Page 60 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

I chatted with my dad about his work at Oak & Reed while we finished dinner. My mom joined in here and there, but I knew she was upset and I didn’t blame her.

A lot of things changed when you suffered the kind of tragedy we’d suffered.

There were things other people took for granted that you couldn’t take for granted anymore: that everyone was safe, that there would be another Christmas together, another birthday, that there would be plenty of time to spend laughing and goofing off, plenty more hugs.

We’d become closer because of what had happened to June. There was the obvious stuff, like texting each other regularly so no one worried, but there was less obvious stuff too, like spending a lot of time together and never assuming there would be more.

It wasn’t an easy way to live — like trying to live your life with a giant scythe hanging over your neck — but the alternative was to tempt fate by not caring, and none of us were willing to do that.

Not after what had happened to June.

I’d never gone as long without seeing my parents as I’d gone during the last two months.

There had always been reasons to get together, first because there was new information about the investigation into June’s murder, details about her upcoming trial, and then Chris’ sentencing, where we’d all been able to read victim statements out loud to Chris and the court.

Then, after Chris had gone to jail, there had always been a family dinner or brunch, a birthday or holiday. I’d been there to help my dad cook, had helped my mom plant bulbs in the garden in spring, something June had always done when she’d been alive (June had never been interested in cooking).

So I got why my mom felt some kind of way about my absence.

She warmed up as we put dinner on the table, and the conversation was lively as I piled my plate high with spaghetti and meatballs — a childhood birthday favorite I’d never outgrown — and garlic bread.

We caught up and I learned that Simon had made the varsity soccer team at Forest Day while Olivia was enrolled in the occupational culinary program I’d taken when I’d gone to the school.

Just a year before Chris had been sentenced to prison. I’d sobbed in the courtroom when Olivia and Simon had read their victim statements and had wondered if their lives would be irreversibly damaged by what Chris had done to June.

Now they both seemed happy and well adjusted, which was a relief given everything that had happened.

My dad had won an award for one of his desserts at Oak & Reed, and he’d been approached by a publisher about a cookbook, but my mom was struggling.

She’d taken a sabbatical from her professorship during Chris’ trial and had never gone back to work, and I had a hard time pulling anything out of her about how she spent her time.

Simon and Olivia cut me meaningful glances while my mom dodged my questions, and I made a mental note to ask them for more detail later.

After dinner my dad brought out dessert, a lemon-meringue angel food cake that was my dad’s own recipe and my favorite cake of all time. My mom lit the candles and everybody sang and I wished that a year from now Ethan Todd would be dead.

You’re a real ball of sunshine, M.

June’s voice came to me as I was blowing out the candles, and I was glad she was there, even if it was only in my head.

We were lingering over coffee and cake when Olivia spoke. “I heard Ethan Todd’s moving to Blackwell Falls.”

My heart dropped, both because I’d heard the same thing and because I’d hoped Simon and Olivia would be spared my obsession with Ethan Todd.

My dad scowled, a warning sign that Olivia should keep quiet.

“What?” Olivia said. “I’m just saying.”

“Where did you hear that?” Simon asked her.

“Maren Burbank told me she saw it somewhere online.”

“Not everything online is true,” I said.

I didn’t want Simon and Olivia falling down the Ethan Todd rabbit hole. They were just kids, and they’d had enough of their innocence stolen by Chris and Ethan Todd.

“Duh,” Olivia said. “But some things are.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, does it?” My dad was trying to be cheerfully dismissive. “He has nothing to do with us.”

“How can you say that?” Olivia asked. “He’s such an asshole! And he’s the one who made Chris crazy.”

In a way, June’s murder had been harder on Simon and Olivia. They’d liked Chris when he’d first started dating June, had thought of him as a big brother. Then, when Chris had started to change, the rest of us had tried to shield them from the truth.

Who wants to tell their kids — their little brother and sister — that guys like Ethan Todd exist in the world? That someone like Chris might become just like him?

“Dad’s just saying that Ethan Todd has done enough damage,” I said. “You and Simon should focus on living your lives.”

“We all should.” My dad looked at me and I knew it was a reminder, because back when I’d first become obsessed with Ethan Todd my dad had been the one to try and pull me out of it.

That was part of why I’d moved out with Bailey: so I’d have more privacy to hunt Ethan Todd.

“Agreed.” It hurt me to lie to him, which was what I was doing by insinuating I’d moved on. “June would want that.”

What do you think I want for you?

I left June’s question unanswered because answering meant admitting that somewhere along the way, I’d stopped thinking about what June would want.

I was driven by my own bloodlust now.

I thought of the Butchers, thought about the irony that my desire to see Ethan Todd dead had aligned me with men dangerous in ways that were different from Ethan.

Olivia sulked but my dad changed the subject and we spent the rest of the meal engaged in lighthearted conversation. Then I helped my parents clean up while Simon and Olivia went to their rooms to do homework.

I was clearing the last of the dessert plates when I finally got the guts to come semi-clean. “I wanted you to know that I’m not staying with Bailey at the apartment right now.”

My mom looked surprised. “Did you have a fight?”

“No! Nothing like that.” Bailey and I hadn’t had a real fight since seventh grade, when she’d lost my favorite lip gloss. “I just have a friend who needs some help around their place right now.”

Not totally a lie.

My dad looked up from the counter, where he was wrapping some of the lemon cake for me to take home. “Which friend?”

“You don’t know her,” I said. “Someone from work.”

Okay, now I was lying.

“Is everything okay?” My mom’s eyes were shaded with worry and all at once I didn’t feel at all bad about lying.

I would do anything to keep her from being worried or sad ever again.

I gave her a quick hug. “It’s fine. I’ll be back with Bailey in a few weeks, and I’m covering my share of the rent in the meantime.”

My dad nodded his approval. “Good.”

My parents were big on responsibility, on commitment and doing what you said you were going to do.

Later, when my dad left the kitchen, I loaded the dishwasher while my mom wiped down the counters.

“I’m sorry for being away so long.”

“It hurts me not to see you,” she said quietly,

“I know.”

“You don’t.” Her voice was hard, and she took a deep breath, like she was trying to calm herself. “You can’t.”

I nodded. I knew what it was like to worry about the people I loved, but I wasn’t a parent. I didn’t know what it felt like to have been there when my child took her first breath and to know she’d taken her last breath alone and scared and far too soon.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I won’t stay away so long again, I promise.”

She nodded.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Really?”

“I’m as okay as I can be, Maeve.” I recognized the exhaustion in her voice, the resignation, even as I knew it was a thousand times worse than my own.

“Would it help to go back to work?”

“I don’t know if I can.” She filled the dishwasher with soap and closed it. It started with a quiet churn. “I don’t know if I’m that person anymore.”

Another thing lost to Chris. To Ethan Todd.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked her.

“Help me prep the garden for winter in a few weeks?”

I smiled. “I’ll be here.”

“How’s Dad?” I asked even though he seemed okay, because my dad always seemed okay but I knew no human on the planet was really okay all the time.

How could we be?

“He keeps busy,” she said.

We all coped in our own ways. My dad went to work, baked food that made other people happy. My mom stayed home and worked in the garden. Simon and Olivia went to school, tried to forget.

And me? Well, I was still quietly working to wipe Ethan Todd off the face of the earth.

And now I was pretty sure he was close to home.