don’t know … back off of
everyone just a little bit.”

My eyes fell closed, my jaw tensing. “I need
a ride to the boxing club.”

He grunted. “Why don’t you drive yourself?
You didn’t seem to have a problem last night.”

Re-opening my eyes, I snagged the cigarettes
and the car keys I’d dropped next to the bed the night before. “I’m
assuming the boxing club reports to my probation officer.” Throwing
him the keys, I smiled coldly. “Try locking your shit up at night,
brother. You never know what monsters are lurking in the dark.”

Jonathan caught the keys. “Where did you go
last night?”

I froze, my thoughts instantly on the
barefoot, wildly sweet, punk-hippy girl at the clinic. Tansy was
such an odd collection of contradictions. “For a drive. I needed
the air.”

“Just a drive, huh?” my
brother mumbled. “Tell me, if you hadn’t gone for that
drive
, would you have told
me about Mom this morning?”

“No,” I admitted.

He nodded and started walking toward the
door. “Maybe you should take a drive more often, then.”

I glared at his back. “Lock your shit up at
night, kid.”

“So you can talk yourself out of a drive?” He
left, leaving the front door open behind him.

Grabbing a duffel bag, I stuffed a change of
clothes inside and followed.

Tansy

The smell of dirt … I think
that’s what I loved most about gardening, about digging my fingers
into the soil. The earth lived. The smell and feel of it reminded
me how
happy
I was
to be alive. It kept me from sinking to the lows Deena had fallen
into. It kept me from sinking into the lows which killed my
father.

My fingers pillaged the dirt around Hetty’s
house, testing it.

Lifting the sediment, I watched it sift
through my fingers, the damp scent touching my nose. It fell.
Falling, falling, back down to the ground.

“You look ridiculous,” Deena called
haughtily.

Glancing up, I found her hanging out of a
bedroom window, her nose scrunched. She’d pulled the glass up and
removed the screen.

“You’re like some stupid dirt whisperer,” she
added.

Sitting back, I stared up at her. “Do you
even know how to replace that screen?”

“No fucking idea whatsoever.”

“You do that on purpose, right?” I asked,
shaking my head. “You know the cussing would be more effective if
you did it more selectively. Throwing it into every sentence makes
it look like you’re trying too hard to be a pain in the ass.”

“Are you saying I’m desperate?” she
scoffed.

I shrugged.

“Whatever, Tansy. Just go back to sniffing
your dirt.”

She tried slamming the window closed, but it
caught on the removed screen, sending the mesh sailing into the
yard.

A giggle escaped me. “They’re really easy to
get out, but a nuisance to get back in.”

“Sounds like your love life,” Deena
tittered.

My eyes widened, my hand lifting dramatically
to my chest. “Well, I’ll be. Was that a joke? Was the almighty pain
in the ass cracking a joke?”

Deena’s face fell into a scowl. “Seriously,
fuck off.

My amusement died. “It was funny, Deena. It’s
okay to laugh, you know.”

The morning started off cool but turned hot
and humid much quicker than I thought it would. The sun beat down,
slashing my skin. A lightweight jacket I’d removed sometime after
breakfast was tied around my waist, and the silver hoop earrings
I’d pushed into the lobes of my ears were warm, the heated metal
brushing my neck.

“Did you say something?” my grandmother’s
voice asked. Throwing a look over my shoulder, I found Hetty
standing in the grass behind me. Her eyes fell on the window
screen. “How did that happen?”