THIEF: Part 2 Page 3

  Slowly, my fear calcified to pure anger. Gordon was walking around my house, eating my food, watching my television with my mother. He kept up his life as a man; he moved on.

  But he’s not a man, I told myself. He was a monster.

  The morning I turned sixteen, Mom was frosting a cake. Red velvet: my favorite.

  “Hey, baby girl,” she smiled. “You feeling better? I hope you can at least manage some cake.” She kissed my forehead. Swiped some frosting on my nose.

  She should be able to tell.

  “Mom,” I blurted, my anger finally strong enough to get the words out of my throat, “I have something to tell you.” I made it a point to look her in the eye. “It’s about Gordon.”

  “Oh, my God.” Silas can’t stop shaking his head. When my story’s over, he looks away for a minute. I see him wipe his eyes with the back of his hand. “And your mom didn’t believe you? After all that?”

  “It was obvious,” I agreed, “but that’s my mom, for you. She only believed what she wanted to.” I sink into the couch, the weight of the truth finally off my chest. The effort of speaking has exhausted me. “She wanted me to ‘talk it out with Gordon,’ thought maybe it was a misunderstanding. I refused, of course, and she brought it up to Gordon, who fed her some bullshit about me coming on to him.” I laugh coldly. “Right. Like I’d ever come on to that pile of shit.”

  Silas is quiet a minute, composing himself. He takes a sip of my tea, now cold, and coughs. “Did you go to the police?”

  “I didn’t have any proof by that point, or at least I thought I didn’t—I didn’t think anyone would believe me, if my own mom didn’t.”

  “They would have.” Silas puts his hand on my shoulder, like convincing me of this now can make any damn difference. “Your mom was clearly delusional.”

  “Yeah, well—I didn’t know better, yet. So instead, I just left.” I pick at a loose thread in the couch. I’ve imagined saying these words so many times, it’s strange to hear them coming so freely now. “Moved in with friends, hopped couches for a while. Started shoplifting to get by. Then…just for fun.” I glance at him. “Got a job, got my own place. Everything was pretty good, for a while. Till I got caught.” My hand finds its way to his. “The only good thing my life right now…is you.”

  Suddenly, Silas takes my face in his hands and starts kissing me. He’s crying, and the sight makes me cry again, even though I was sure I was cried out. We keep kissing. He tells me everything I need to hear—that I’m safe now, that he’s here to stay, that he believes me, that Gordon is part of my past and Silas is my future—all without words.

  “I’m so sorry, Erin,” he says, his mouth against mine, foreheads touching. “I promise, I will never let him near you again…if I’d known all this, I wouldn’t have let him leave here unless it was in handcuffs. I’m so sorry.”

  I reach up and hold my hand against his. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”

  “We’ll sell this place,” he says firmly. “We’ll do an estate sale, auction off whatever you don’t want. You can leave all of this behind. I promise.”

  I push away from him a little, motioning to the dark living room. “I can’t just leave, Silas—where will I go?”

  “You’ll move in with me.” His voice is so sure, so solid; it’s not a question, or even a suggestion. We both know it’s the only option.

  Still, I ask if he’s sure.

  He kisses me again. “I’ve never been more sure of anything. Please—I want you to live with me. I want to fall asleep next to you every night, and wake up next to you every morning…I want to see my bathroom sink covered in your makeup and hair products. I want my fridge filled with those girly organic fruit blends you like so much.” We both laugh, and the sound’s like cool water, rushing through the desert.

  “Erin,” he says, taking my hands, “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I whisper. For the first time in days, though it feels like a lifetime, I don’t have to force my smile.

  Chapter Four

  We fall into a constant stream of work: the ranch by day, home renovations by night. On weekends, Silas brings me breakfast in bed, and we browse how-to sites over coffee. Most of the work is easy for us to learn—retiling the kitchen, tearing up the old linoleum; knocking down drywall to join the living room and den. When it comes time to paint, we strip down to our underwear, laughing at the swipes of generic beige and white we paint on each other when the work gets dull.

  The house is finished by mid-July, right before my last day of community service. Juliet and Silas organize a small party for lunch, an ice cream cake with balloons, like I’m an employee moving on with my life, and not just a court-ordered stable cleaner. Still, the thought is nice, and I do feel a little sad to leave. The cake reads, “We’ll Miss You, Erin/Happy Early Birthday,” the writing smushed together to fit.

  “We could use another staff member,” Juliet offers. “We don’t pay much, but you know—if you’re interested.”

  “Thanks,” I say, trying to sound polite, “but I think I’ve had enough stable clean-up to last me a lifetime. Besides,” I lie, “I’ve got some leads on manager positions around town.”

  Juliet nods. “Well, if you change your mind. And for the record, you wouldn’t be on stables—that’s for community service kids. Sometimes we get interns in here and they take turns with it. Most of our employees are horse trainers, groundskeepers, and counselors.”

  “It would be kind of cool working with the kids,” I say, my mouth finishing the bite of cake I just took, “but I don’t think I could handle it for long. Like Silas—he really loves it, but I guess some people are called to that kind of thing.”

  “What?” Juliet glances across the room, where Silas is laughing with another counselor.

  “You know what I mean,” I explain. “Some people just have a knack for working with special needs kids. I don’t think I’m cut out for it—that’s all.” I hold up a hand, apologizing. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it, Juliet. It’s just not my thing.”

  Juliet peers back at Silas, confused, and gets ready to say something else. When she opens her mouth, though, one of the other supervisors calls her name. She hesitates, then excuses herself.

  “Having fun?” Silas asks, kissing my cheek. Up until today, we’ve been hiding our relationship at any cost. It’s not exactly against any rules, but we didn’t want everyone in our business. Besides—sneaking around at work was exciting, sexy. Today, though, with my 100th hour of service officially behind me just as the lunch bell rang, we made it known. First, we held hands on the way to lunch, then kissed in front of the staff right before I blew out my candles. Everyone hooted and cheered, but something in their faces told us we weren’t as discreet the last few weeks as we thought we’d been: everyone seemed to know already.

  “Guess I better start looking for a job, now that my service is over,” I sigh, tossing my cake plate into the trash. I clean a smudge of ice cream from his mouth with my thumb and lick it, remembering our first date. It feels like years ago, but I realize it’s barely been a month.

  Silas smirks; he’s probably thinking of the wedding expo, too. “Guess so. Like I said, my job doesn’t pay much.”

  “What are you going to do when the summer’s over?” I ask. “You know, once the camp ends?”

  He shrugs. “They still need grounds keeping for the country club. And sometimes I do odd jobs around town. There's always something.”

  “You could counsel somewhere else,” I suggest. “There’s a special needs school right in the city—”

  “Maybe,” he says quickly, cutting me off. He checks his watch. “You ready to head out?”

  His rushed words surprise me, but I brush it off. “Uh…sure. Just let me go around and say my goodbyes.”

  “I’ll bring the golf cart around and drop you off at the lot,” he says, and kisses me, quick, before hurrying outside.

  When we
’re at his car, he passes me his keys. “The blue one’s for the apartment,” he says, “if you feel like napping or something till I get done here.”

  “Actually…I was thinking of finishing up the renovation clean-up at my mom’s place,” I say slowly. “The realtor’s going to be there early tomorrow.”

  “I’d feel better if you weren’t there alone.”

  “I’ll be fine. Trust me.” Seeing Gordon again shook me up, but more than anything, it angered me. And telling Silas the truth didn’t make the world fall apart, the way I thought it would. In fact, I feel stronger now. If Gordon’s stupid enough to show his face around me again, I’ll be ready to fight back.

  “I don't know,” he sighs. “Really, I’ll feel way, way better if I know you’re safe at my place.” He glances at his watch. “Maybe Juliet would let me leave early today.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say again, stressing the words. I get into the car, start it, and roll down the window. “Kiss me goodbye and stop worrying.”

  He leans in through the window and kisses me, deeply. For a moment, we let ourselves get lost in it. The sound of the afternoon shuttle rattling in the distance snaps us back.

  “See you in a couple hours,” he says. “Stay safe.” It’s meant to sound casual, but comes out like a plea.

  “I will. Promise.”

  I do feel stronger. And I’m definitely angry at Gordon. But that doesn’t mean a tiny part of me still isn’t afraid.

  As I walk through the house, the smell of new paint permeating each room, I find myself checking the corners. I keep my back towards the walls. When I find one of Silas’s hammers near the stairs, I don’t put it with the rest of his tools: I hang on to it and carry it with me, like a torch.

  I know he’s not here. I’m not sure how I know, but I can tell. His presence is the calm before a storm, something steady and piercing, like the electrical noise of a television on mute. Besides—for all his toughness, snarling and threats, Gordon is a coward. I know this much.

  By the time I’m due to leave, I’ve long since finished the last of the clean-up, my trash bag filled with discarded painter’s tape, with a crate of broken-down boxes by the front door. Every surface in the place gleams. The floors are so clean, you could actually eat off them.

  I finish the last half of Mom’s last hidden wine bottle, sitting cross-legged in the middle of her room. We’ve donated most of her stuff to Goodwill already, leaving the bigger pieces of furniture that buyers might like to include in the house purchase. Without Mom’s doilies, trinkets, or pictures—the latter of which is packed tightly into a box with my name on it, already in Silas’s apartment—the place looks like the showroom at Bailey Brother’s Furniture, where I used to work. Everything’s so sterile, so fake-cozy. This could be anyone’s home.

  But, as Silas keeps reminding me, that’s the whole point.

  I lock up, dump the trash into the cans by the curb, and climb into Silas’s car. I’m halfway down the driveway when I notice a car down the block.

  It’s not Gordon’s usual ride, I can see that from here. But it’s not any of Mom’s neighbors’ cars, either.

  The car moves when I move. I speed up—it speeds up. It reaches the entrance to the neighborhood before me and screeches onto the main road. I can’t catch a glimpse of the driver, but the license plate says the car’s from Tennessee.

  Calm down, I coach myself. Maybe it was a relative of the neighbors.

  This makes sense: the neighborhood is filled with old people, and their adult children are always coming to visit. Maybe it was someone doing exactly what I was doing, flipping their dead parent’s house to get it on the market as fast as possible, and move on.

  When I pull into the lot of Fox Ridge, I’ve almost managed to convince myself this is exactly what happened. But the way the car rushed out of there needles at me…the way it seemed to be waiting in the street. For me.

  “Hey, beautiful.” Silas kisses me and slides into the passenger seat. “How’d clean-up go?”

  “Good,” I say quickly. “I’m tired, though—you mind if we skip that movie tonight and just…I don’t know, hang out at your place?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He studies me a minute. “You okay?”

  I can feel the fear creeping back. But I’m determined; I’ve let it win for too long.

  The car was a coincidence.

  It wasn’t waiting for you.

  “Yeah,” I tell him, smiling. “I’m fine.”

  I can tell he doesn’t buy it, but I know how to stop him from prodding: when we’re on the highway, I reach for the gearshift. But instead of taking my hand off after I’ve switched gears, I leave it there. Then, slowly, I move it to his leg. Then I slide it, slowly but steadily, to the one place he can’t ignore.

  He smiles, shifting in his seat. “Yeah…let’s skip the movie.”

  Chapter Five

  It’s the end of July when the house sells. Even the realtor seems surprised; apparently, houses in this neighborhood drag through the market six months or more. Silas credits his handyman skills, which even I have to admit are impressive. The kitchen is completely updated, thanks to him cosigning on a loan with me, despite my protests. “You’ll get way more for the house if the kitchen’s not…this,” he’d said, motioning to the peeling linoleum of Mom’s old floor. “We’ll pay the loan back when the house sells, don’t worry about it.”

  So, like so many things, I let him talk me out of my worries and just trusted him. He was right: a bidding war between two newlywed couples ensued, and we closed at 2% over asking. After we pay the loan back, I’ve got almost 3 years’ worth of my old salary in the bank.

  “Not that it’s a good thing, you know, having your mom die,” Silas says, the night of the sale, “but it’s definitely a silver lining. Especially since she didn’t have life insurance.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh, and look around his apartment. With my stuff piled here in the living room, even though I still don’t have much, the place looks even smaller. “Maybe we should think about a new place ourselves. When your lease is up, I mean.” Suddenly, I realize how forward this sounds. I blush. “Uh…you know, if you want to. I can just get my own place if you don’t….”

  Silas laughs, sweeping me into his arms. “If I don’t what? Want you here?” He gives me a deep, knee-weakening kiss. “You just can’t let good things happen to you, you know that?”

  When he lets me go, I grab one of the bottles of wine I bought to celebrate. “My high school guidance counselor told me the same thing,” I tell him, “right before I dropped out.”

  “I didn’t know you dropped out.” He says this like it’s just an interesting fact, no judgement. I’m reminded, yet again, how and why I fell for him so quickly.

  In the kitchen, I dig the cork from the bottle with a steak knife, pour two glasses, and hand him one before settling into the crook of his arm on the sofa. “Yep,” I say, taking a long sip. “End of sophomore year. I just didn’t see the point anymore. I got my GED about a year and a half later, landed my job at Bailey Bro’s, got my apartment….” I take another sip. “You know the rest.”

  “Sometimes I forget how young you are,” he says. “Not like, immature, obviously. Just your actual age.”

  “Like when I break the law to score booze?” I tease, clinking my glass to his.

  Without taking a sip, he sets his down. “No, really—when I was your age, I was married, which sounds mature. But I wasn’t at all. In fact, all it did was make me act more like a kid. Getting wasted every night, spending grocery money on drugs…and Abby was the same way.” He clicks his tongue, thinking. “We kind of poisoned each other.”

  “Speaking of Abby, actually….” I sit up and laugh at the panic on his face. “Relax, it’s nothing bad. I was thinking today about what you told me, how you still owe her alimony, but you don’t want to pay her till you know she’s sober—won’t she take you to court if you don’t pay?”

  He shakes his head, picks up his
wine glass, then sets it back down. “She’s got too much to lose, taking me to court. I mean…you know, she’s got her own problems and stuff.”

  “Well, in that case, maybe we could open an account—put some of the money in there from the sale,” I tell him, gaining momentum. “That way, if she did take you to court, you can just show them the account and explain why you didn’t give it to her. And since the money would be there, untouched, they’d believe you.”

  Silas tilts his head, considering this. “That’s actually a pretty good idea. It could even gain some interest, with enough time…. I could put all my monthly payments into it.” I see his tongue poking his cheek. “But I couldn’t accept that money, Erin—it’s yours.”

  “You took out the loan for me,” I say. “You put as much time and energy into that place as I did, probably more. Hell, if it weren’t for your loan, the damn thing would probably still be on the market, rotting away.” I kiss him, leaving a couple drops of wine from my lips on his. “At least let me give you the difference—the extra money the renovations earned.”

  Silas licks the wine from his lips, wincing at the taste. But he smiles at my idea. “Yeah…okay. Let’s do it.” Now he kisses me. “How’d you think of it?”

  “It’s been on my mind a lot, lately,” I admit. “Not Abby, specifically, just…tying up the loose ends.” I gulp some more wine. “Making it harder for people to stir up drama.”

  He nods knowingly. “Some people really love doing that, don’t they?”

  I think back to our first date, as we drove home from the hospital. Silas’s cheek is healed completely now, the scar fading to a translucent, thin, white line along his jaw. I trace it with my pinky and echo what he said that night, nodding. “Yep. Just when shit starts going right.”

  The phone rings, and for a second, both of us hold our breath. “Let the machine get it first,” Silas says. We lean into each other, waiting.