I’ve gone through half my stack when Marley finds me. “He’s coming,” she says, not mentioning my disappearing act. “He works at four—so he needed to get up anyway.”
I offer her a fake grin, but keep working on my task. Marley is confident and kind, and yet, when talking about her son she becomes sort of edgy. I suppose they wouldn’t be the first mother and son to have a strained relationship. When Cytha was fifteen her mom could hardly look at her without Cytha giving her some sassy-rude remark.
“He and his friends get together every night. You should join them. They have a bonfire and—”
“It’s not a bonfire, Mother. Sitting around Dominic’s fire pit isn’t exactly an inferno.” Finn has his beany on again—probably to hide his afternoon bed-head.
Marley titters and puts an arm around him. “Hey, baby.” She kisses his cheek and doesn’t look offended when he flinches away from her touch. “You should take Esther with you tonight. She’s new in town.”
“She doesn’t want to go.”
Nope, I certainly do not.
“Sure she does. She doesn’t have any friends yet. And without school in session, how will she meet friends?”
I press my lips together. “I can’t tonight, but thanks.” I pull another book from my stack of thrillers and look for the R’s.
“What are you doing?” Finn eyes me, glowering.
“I’m—”
“We don’t have everything cleaned up.” His arm waves out to the dozen shelves we’ve yet to put the fallen books back on. “That’s a newly delivered stack.” He groans. “We don’t even know if there’s room for what you’re adding.” His flat palm points at me and my offensive pile of books.
I hadn’t even thought about the cases behind me, with their empty shelves. I was only thinking of escaping the Matthews’ home, and Finn.
“Finn,” Marley scolds. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
He rolls his head back. “I’m going to go shower.”
From the corner of my eye, I watch him leave. Is that really what I have to work with?
As if she’s read my mind, Marley crouches down next to me and the pile of books I’m leaving on the ground. “Finn is—” Her brows pinch together. She wraps her arms around the flowery skirt of her knees and peers at me. “Finn is a beautiful rose who has survived a wildfire. His thorns are bigger, his spikes are sharper, because they have to be.” She studies me, her gaze flicking from my right eye to my left—asking if I understand.
I don’t—not in the least—but then, I think parents often make excuses for misbehaving children. I give her a nod just so she’ll look away.
She lays a hand on my back and rubs for a second at my shoulder blade. “You really should take Finn up on his offer tonight. It would be good for you.”
But I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be—and Finn never offered.
6
In the dimness of the night, I can’t see the faces of my companions very well. Smoke rises between us, and when I scan my gaze downward, it’s a fire that blazes between me and the others. They’re laughing and talking and I feel an urgency to leave—to escape. I look from fuzzy face to fuzzy face and feel a dizziness come over me. I find a seat and the fire intensifies in front of me. My thoughts are consumed with my parents, in a strange, defensive way. I see them, but I know they aren’t there.
One of my mystery companions inhales too much smoke and starts to hack and cough—it’s all I can hear—
Sweat pools on my forehead. I wake with my throat dry and scratchy, like if I don’t get a drink soon I won’t be able to swallow. My bare feet pad on the ground over to the upstairs bathroom. I gulp down water at the sink using my hands as a cup. Gasping in a breath, I try to make sense of the dream that unexpectedly invaded my night.
“Esther?” Summer stands near the open doorway. “You okay, honey?”
She startles me and I leap, hitting the door with my back. I press a hand to my beating heart and dart my eyes to her. No one ever knew when I couldn’t sleep back home. Only Cytha—because I chose to tell her. But Summer has an infant and apparently that’s given her super hearing. “I’m fine,” I say.
“You look a little,” her eyes squint, “not fine.”
“I’m fine, okay. Just a dream.” I bite my tongue—I hadn’t meant to say that.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I push past her and head for my room. “No. I don’t.” I can’t explain the edginess I feel. But it’s there racking my insides. I don’t really have this great desire to look at pictures with Rodrick or shop with Summer or even play with Harmony. What’s the point? I’m leaving in a year.
I escape into my bedroom and shut the door. I lay in bed and hold my phone to my chest, hugging it like it might hug me back. When my eyes refuse to close, I pull up Cytha’s face. I scroll through picture after picture and edit her contact photo to a picture of us from just two weeks ago. Our arms wrap around each other’s shoulders and our cheeks press together. I stare at the photo a minute before I open up a new text window. The blank screen stares back at me. I don’t know what to say. Should I tell her about my dream? Should I tell her how much I miss her? Maybe I’ll have nothing but bleak messages to send her from now on.
There are more people than I’ve ever seen inside The Bookcase when I arrive for work. Which isn’t saying much, but there are four men, as well as Marley, Danny and Finn that stand inside the store.
Finn is awake and it’s only one o’clock. I’m grateful when none of them say anything about me being an hour early for work.
Marley just wraps an arm around my shoulders and greets me warmly. Everyone heads down the aisles and Marley drags me along. “Come watch.”
I walk with her until we reach the one thing in the store that hasn’t been cleaned up. The Reading Mother. Two of the men lift the statue up an inch while another man slides one long board and then another beneath the statue. With three men on each side of her, they use the boards as levers and lift her.
“Finn,” Marley says, her voice warning, when they have her halfway up. He ignores her as he’s in the middle of helping the other men push the statue into place.
I shift my eyes to her face. Her lips are pressed in and her brows pinch together.
I wonder if my mother worried about me as much as Marley worries about Finn. She seems to fuss over him. He reminds me of a spoiled toddler—sleeping late, ignoring his mother, all while she probably gives in to him.
Besides, Finn is young and strong, and it seems like they need him.
Grunts and groans and men spouting things like, “A little more to the left,” come from the group for what feels like a strangely long time. But finally, The Reading Mother is back in her place, on her pedestal.
“Bravo,” Marley says, bringing her hands together.
An involuntary gasp leaves my lips. “Her arm.” Though the toddler child still sits snug against his mother, her right arm, that once wrapped around him, is half gone. The mother’s hand and forearm lie on the ground at the men’s feet.