It’s the weed.
Got to be the weed.
Just lingering a little longer than usual, that’s all.
The tattoo. Three heart-shaped leaves scrolled together. A shamrock. Or a clover. I don’t know what the difference is. But it was a tattoo. On her ankle.
Chatham drew something like that girl’s tattoo in the sand when I first met her. She said her sister Savannah has a clover—shamrock?—on her ankle. Was it a clover? Or a shamrock?
God, does it matter?
Either way, it’s close enough, right?
I have to ask Aiden who this customer is. If he has a girlfriend who might be answering the door. If she’s new to the area. If her name is Savannah.
From what I know of her, Chatham’s sister would certainly hang out with a guy who buys Grade-A shit from a grower’s son. And Chatham has reason to believe her sister’s here. In the vicinity.
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.
I can’t calm down. What if I just had a conversation with Chatham’s sister? A flush of embarrassment crawls up my neck, and I feel warm and uncomfortable. If that was Savannah, I was thinking about her on her back, with her legs wrapped around whoever was barking at her from inside the house.
I wanted to save her from him, I realize. That’s what it is. I felt sorry for her, answering the door freshly tousled like that. I mean, what kind of guy would make his girl do such a thing?
I text Chatham: Getting off early? Important.
By the time I roll into Sugar Creek, and I pull into Aiden’s circular drive, the sky is black and the sliver of moon in the sky is hazy.
I check my phone to see if I missed a text or a snap from Chatham, but there’s nothing there. An uncontrollable urge to see her slams into my chest. I want to put her in that passenger seat, drive her out to Sheridan Road, and watch her stand face-to-face with that girl in the green-and-purple house.
I’m sure lots of girls have tats on their ankles. I’m sure lots of girls have tattoos of shamrocks. It’s a coincidence, more than likely. But still. What if it’s not?
What if that girl was Savannah, and all the time Chatham’s been combing the streets of Sugar Creek looking for her, Savannah’s holed up, getting high on Sheridan Road?
I’ll just drop the cash with Aiden and go to the Tiny E and wait for Chatham’s shift to end.
“I’m back!” I drop the keys and the square of Benjamin on the kitchen countertop—I want to tell that girl: Franklin may be dead, but he wasn’t a president—and help myself to a quick glass of water. “Aiden!”
The place is deadly silent.
I peek out on the patio, but there’s no fire in the pit. “C-caw!” I call out into the night. Maybe he and Kai took a walk down the bluffs and along the shore. “C-caw!”
But he doesn’t answer.
The faint sounds coming from upstairs register then: the subtle creak of bedsprings.
Christ.
Talk about fast work.
I fish in my pocket for my keys, grab the hundred-dollar-bill—I’ll give Aiden whatever’s left, but what if I need some cash?—and head back out to my car.
I park on the street, across from the diner, and see Chatham wiping down tables. The sign on the door is flipped to closed.
I kill the engine. Might as well wait with her while she cleans up. I have nowhere else to go.
But just when I get out of the car and I’m about to cross the road, I see Damien on the steps of the Churchill Room and Board. A too-thin woman wearing a parka, open over a baggy tee and jeans, leans a hip against the railing. She’s smoking a cigarette. Damien pats her on the ass, physically displacing her a few inches, which she seems to like because she laughs.
I freeze in place, and keep my eyes on him as he descends the steps.
Within a few seconds, he sees me.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he asks.
“I don’t know. What are you?”
He touches a button on his key fob, and his truck, parked somewhere behind me, revs to life. He’s never spared an expense on his car, but won’t pay child support. “Thought you’d be home, standing guard at the door.”
My heart tightens, and for a second, it’s hard to breathe. He’s going to go to Carpenter Street. He’s going to try to see my mother and sisters.
I should go home and try to stop him.
“Well,” Damien says. “While the cat’s away . . .” He walks past me, gets in his car, and peels away—tires screeching against the pavement.
I can’t help them, I tell myself. She’ll only lie again if I call the cops. Which means I can’t call the cops. And I could try to handle him on my own—I’ll bet I could give him a run for his money now—but where would that get me? I’d end up either in the ICU or the clink.
I can’t help someone who can’t help herself.
I shove my hands into the pouch front of my sweatshirt. The ring he brought over earlier is still jammed in with the lint and pilling cheap fleece there. He’s not worth my effort. But this woman . . . maybe she can help wake my mother up. If this woman is sleeping with Damien—and she’s obviously something to him—maybe my mother won’t let him back into our lives. I cross the street and walk up the steps.
She’s stubbing out her cigarette and entering the building.
“Excuse me.” I follow her footsteps across the dirty mosaic tiles on the vestibule floor.
She’s heading for the second door, which she gives a tug. It’s locked. “Shit.”
“Ma’am?”
The glance she affords me is one of pure annoyance. She leans on the buzzer to number 2F.
The door buzzer sounds, and she flings the door open and walks in.
“Ma’am.” I catch the door with my foot before it closes and follow her in. “You know Damien Wick. Obviously.”
She pauses on the steps, and burns me with a stare. It’s the first opportunity I get to look at her, really look at her, and she looks tired. Older than she is, probably. I recognize the same look of despair, of pure I’ve-given-up-long-ago that I see in my mother’s face. “Not supposed to be in here,” she says, “unless you’re renting a room.”
“Oh, I’m here to see someone who lives here. Chatham Claiborne.”
The name sparks no warmth in this woman’s face.
“But that man you were with . . .”
She turns away and hikes up a few steps.
“Please,” I say. “It’s important. Damien—”
She’s past the landing now, taking the steps that hook to the left.
By the time I reach the top of the flight, she’s around a corner, slamming a door shut.
I lean against the wall, and kick at the scuffed floor and utter a fuck. Well, what did I expect? It’s okay, really. I didn’t have to talk to her to get confirmation that she and my ex-stepfather are screwing around. It’s obvious. I’ve seen him cup my mother’s ass with the same sense of ownership before. It’s almost as if he wants to drive home the message one more time, like he wants them to know that with one final grab, he’s in charge.
And maybe this woman is the reason he’s been hanging around this block lately, even if it doesn’t explain why he’d follow me home.
I take the box out of my pocket, and stare at the ring inside.
It probably didn’t cost much, but it’s nicer than anything my mother has. When they got married, she was pregnant with the twins. He never bought her a ring because her fingers were fatter than usual. At least that’s the excuse he’d used. He’d always promised her a ring later. And I wonder if this piece of jewelry is his making good on that promise.
Something aches inside of me. Regret, maybe. My mother deserves this ring, even if she doesn’t deserve to put up with the guy who literally threw it at her.
And who does that anyway? Who throws a ring at a woman?
Too little, too late, asshole.
“Joshua?”
I look up when I hear her voice and snap the box closed. “Chatham. Hi.” In a flash, all the events of my evening come tumbling forward, wrestling with my mind. I want to tell her everything—about Damien’s visit with the ring, about the drop for Aiden, the girl with the shamrock tattoo . . . and I want to see her reaction.
But she’s looking at me as if she can’t believe I’d had the nerve to wait in the Churchill, and I have to admit it might be a breach of boundaries.
How do I tell her I’m not exactly in this building for her? On the other hand, how do I let her believe I am? I mean, here I am, outside her door, with a ring in my hand. We just started spending time together; this must look absolutely insane.
Her brow knits a little. “I was going to text you when—”
“I know, but I was out in Northgate tonight, and . . . Your sister.”
“Savannah? What about her?”
I swallow hard. “I think I just saw her.”
“You saw her?” There’s a sense of urgency in her voice. She touches me on the elbow. “Where?”
“A house on Sheridan Road.”
“What color hair?”
“Blonde.”
“Blonde?”
“Yeah. About this tall.” I demonstrate with my hand, hold it at about five-feet-four.
“How do you know—”
“The tattoo on her ankle.”
“Wait a minute.”
Another resident—a kid this time—barrels down the hallway on a scooter. I pull Chatham out of his path just in time. “Can we go in and talk?”
“You saw Savannah?” Her key dangles from her hand.
It hits me like a dagger in the gut: she isn’t going to invite me in.
There could be plenty of reasons why she wouldn’t. She could be embarrassed to be living in this dump, for one (and I can say it is a dump because Rosie and I stayed here for a week once after the-boyfriend-before-Herron started showing his true colors). Her parents could not want visitors, or she could not want me to meet them. But she could at least say something instead of standing here in this hallway. Someone’s television is on too loud, and some baby down the hall is wailing.
“You really think it was Savannah?”
“Maybe. I mean, I’d like to see a picture of her. All I’m going on is the shamrock you drew in the sand that day.”
“I’ll bring one up on my phone on the way. I just want to change.”
“Should I wait for you outside?”
It’s at this moment, I know, we’re at a crossroads, practically daring each other to either turn down the same avenue, or run in opposite directions.
“Joshua,” she finally says. “It’s just . . .”
I lift my chin. It’s just . . . what?
She sighs, studies me, as if in silent debate with her own thoughts. After a second, she leans a shoulder against the door to 2E, inserts her key, and opens the door. “Come in.”
One foot in the door, and it’s like everything I thought I knew about this girl—which, granted, isn’t much—was smoke and mirrors.
“Joshua.” She reaches for me.
I hold tight to her hand.