Текст книги "Song of the Fireflies"
Автор книги: J. A. Redmerski
Соавторы: J. A. Redmerski
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Present Day
Elias
Caleb has been holding me, Bray, and five other people inside the store for the past two hours. The store clerk and two customers have been sitting in the candy bar aisle just feet from us. I can smell urine. I think the woman with the brown hair and wearing a long, flowered dress pissed on herself at some point. Bray and I haven’t moved from the wall in the hallway next to the restrooms.
My mind is overloaded with… with a little bit of everything. A part of me wants to feel absolutely numb to all of this, but it’s only a small part. The rest of me is fearful but focused. I have to stay focused to get Bray out of here unharmed. I don’t think Caleb will hurt us. I really don’t. But I’m still afraid of what he might do, how far he will go.
Tate never made it into the store when the cops swarmed the parking lot and jumped out of their cars, drawing their guns. Caleb told us that he had pushed Tate away when Tate tried to follow him inside. He didn’t want Tate to go down with him like this. Whatever that meant.
I still have a bad feeling sitting sour in my stomach. As if what’s already happened isn’t enough, I still feel like the worst is yet to come.
“Bray?” I try again to get her attention.
She doesn’t answer. She appears stoic. Vacant.
I try another approach, with Caleb at least. I feel like Caleb is the one I need to fix first. To keep Bray safe, I have to talk Caleb down. An hour ago, I tried to talk him into giving himself up, but it was useless, as I had a feeling it would be.
I push myself to my feet. The gun in Caleb’s hand is pointed right at me the second he notices.
I raise my hands out at my sides. “It’s just me.” He starts to lower the gun. “I just want to talk.”
“Five more minutes!” an officer’s voice on a loudspeaker calls out. “We’re sending him back in!”
He’s referring to the man—a cop of some sort—Caleb agreed to let in thirty minutes ago. He wanted to hear Caleb’s demands and I’m sure to assess the situation inside for the officers outside. Bray and I stayed by the restrooms, out of sight.
“Talk about what?” Caleb says acidly.
His eye has turned blue and purple over the past two hours, and it’s so swollen the skin is raised nearly an inch over what is normal.
“You say you’re not going to hurt anyone,” I begin, “so just let everyone go. Show them you mean it. You keep these people in here like this, they’re hostages.”
“So fucking what?” he says. The woman in the dress looks up at him but is afraid to meet his eyes. “They’re already gonna charge me with having hostages. Doesn’t matter now.”
“Then let them go. You didn’t intend to have hostages, so let them go. I’ll stay here with you. But let Bray go, too.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Bray finally speaks from behind me.
I turn around to see her looking up at me from her sitting position on the floor. I leave Caleb carefully, backing my way away from him so that I’m not making any sudden movements, and I go straight over and kneel beside Bray.
“You need to get out of here,” I say.
“No. I don’t,” she says simply. “If I go out that door, I go straight to jail. I told you, baby, I’m not going to jail. And I meant it.”
My heart is racing. Time is running out, and all I can think about is what’s going to happen when it does. Every possible scenario has run through my mind like a wide-awake nightmare, each of them ending with Bray facedown in a pool of her own blood.
Five minutes later, the guy in the casual clothes who somehow still reeks of cop reenters the store with his hands raised above his head. And just like before, Caleb keeps the gun trained on him.
“Where is my brother?” Caleb asks.
“He’s still outside waiting for you,” the man says in a calm voice. “He’s worried about you, Caleb. He just wants you to come out of here safely so that you can go home.”
Caleb laughs. “Home? Are you fucking kidding me? You think I’m fucking stupid? I won’t see home for a long time.”
“No, you won’t,” the man says, still with both hands where Caleb can see them at all times. “But you will someday, and the longer you stay in here like this, the worse you make it for yourself, the farther away the prospect of seeing home becomes. What about these people?” He points at the male clerk and the two women sitting in the aisle. “They want to go home. They haven’t done anything to deserve this.”
I wonder why the man didn’t include Bray and me, why he’s acting as though we aren’t sitting here several feet away and as much a part of this as they are.
Just as I think that, the man looks at us, his dark eyes peer at us underneath dark, bushy eyebrows.
“And what about Brayelle Bates and Elias Kline?” he says and my heart stops.
How did they find out so soon? I think to myself, but then it becomes obvious. We’ve been on the news. It wasn’t hard to figure out. But still, his saying our names like that took me by surprise.
Bray has the same reaction. Her eyes grow wide. She looks at me for a split second before giving the man her full attention.
“They still have a chance to go home,” the man goes on, though he’s looking right at us, making sure that we get the message he was sent in here to give. “Everybody knows that they’re scared. But no one is accusing them of murder. Innocent until proven guilty. They want to go home to tell everyone what happened that night on the river, tell their side of the story, to have a chance at life.” He looks at Caleb again. “But you have to let them go home so they can do that.”
“I’m not keeping them here,” he says. “And she doesn’t want to go.”
The man looks at Bray. “Is that true?”
“You’re not in here for me,” Bray says. “I’m the least of anyone’s worries. Leave me out of it.”
“I’m afraid that’s not something I can do,” the man says.
“He’s the one with the gun, you asshole,” she snaps. “Just leave me alone!”
The man turns to me. “And what about you?” he asks. “Are you a part of this?”
“Wait a damn minute!” Caleb shouts. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You accusing them of being a part of this?” He points the gun forward at the man. “See, fuck the system! Fuck ‘innocent until proven guilty’! They already think you’re guilty, that you are as much a part of this as I am, even though I’m the one holding the gun to his fucking head. See how the system works? They send innocent people to jail every fucking day while murderers, child molesters, and real rapists are set free because of some stupid goddamn technicality. Fuck you and your system, you piece of shit!”
The man takes two steps back and raises his hands a little higher. He’s getting worried that Caleb might get trigger-happy. So am I.
“No, I’m not accusing them of anything,” the man says in surrender. “But it looks bad on them if they stay in here when they have a chance to be set free. It makes them look even guiltier of Jana McIntyre’s death than they already do.” Then he adds, “And I know about your rape sentence, Caleb. I’ve seen men get sent to jail for rape, men just like you who don’t fit the profile. It happens all the time. You’re not the only one.” He looks at us once more. “And accidents happen all the time, too. Sometimes people run when they’re scared. It’s the worst thing you can do, but it happens. All the time. None of you are alone.”
“Are you saying you believe us?” Caleb asks. “Or is this your way of gaining trust?” He doesn’t give the man a chance to answer. Caleb already has it set in his mind what he believes and nothing this man can say will ever change that. He laughs. “That’s exactly what it is. You come in here wearing your stupid fucking running pants and your stupid fucking running shoes, trying to look like a civilian, when really we all know you’re just another cop trying to fit in with the little people. Gain our trust. Make us believe your bullshit lies.”
“Your brother is outside right now, Caleb,” the man cuts in. “He’s worried. He told me to tell you that he will visit you every single day while you’re locked up. He said that he didn’t mean what he said before, that he never wanted to see you again. He wants you to know that no matter what, he’ll put you first and visit you every day until the day you get out. Because he loves you and nothing can keep him away from his little brother.”
I hear Bray rupture with sobs and I look down at her. It’s as though what the man just said struck a nerve.
Caleb’s eyes are now brimming with tears, too. His mouth is twitching at the corners, his nose wrinkling under the deep setting of his eyebrows as he tries to hold the tears back. But he can’t hold them in and they begin to run down his cheeks in rivulets.
“Is my brother in trouble?” Caleb asks, the gun, still shaking, pointed at the man. “Is he going to face charges for running with me? It wasn’t his fault! He wasn’t even thinking straight when he ran out of that liquor store with me! He had nothing to do with it! He only ran because I was running! He wasn’t thinking straight!”
“Calm down,” the man says, motioning forward. “No, listen to me, Caleb, I’m sure I can get him out of it. He did run, yes, and he shouldn’t have, but he called nine-one-one, and the man you shot is going to live. Your brother is going to be fine.”
“He’s going to live?” Caleb asks, his voice desperate and nearly breathless.
I see the relief wash through him beneath all of that anger and rage and fear.
“Yes,” the man says. “He’s in stable condition. It was a shoulder wound.”
“And my brother? You fucking swear on your life he’s not going to be charged?”
“Caleb, I’m not going to swear it,” the man says, “because I want to be completely honest with you. But his chances are very good. The only thing he did wrong was run, but he didn’t go far. He did everything else right. I believe he’ll be fine. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure that he is. I know he’s innocent. He’s got a good heart. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I know a good man when I see one.” He pauses, looks at me and then back at Caleb. “I’m looking at two good men right now. And one good woman. People who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. People who have screwed up and who will have to face charges no matter what, but people who still have a chance to prove that they’re good people.”
The woman in the flowered dress breaks into sobs of her own. The clerk holds her next to him.
“Let them go, Caleb,” the cop says.
“I will,” he says. “You go back outside and I’ll send them out after you.”
“What about you?” the man asks suspiciously. “Are you going to give yourself up?”
“I want to think about it,” Caleb says. “But I’ll let them go.”
The man nods, accepting what Caleb gives him. He leaves the store.
Caleb paces back and forth in front of the drink coolers, staying out of sight of the front windows. Then he stops and points at the three hostages.
“Go,” he says motioning his free hand toward the front doors. “I’m sorry that I put you through this. I’m so sorry.”
The woman in the flowered dress raises her eyes to him and then immediately bolts out of the store sobbing hysterically.
“Bray,” Caleb says turning to her, “I’m sorry for being such a dick.” He looks at me. “I really am.”
“I know,” I say.
Bray just sits there quietly with her back pressed against the wall. Her tears have dried up, her face devoid of any emotion.
Caleb goes to the door and opens it enough that he can yell out, “I’m going to come out! I’m going to surrender!”
Bray gets up, and her movement surprises me. She walks past me and goes toward the end of the candy bar aisle.
I follow behind her.
“Put the gun on the floor and come out with your hands up!”
Caleb sets the gun on the floor right in front of the door, raises his hands high above his head, turns around, and pushes the glass door open with his back.
The second the door closes, I see Bray’s dark hair whip behind her as she runs toward the door. I panic inside when she falls to the floor and grabs Caleb’s gun and then backs herself against the bread display.
“What are you doing?” I approach her carefully. My heart is hammering against my rib cage. “Baby… please… please don’t—”
She shoves the gun underneath her chin, pushing her head back against a loaf of bread, and her finger rests on the trigger.
I fall to my knees, tears streaming down my face. I feel like I’m going to throw up my heart is beating so fast.
“God, please, Bray… please… if you do this, if you take your life in front of me it will kill me. I love you so fucking much. I always have. I always will.” I’m choking on my tears, and the back of my throat burns. “You remember that pact we made when we were kids? Best friends always. Do you remember?” I inched closer on my hands and knees. My hands are shaking so badly I can hardly hold my body up. Bray’s face holds no emotion. None. She just looks at me through glass eyes, but the more I talk to her, the more I remind her how much I love her, the more I see the faintest of emotion flicker inside the glass. I see the Bray I’ve known and loved since I was nine years old, the one stronger than the darkness that lives inside of her. “I know you remember. But you’re more to me than my best friend. You always have been. My heart beats for you. If you die, every part of what makes me human will die.”
Her hand begins to shake. It makes me nervous. Her finger on the trigger… I don’t want her to shake.
“God damn it, Bray… I love you! Don’t put me through this!”
“I can’t be locked up!” she screams. “I can’t live like that! Away from you! You’re all I have in this world! All I’ve ever had!”
“I’ll be there!” I scream back at her with every ounce of emotion my body can produce. “I would never leave you alone! Do you understand me?! Never! I don’t care how long it takes, Bray, I will wait for you!”
And then the significance of the moment hits me.
“I will die for you, Bray! I will die WITH you!”
Her lips quiver uncontrollably. She stares deeply into my eyes for what feels like forever. And then she shakes her head no, the barrel of the gun moving with the movement of her head.
“Don’t say that!” she roars.
“I will!” I scream, and then I try to calm myself enough to make her understand. I inch closer. “Brayelle, this, this moment right here is the ‘anything’ I vowed to you last night. You didn’t ask me to prove it, but I’m going to prove it anyway—don’t look away from my eyes,” I say, and she looks back up. “Stay with me. Right here.” I point at my eyes with my index and middle finger. “If this is what you really want, then I go down with you. I don’t want to live without you, either. We’re in this together. We always have been. I won’t abandon you now. I’ll die with you if you think death is the only way.”
She shakes her head, over and over, and tries fruitlessly to produce words.
“I don’t want you to die because of me,” she finally says, her voice raspy from crying so much and so hard.
“I want to live, Bray,” I say breathily, and with desperation. “I want to live a life with you. I want to marry you. I want to grow old and have babies with you. I want to live. But I’m prepared to die. Do you understand?”
“Why are you doing this?!” Her features are tortured, her body trembling.
“Because we belong together! In life and in death! Because without you I’m dead anyway!”
She throws her head back against the bread shelf and screams, dropping the gun on the floor. I grab her and scoop her up in my arms and crush her so hard against me that it takes the breath out of my lungs. We cry into each other, her fingers grasping my shirt, mine digging into her back.
“Baby, I fucking love you so much. I’ll never let you go,” I murmur into her neck.
The police burst through the door, but I can only faintly hear them. They’re ghosts, like Bray had always been to her parents. I only see and hear and feel Bray when they’re pulling us apart. I only hear her yelling out my name as everything else around us is mute. My heart breaks as she is reaching out for me and I know I can’t reach back. Everything seems to happen in slow motion.
“I won’t abandon you,” I say almost in a whisper, as she’s being dragged away with her hands behind her back. “I won’t abandon you.”
And then she’s gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
One year and two weeks later…
Elias
I have written her every day. I’ve visited her every week during visiting hours. I’ve spent every waking moment not only proving to Bray that I would never abandon her, but fulfilling my own need to be with her.
Bray was sentenced to three years for involuntary manslaughter and for leaving the scene of a crime, but her attorney expected her to actually serve less than half of her sentence. Having no prior criminal record except a harmless stint in juvenile and offering to take a polygraph test really helped her case. Bray passed the polygraph, but it almost wasn’t admissible in court because Jana McIntyre’s family initially didn’t agree. But in the end, they relented.
Turned out that Jana McIntyre had more of a record than Bray had. Jana spent most of her teenage life in and out of juvenile detention and juvenile court for behavioral crimes, most of them related to violence. But the one key thing that Bray’s attorney made sure to bring to light in court was Jana’s three-month stay in juvenile for attacking a girl in the school gym and beating her unconscious. This helped back Bray’s story about Jana attacking her on the ridge and Bray shoving Jana only to get her off. Bray might’ve been given a lesser sentence if she hadn’t admitted to pushing her out of anger rather than self-defense. But at least she told the truth. It was self-defense, and the judge believed this, given the details of the situation, but it wasn’t life or death for Bray, and she had acted more out of anger than fear.
Also, since Jana’s death was considered suspicious, an autopsy had been ordered. Along with enough alcohol to put her three times over the legal limit, a host of drugs were also found in her system.
And there was nothing noted about Jana being pregnant at the time of her death.
As for me, I got off much easier than Bray.
Two years of probation was all I got for my involvement. I didn’t have to spend any time in prison. But being without Bray and knowing that she was locked up and lonely all that time was my own personal version of prison.
And she made me swear that I wouldn’t try to be her witness. I was going to do it. I had planned everything out in my head, even though we never really got the chance to plan the story together, but she told me if I did it she’d never speak to me again. She told me that she would only tell them the truth: that I wasn’t there when it happened, and that I was only trying to help her by claiming that I was.
I knew then that if I tried to go through with it, I would only make a bad situation worse.
Bray hasn’t been doing well. Every time I see her I notice that she has slipped deeper into the darkness that lives inside of her. I haven’t slept much since she’s been away, worried that every time my phone rings it will be Rian, Bray’s sister, telling me that Bray attempted suicide. Or achieved it. I like to think that she’ll never try because she’s strong and refuses to let the darkness consume her again, but a part of me believes deep down that it’s only because nothing is available to her. Because of Bray’s previous suicide attempt in South Carolina and her bipolar II disorder diagnosis, Bray was put under suicide watch. It’s hard visiting her. As I sit with her across the tiny white plastic table every week I feel like she is slipping completely away from me.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked on my last visit. I reached across the table and held her hands. I smiled, trying to comfort her.
She smiled back, but I could sense that it was forced. “Just getting out of here,” she said. Her gaze drifted.
“Did you get my letter?” I had asked.
She nodded and raised her eyes to me again. The faint smile I saw resting at the corners of them wasn’t forced this time. “Every day but Sunday.”
I often wondered how much those letters helped keep her afloat. Well, I call them letters, but technically not all of them were. I wrote notes to her on everything. Anything that happened to be available wherever I was when I thought of something I needed to say.
On the back of a takeout menu from a nearby diner:
I was thinking about that day in tenth grade, the day the storm knocked the lights out in the school. You and Lissa snuck out to smoke cigarettes in the bathroom. Your hair smelled like an ashtray for a week after that. I was just wondering, did you actually wash your hair that week? I missed the smell of that strawberry shampoo you always used. I’d stand next to you at your locker just before lunch and I’d smell your hair. Creepy, I know. Deal with it. But that was a bad week for me. I think it threw me off my game. Anyway, I love and miss you.
Elias
On the back of a grocery store receipt:
I was sitting at a stoplight (the one that never changes down the road from your parents), and I just wanted to tell you that when you get home I’m going to do naughty things to you. Maybe even at this stoplight.
Elias
On a napkin at a Denny’s restaurant:
Bray,
I got a speeding ticket today. Fifty in a thirty-five. I was late for work. I guess I should tell you, I got a new job. Roofing. Hot as a bitch in the summertime, but it pays good money. I’m going to buy you something nice with my first check. Oh, and pay the parking ticket.
Love you,
Elias
On one of those blank pages they always add to printed books—ripped it out of an old book at the dentist’s office:
I’m getting a root canal today. You know how much I love going to the dentist. Remember in fourth grade? I know you do. I cried like a girl for an hour because my mom was taking me for a checkup. I don’t think I ever thanked you for not telling Mitchell about that. Thank you. Because I’d still hear about it today if you had. Which brings me to some news. Mitchell and I are talking again. He’s clean and doing much better. He’s his old self again for the most part. He wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry for what he did, and he can’t wait to see you when you come home. I know you’re pissed at him, but I thought I’d relay the message. But don’t worry, he’s definitely not living with me. I only have room for one other person, and I’m just waiting for her to come back.
I love you.
Elias
I’d tuck each one in an envelope, slap a stamp on it, and mail it the same day. I wanted to make sure she got something every single day she was there, at least on days that the mail ran.
She writes to me, too, though not every day, and while I’m OK with that, it has started to worry me. Her letters often feel distant, emotionless. Sometimes I’ll get a letter out of the blue riddled with the Bray I fell in love with, cracking jokes and being a pervert. She’ll talk about the things she wants to do with me when she gets out, the life she wants us to have. I’ll smile as I read it, feeling like she’s starting to come around and that things are looking up for her. But as I read on, the pessimist eventually comes out of her before I get to the end of each letter. I keep telling myself, The next one won’t be like this, Elias. It won’t end like this. But so far, every one of them has.
I know she’s getting help where she is, but that hasn’t stopped me from looking for the right psychiatrist for when she gets out. I’ve scoured the Internet and the phone book searching for the one. I want Bray to have the best, and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that she does.
Three hundred and seventy-nine days Bray has spent behind bars, and in two weeks she will be released. I’m going to visit her today, and while this is supposed to be something for both of us to look forward to, I’m nervous. I’m nervous because of the last letter I got from her just five days ago. It wasn’t anything that she said in the letter, it was what she didn’t say.
Dear Elias,
I know you’ve never missed a visiting day, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the next one. It’s very important that you be here.
Love,
Bray
I get out of my car and go through the front doors of the building and check in with the officer at the counter. Like I do every week, I count the lockers in the small room adjacent to the check-in area just after I secure my wallet, cell phone, and keys inside one. I don’t know why I count them. I just do. Maybe it’s out of nervousness, like how as I’m allowed past the heavy security door I always read the signs posted on the walls about firearms and visiting hours, and reminders about how it’s against the law to bring contraband in to the prisoners. I always read the signs. Sometimes more than once. And I always stop at that word prisoners and it hurts me, like someone is reaching inside my chest and folding a fist around my heart.
The long hallway is stark white, the tile floors and the white walls blending in with one another to appear seamless in my peripheral vision. The fluorescent lights shine overhead so brightly that I can almost see my reflection in the floor. I take my time, passing a few doors that lead to other strange rooms, and I have no interest in knowing what’s behind them. A fatherless family walks by: a woman with two small children, their hands clutched in hers. I wonder if they were here visiting their father. Bray doesn’t belong here. She’s no criminal. She didn’t murder anyone in cold blood or kill someone because she was under the influence of anything that impaired her judgment. She’s not a drug dealer or a thief or an abusive spouse. She doesn’t fucking belong here. I guess prison really doesn’t discriminate.
I turn the corner at the end of the long hall and enter a room. A guard points me to a table where I sit. And wait. There’s a clock high on the wall and to my left. Plain. Black and white and boring. There are several round, plastic, white tables positioned about the room. Eight families are already inside waiting at other tables. I realize as I glance around that I’m the only one here alone. I look down at the bright white table and trace my finger along an indentation that looks like it had been carved with something sharp, maybe a paperclip. It smells like bleach and Pine-Sol in here. The back of my nostrils begin to itch, and I take a deep breath, hoping to force back the brewing sneeze.
I look up at the clock. She should be coming in here any second now. I place my hand against my chest to feel my heart beating, because it’s beating too fast. Why was it so important that I make this visit? What is she going to tell me?
Just as I feel like my mind is going to come undone with the possibilities, bright orange moves against the stark white walls, and I look up to see Bray coming toward me wearing her usual orange jumpsuit, white socks, and thick plastic sandals that squeak against the floor.
I stand up. I smile at her as she approaches and she smiles back, but I don’t feel like it’s real, and my heart twists in knots.
“Hi baby,” I say and hug her gently. Physical contact is limited here.
Her hug is tight and doesn’t at all reflect the smile she gave me, but that only makes me feel a fraction better. Her hair is pulled into a tight ponytail at the back of her head. She’s wearing no makeup, of course, and although she looks tired, physically and mentally, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
We sit down.
“Two weeks,” I say, smiling even brighter, trying to lighten the mood. “You’ll be back with me in no time.”
“Elias?” she says and my heart stops. I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling. I swallow a knot in my throat, but another emerges behind it.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She inhales a deep breath into her lungs and then reaches up and wipes underneath her left eye with the edge of her finger.
Then suddenly, she smiles. I feel the corners of my eyes hardening in confusion and I cock my head to one side curiously. A smile of my own teases the corners of my lips.
“What is it?” I ask, suddenly beaming.
Bray shakes her head. “It’s nothing,” she says and reaches her hands across the table, enclosing them over mine. Her fingers are cold and frail. She leans over and kisses the tops of my warm, calloused ones. And while I’m worried the guard might say something to her about that, I don’t care much, either.
“Then what was with your letter?” I ask.
She slides her hands away. “I just wanted to see you,” she says.
“But you knew I’d come,” I say. “I-It just… sounded urgent. Baby, is there something you’re not telling me?”
She sighs. “Yeah, but it’s not really that big of a deal.”
“Well, what is it?”
She hesitates and says, “My release date has been moved to the ninth.”
“But why?” I ask. “I mean it’s only four days more, but—”
“It’s just some kind of technicality,” she answers.
Wanting her to stay positive, I make sure to do the same. I let my smile reappear and I say, “Well, that’s fine. I mean, sure, four days sucks, but it’s just four days. You’ll be OK, right?”
She nods. “Yes.”
Something doesn’t feel right. I feel like she’s lying to me. But why would she do that? Why would she lie about something like that?
I’m just being paranoid. That’s ridiculous. No way I’m going to accuse her of not being truthful. Not now. She doesn’t need that from me.
“Good,” I say and reach out to hold her hands like she did mine.
“So, tell me about Mitchell,” Bray says.
“Well… he’s not on meth anymore,” I say. “And he’s working at that tire and lube place over by our old school. He really does feel like shit for what he did. To both of us. Not just me.”
Bray’s smile is soft and forgiving. “Well, you tell Mitchell that it’s OK,” she says. “I’m not mad at him. He couldn’t help what he did. How’s your mom doing? And your dad?”
“They’re great,” I say, nodding. “Mom got engaged to James. I just found out last Thursday. They’re getting married in March. My dad is the same as he was before. A hardworking loner. He wanted me to tell you he wants us to visit him in Savannah when you come home. He really likes you. Always has.”
Bray’s eyes light up with her smile and then she looks down at the table.
