Not a fan of the dark, I’m slow tiptoeing down the hallway. I move around the corner and a clink from Olivia’s room causes me to pause at the bathroom. A dull light floods her room, she lifts her head off the pillow, and our eyes meet.
A sudden drop of my stomach disorients me. The typical scarf that covers her head is missing. Exposed is the dark hair shaved close to her scalp and a crescent-shaped scar near her ear.
“Are you okay, Emily?” she asks, and the question sounds sincere. Reminding me of how my mom spoke when I used to drag James the Elephant with me into her room when I was younger and had a nightmare.
“Yeah,” I answer. “Just hot. I was going to get a washcloth. Do you need anything?”
“Come here.” Olivia waves me in. Not what I was hoping for, but I go in regardless. I stand at the foot of the bed and twist my fingers behind my back, feeling like a pauper in front of royalty—which is strange, but maybe not. Everyone treats her as if she’s the queen.
Olivia pats the empty space next to her. “Turn on the window unit and sleep in here.”
“I’m fine. Really. I’ll go get—”
“Emily,” she cuts me off. “Unit on, get in the bed, I won’t eat you, but I will tear you a new ass if you don’t do what I say.”
I have never met anyone so rude or demanding in my life. Wait, I’ve hung out with Oz. I press a button on the window unit. Air blasts from the machine, and then I sit on the empty side of the bed. One leg on. One leg off. “You’re not used to people telling you no, are you?”
“No. If you’re going to be here for any length of time, you better get used to it.”
While her room is hot, what’s weird is that Olivia wears a long-sleeve shirt and is buried under a quilt. My other foot hits the floor and I reach for the air conditioner. “You’re cold.”
I push the off button and search the room for another blanket. How the freak can she be cold? It has to be in the high eighties in the house.
“Emily Star, turn that back on!”
“You’re cold,” I say.
“And you’re hot. There isn’t much I’ve been able to do for you for fifteen years and, because of the cancer, there isn’t a ton I can do for you now so please let me do this.”
There’s a fierceness in her eyes. A warrior’s soul in a body that appears frail tonight.
I press the unit back on and cold air once again roars into the room. I return to the empty side of the bed, but this time I draw both of my legs up and lock them to my chest. Olivia snuggles deeper into the blankets.
I peek at her from the corner of my eye and she adjusts onto her side to face me. “Eli will be home soon. You should spend the next couple of days getting to know your father.”
A twinge of resentment snakes its way up my spine. “I know my father.”
“Jeff’s a good man,” she says. “And so is Eli.”
That’s up for debate. I visit Eli once on his home turf and I may or may not have been almost abducted by a rival motorcycle club. “Eli seems nice. He visits me once a year.”
I say it as if she’s out of the loop because, well...there’s the possibility that conversation between us could get thin.
“I’m aware,” she says in a short way that makes me wish I could claim I was mute. Very long pause and she speaks again. “Everyone keeps reminding me that you aren’t the child I knew and as much as I hate it, you’re not.”
I’m not and for some reason this honesty causes me to be uncomfortable. I point then relax my toes. “I found Mom’s initials on the tree, which, according to Oz, means that she jumped from the rope swing. So now that I figured it out, will you fill me in on my mom’s past?”
“Tell me the significance of Honeysuckle Ridge and then we’ll have a different conversation. How did you get Oz to tell you about the rope?”
“He had me jump.”
Pure surprise softens Olivia’s features. “You jumped?”
I gesture to my bandaged leg. “I jumped wrong and hit the rocks.”
Olivia traces the outline of her lips and stares off into space. “Oz had you jump.”
“He explained it’s a tradition and how everyone who comes to the pond has to do it.”
“No. It’s what we have the people we care for do. Most of the names there are club members, but not many of those names belong to women. That’s a rarity.”
“I’m sure Oz had me do it because I’m related to you.”
She shakes her head halfway through my response. “That’s not how our world works. The only females on those trees are old ladies.”
My mind stretches in two different directions and the resulting aftermath is a brain freeze.
“There may be a few exceptions,” she admits, “like Violet, but overall, it’s a privilege granted to few.”
“Which one was my mom?” Which one am I? “Why was her name on there?” If asking me to jump, if carving my name into the tree meant something special, then why did Oz share it with me? Or is it because I’m an exception, like Violet, or was Mom an exception?
“Why do you think your mother’s name was on there?” Olivia asks.
All the possible answers spin so fast in my head that the world tilts. “If Mom was an...”
Old lady. It feels wrong to refer to her that way. “...Attached to Eli then why not tell me? If they knew each other before she got pregnant it still doesn’t change that Eli didn’t want us.”