Page 70 of Alexander: Alexander's Story

“Put down the spoon, Silas, or so help me god…” The brother I haven’t met before drops the spoon.

He doesn’t look like the rest of his family, the opposite of a black sheep, really.

“Emma, right?” I give him a smile and nod.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Silas,” he extends a corded forearm to shake my hand. He isn’t serious like Max, and he’s not goofy and assured like Niko. But he seems nice. Genuinely.

“Can I help with anything, Carly?” I ask as she swats Niko away from the cake she just frosted.

“Help remove the heathens from my kitchen?” She asks with an apologetic look, like it pains her to ask for help.

I’m about to ask them to make me a drink as a distraction when a booming voice from the back hallway says, “Get out of her kitchen!”

Max, with a phone in his hand, busy typing away, walks through, and everyone clears out of the kitchen, including me.

But he stops me, “Not you, kid, sorry. Also, happy birthday.” I try to do my part, though, and pick up CT from where he’s corralling bits of broken pasta off the floor.

“Yuck,” I tell him as I brush his hands off over the sink, then rinse the bits of dried food away. He giggles.

“Christ! Sorry, Emma.” Liam rounds the corner like he lost the baby. Because he did.

“No problem,” I say, passing the kid over to his dad.

“Alright, I’ve got one dirty Shirley for the birthday girl.” Sandy, who is Liam’s mom — I think — passes me what looks like a Shirley Temple. It’s hard to keep track of who belongs to who around here.

“Thank you so much.”

“Now, how is it that you’ve lived here almost a full year, and I haven’t seen you around?” She stands with a hand on her hip and an eyebrow arched.

“I guess I’m just a hermit?” I shrug.

“Y’all are two peas in a pod, aren’t you?” I assume she means Alex. And we are. Seriously.

“We get along well, yes.” She laughs, this beautiful laugh. She has one of those great laughs that just endears you to herimmediately. I like her. Innately. She seems like someone who is salt of the Earth, good people.

And then I’m reminded of someone else laughing and a soothing Southern accent wafting over to console her.Jess.Will I ever make it out of her shadow?

“Come get coffee at the shop sometime. I could always use a chat with a friendly face. Ever since the girls went back to school, and Jess and Eden moved away…It gets lonely in the winter around here.” It slips out of her mouth without thought and no ill will.

But the sinking feeling is there all the same.Eden.That’s a pretty name. I can picture a little girl toddling around the floral wallpapered room in our house. A room that we never talk about. The door is always kept closed. Like it doesn’t exist.

But it existed for them.

“Yeah, I’ll have to come by sometime. Usually, Alex makes my coffee to-go before I leave for class so I don’t have to stop.”So I didn’t have to stop…

“Hey, sorry. Was talking to Brit, what’d I miss?” He puts a hand on the small of my back.

“Nothing.” I give him a soft smile. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t want me going by The Grounds. I don’t really want to go anyway. I just wonder if he did it for my benefit…or hers.

The stinging in my chest told me it was probably for hers.

“What would you do if Ray ever reached out to you?” I ask as we drive home from Brit’s, way past our regular bedtime.

“I know exactly what I’d do. Because he did.” I stare at him. He hasn’t told me this.

“And what happened?”