Page 37 of Tiny Precious Secrets (The Brothers of Calloway Creek The Montanas #4)

Allie

Yesterday was moving day. Other than my personal belongings, I didn’t bring a whole lot from Montana Manor. Everything there pretty much belongs to my parents.

Most of our new house is being furnished by Asher’s things.

Although we’ll still have to go shopping to fill a few spaces, not to mention all the baby stuff we’ll have to get.

One thing I couldn’t part with, however, is my favorite chair.

It’s one of those big comfy ones you can just sink into and get lost in a book.

I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot of use in the coming months.

Today is all about unpacking boxes. It’s also about me being here all alone with Bug. And not just today, for three whole days.

She’s barely said two words to me. Every once in a while she’ll go out to the garage, where most of the boxes are stacked, and she’ll carry another one up to her room.

It’s almost noon when she comes for another.

“I’ve got stuff for sandwiches in the kitchen. Want one?”

She puts down the box. “I could eat.”

I get a little nervous, wondering what we’re going to talk about for the length of time it takes to make, then eat, a sandwich. But as it turns out, I didn’t need to be. Darla slaps turkey and cheese on bread, wraps it in a paper towel, and walks out of the kitchen.

She turns back, saying only one word. “Gertrude.”

I know what she’s doing. For days now, she’s been spouting out names to get under my skin. Does she sit around and think of the most hideous names just to annoy me? I’m not going to let her win this game.

“Gerty.” I nod. “That’s actually not bad. Did you ever see the movie E.T. ? That little girl was adorable.”

She huffs loudly through her nose, spins around, and hoofs it up the stairs.

I get a text.

Asher: Just landed in Atlanta. Is the new house still standing?

Me: Barely. But it’s fine. I don’t want you worrying about us. We’ll work through it. She’s actually being quite entertaining, and might I say innovative, with the baby names.

Asher: I still can’t believe you’re going all in on that.

Me: Have a little faith, will you?

Asher: My ride is here. Gotta go. I’ll call you tonight. I love you.

Me: I love you too. Don’t work too hard.

I finish my sandwich, clean up the counter, and head out to the garage. I promised Asher I wouldn’t lift anything too heavy, so I sift through the boxes until I find one marked ‘towels.’ I take it into the laundry room and dump everything into the washing machine.

Later, when I go out for another box, I stop short of the garage door. It’s sitting ajar and I hear voices. I lean against the wall and listen.

“I’m Christian. I live next door.”

My eyebrows shoot up. I totally forgot about Carter and his son. I’m not sure how, considering Christian is Mia’s nephew, whom she loves more than life itself.

“Darla. But everyone calls me Bug. I guess I live here now.”

“You guess?”

“I’m being forced to. I used to live in Florida. Why do you use those things? Is your leg broken?”

I take a chance and peek out into the garage. Christian and Bug are standing about ten feet apart on the far side. She’s leaning against my car. He’s balancing himself on his forearm crutches.

“I have cerebral palsy,” he says matter-of-factly in his distinct tone of voice that’s slow and deliberate.

“What’s that?”

“Basically, something happened to me when my mom was pregnant or during the delivery. Something that affects muscle movement and coordination and fine motor skills. There are all kinds of degrees of CP. Mine’s not so bad.”

“Oh, okay. That’s cool.”

“How old are you?” Christian asks.

“Thirteen.”

“Me too. Are you going to attend Calloway Creek High this year?”

She shrugs. “Haven’t decided yet. I might do the whole home school thing.”

I watch Christian walk through the garage on his crutches like they aren’t even a bother, like they’re just an extension of him.

I rub my belly thinking of Christopher and how I wish he could have had CP instead of Trisomy 18.

Some people look at Carter and Christian with pity. I look at them with envy.

“Why would you want to home school? Seems boring.”

“Because I hate Calloway Creek.”

“It’s not so bad here. Maybe you need to give it a chance.”

“You’re only saying that because you aren’t a freak.”

He holds up a crutch. “You think I’m not a freak?”

I like the way he says it jokingly. Christian is an amazing kid. He’s never let his disability define him. He does well in school, he works the front desk at the autobody shop in the summer, and he’s incredibly outgoing and friendly.

“You think because you walk funny and have coke bottle glasses that you’re a freak?”

He laughs. “Nobody ever says stuff like that to me. I kind of like that you aren’t afraid to.”

“Because I’m a freak,” Bug says. “Try to keep up.”

“You think you’re a freak because of your blue hair? Then dye it. But personally, I think it’s kind of cool. Nobody else in town has hair that color.”

“I’m a freak because I’m new. I’m sure you’ve lived here your whole life. People don’t look at you like you don’t belong. Nobody wants to make friends with the new girl.”

“I do. And you should totally come to high school. We’ll start a club. The freak club.”

I want to be appalled by their conversation. I mean, they keep using the word freak . But now it seems they’ve said it so much, the word has lost all its power.

I smile to myself, feeling guilty for eavesdropping, but not guilty enough to stop doing it. I like that Bug is possibly making a friend.

Christian looks back at his house. “I’d better go. I promised my dad I’d clean the kitchen by the time he gets home from work.”

Bug cocks her head and studies him.

“What?” he says. “You don’t think a freak on crutches can clean?” Then he laughs. “Okay, so it might take me two or three tries to pick up anything that falls on the ground. And I’m sure it takes me way longer than the non-freaks—”

Darla throws up her hands. “Will you stop calling yourself a freak? It’s self-deprecating.”

“I will if you will.” He holds out a hand.

I’m fairly sure she rolls her eyes but shakes it anyway. “Deal.”

Feeling their conversation is coming to an end, I shuffle back into the kitchen and pretend to be oblivious to their meeting.

A minute later, Bug walks through carrying another box. “Ursula.”

I tilt my head. “Like from The Little Mermaid ? Or from Friends ?”

“Does it really matter?”

“Nope,” I say flippantly, putting away some plates I’d washed earlier. “I suppose not.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can tell she’s staring at me. She doesn’t like how I won’t engage with her attempts to annoy me.

“Do you need any help decorating your room?” I ask.

“No.”

“If you need anything, we could run to the store. Curtains?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t want curtains?”

“I do. I just don’t want to go to the store.”

I lean against the counter. “With me. You mean you don’t want to go to the store with me?”

“This box is getting pretty heavy.” She starts for the stairs.

“We could get baby stuff. That might be fun.”

She turns. “Why would that be fun?”

“Well, we need pretty much everything. I thought we could go pick out a few outfits. Maybe even the ones they’ll wear home from the hospital. Or… we could get you some new clothes for school.”

“Not sure I’m going.” She rests the box on her hip. “I have a lot to do upstairs.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”

“I’ll still have a lot to do.”

I force out a deep sigh and hold up my hands. “Fine. You win. Go.”

I change over the laundry, then bring in a few more boxes. I have no idea what to do about dinner. I guess I’ll just make something and if Bug eats, she eats. Up in her room probably. If Asher were here, he’d make her sit at the table with us. I’m not going to force her to do that.

I’m contemplating what to make when I come across the box with Christopher’s ashes.

They’re not in a traditional urn. After all, few people knew what happened, so I wasn’t about to display something in my apartment that anyone would question.

It’s simple. A ceramic heart tinted blue that could be something I picked up at a flea market.

There’s no engraving. No picture. And for almost ten years it’s been on my nightstand.

I set it carefully on the coffee table, thinking I might put it somewhere else now.

There’s a box on the floor without a label. I pull a few things out of it. Magazines. No, not magazines, comic books. I flip through one just as Bug comes through the room. “I found your comics,” I say, holding one out and picking up a stack.

She scoffs as if I just said the stupidest thing in the history of things. “They aren’t comics.”

“Oh, right. These are your what… anime?”

“You don’t know anything,” she says, striding across the floor. “Anime is what you watch. These are manga.”

She reaches me, and forcefully pulls it out of my hand, accidentally knocking a few things off the coffee table in the process.

When I see the broken pieces of the urn along with Christopher’s ashes scattered on the floor, I fall to my hands and knees. “No!” I pick up the base of the heart to see barely any ashes still inside. “Oh my god. No.”

On my knees, I use my hands to sweep his ashes into a pile. Tears stream down my face and drop onto his ashes as I vaguely process Bug’s startled reaction.

“You’re kind of overreacting about a broken vase full of sand.”

She leaves the room as I cup my hands, picking up ashes and depositing them back into the bottom part of the urn.

There’s a noise behind me, and before I can even process what’s happening, Darla is next to me sucking up his ashes into a handheld vacuum cleaner.

I push it away. “No! Stop it!” I rip the vacuum out of her hand and look into the clear collection container that is filled with dust, hair, even a few bugs. And now, my Christopher.

Sobbing, I lean back against the sofa, vacuum in hand so she can’t suck up any more.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” she asks, looking at me like I’m a crazy woman. “Does my dad know about this mental instability, or have you been hiding it from him?”

I draw more of the ashes on the floor into a small pile. “This isn’t s-sand. It’s C-Christopher.”

She looks at me, confused. “Who’s Christopher?”

I touch the broken remains of the urn. “My son.”

She gasps. And that’s when I see it. Empathy. I see it along with all the other qualities she’s never displayed in front of me but that Asher keeps telling me she has.

“Oh my god. Seriously?” She looks at the vacuum cleaner in horror. “I… I didn’t know.”

I shake my head, still crying. “It’s not your fault. It was an accident.”

She sits next to the coffee table, drawing her knees up to her chest, clearly unsure what she should do.

Asher never told her. Just like he said he wouldn’t. He wanted me to tell her in my own time. I guess it’s time.

“I was nineteen. I hid the pregnancy from everyone because I knew he was sick. He had what you call a chromosomal anomaly that is incompatible with life.” I absently sweep more ashes into the pile. “He only lived for thirty-one hours.”

“Does my dad know?”

I nod.

She looks down at my stomach and swallows like her world just turned upside down.

“Don’t worry. They don’t have it. They’re fine.”

She stands, clearly not knowing what to say. “I’ll go make dinner.”

I nod again, staring at the floor.

I don’t even say anything when she takes the small vacuum with her. I know I’d never be able to bring myself to empty it into the trash myself. And maybe she knows it too.

When I look up, she’s walking away, but she turns once and looks right at me. “I’m really sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“No. I mean I’m sorry about Christopher.”

It’s now when it dawns on me that she’s no stranger to infant death.

Bug’s own cousin died as a baby when she must have been only ten.

I’m sure she saw how destroyed Marti was when it happened.

She may well be one of the only thirteen-year-olds who could understand.

And that understanding is written all over her face.

For the next hour, I meticulously clean up the rest of Christopher’s ashes, putting them in a sealed bag until I can get another urn. This time, I’m going to have his name engraved on it.

I can’t get myself to unpack anymore. I take a nap instead. And I sleep for hours, right through dinner.

When I finally get up and go to the kitchen, there’s a note that my dinner is in the warming drawer.

But it’s not the note and the dinner that mean anything to me.

It’s the small baggie next to the note. I can see what’s in it plain as day.

She must have spent hours going through the contents of the vacuum container, because I can’t see one single hair, dust mote, or carpet fiber. What’s inside is all Christopher.

A single tear rolls down my cheek.

Because this girl who hates me has just done the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.