Page 15 of Pieces of Ash

“Getthe fuckout,” he says softly, still hunched over. “You can clean in here later.”

He thinks I’m the maid.

My eyes skitter to the pink feather only a few feet away from me, and I step forward, reaching for it.

“GET THE FUCK OUT!”

I pull hard, and a journal, with a hot pink feathered pen securely attached, slips from between the mattress and box spring. I grab it before it can smack on the floor, then bolt from the room before he turns around to see me. Cradling the bookagainst my chest, I slam the foyer door shut, then race down the hall to my room.

Trembling, I bury the book at the bottom of my suitcase, hoping to find some answers…as a hundred new questions fill my head.

Chapter 4

Ashley

The drive to New Paltz takes about an hour, and we are driven in a town car by Mosier’s secondary chauffeur and part-time gardener, Cezar.

Anders sits to my left, staring at his cell phone, and the leather bolster between us remains down for the entire ride. We don’t speak, though I can’t shake my curiosity about Anders’s unexpected presence in my mother’s room this morning.Why was he there? And why was he crying?

I think back on their relationship but can’t pinpoint anything that would indicate that they’d been especially close. I wasn’t around very much over the past five years, but I did spend a few days with Tig at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter every year, and returned again for two months over the summer.

Had Anders become close to her? Perhaps loved her as a mother figure?

I don’t know very much about Mosier’s first wife, but her portrait still hangs in his study, with a candle burning beneath it at all times. In the painting, a woman sits in a formal, wingback chair beside an outdoor swimming pool, wearing a formal white dress and veil. She holds a red rose in one hand and pink pearl rosary in the other. (That rosary is mine now. Mosier gave itto me on my sixteenth birthday.) She’s looking to the left, so it’s hard to make out her face, but a blonde curl escapes from beneath the veil, and her profile beneath the heavy white lace is very pretty. I don’t know how she died, but I imagine she meant a great deal to Mosier if he still has her portrait displayed.

Her sons have barely ever mentioned her, though I heard her name once.

Rozalia.

Rose.

“Anders?”

“Hmm?” he grunts, not looking up from his phone.

“How old were you when your mother passed away?”

He glances at me, his face expressionless. “Four.”

I nod, looking at the folded hands in my lap. “You must have missed her.”

“We moved here soon after,” he answers, flicking a look at the rearview mirror and meeting Cezar’s eyes briefly.

It’s the longest conversation we’ve had in years, but I press on, aware that we’ll be arriving at school in the next ten to fifteen minutes, and the next time I have an opportunity to speak to Anders might be as his—gulp—new stepmother.

“When did my sister start using again?” I whisper, looking over at him.

His jaw tightens as it did at dinner last night, and his eyes, shiny and profoundly miserable, meet mine, blinking twice in quick succession. “She wasn’t—I mean…I don’t know.”

“She’d been clean for years.”

He doesn’t answer me, just closes his eyes and swipes his hand back and forth over his lips and chin.

“I don’t understand,” I continue. “I just want?—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “She’s gone. Let her be gone.”

My shoulders slump, and I glance out the window as we turn off the highway.