Salvage, page 20
If anyone could, it was me.
Tavish and I found Craig.
Those kinds of images don’t ever go away, no matter how hard you try to scrub your brain. Despite years of therapy, I still had nightmares about that night every now and again.
If only Rowan opened up about his father’s death, it wouldn’t sit on his chest like a poisonous weight, dragging him further and further down into the undertow.
At least for now, he was back to himself. The Rowan I knew and recognized. The man he was when he wasn’t drowning in grief.
There was that odd moment a week ago after our ill-advised tryst at Bullseye, but even my hyperaware scrutiny hadn’t detected anything wrong since then.
And I dug. Deep.
I was relieved beyond comprehension to have Rowan back. I wouldn’t go chasing problems.
This morning, while he was at work, training Max and a couple other clients, he’d texted me. I had to pick up something from his mother’s place, but he wouldn’t say what.
It was a surprise.
Rowan. Planned. A. Date.
I was excited and, truth be told, a little bit nervous as I rang the bell. Almost immediately, my sort-of-mother-in-law swung the door open. Her blonde hair was nearly overrun with gray streaks now, but Esther was as lovely as ever. Her kind eyes crinkled when she spotted me.
“I’m so glad to see you.” She gave me a warm hug. Like I hadn’t broken up with her son and forced him to move in with her. Like we weren’t back together as if nothing happened.
“Hey, Esther.” Guilt pressed against my temples. “How’s it going?”
“Come on in.” She pulled me into the house and rubbed her hands against the cold that followed me in. I unlaced my boots and took off my winter coat before following her into the living room.
“Rowan sent me to grab something for a little adventure he planned for this afternoon. Apparently, you know all about it?”
Esther laughed with obvious satisfaction. “Ah, yes. So glad my meddling got you two back together.”
“You and Diego should start a meddling team. Maybe go pro.”
She chuckled. “Oh, that Diego.” The older woman was seconds away from fanning herself. “He is the sweetest young man I’ve ever met. I’m so glad he’s friends with my children. Sit, sit. Let me go grab that thing you need.” Her giggle was adorable, her enthusiasm palpable.
As I waited, I ventured farther into the house. “Can I help you, Esther?” I called out.
“No, no.” The answer came from the basement.
As stubborn as the son she raised, I followed the sound of her voice to the back of the house. I never did get to the steps that led down. I stopped dead in my tracks when I passed by the solarium.
My heart stopped but thundered all at once. The glass walls of the sunroom were made of pure nightmares. Pictures of fires, maps of the Caribou River region, and all kinds of other papers about the arsonist were plastered in a grotesque mural.
“Oh, dear,” Esther said, coming through the basement door. “Violet, I’m really sorry.” She placed a massive gym bag onto the ground and stepped toward me.
“What is this?” I pointed to the horror show, but she didn’t respond, covering her mouth with both of her hands. “Esther, what is this?”
She sat in one of the wicker sofas and patted the seat beside her. “Come here, Violet.”
My limbs refused to sit. I had to move as my mind spun out. I paced the length of the room, gaze glued to the wall of pain. “Did he do this when we were apart?”
“Yes. He stops by every now and again to stare at it. He adds things, moves them around. I honestly thought you knew.”
“I did not, no.”
He didn’t visit with his mother when he claimed to stop by. He wasn’t here to check on her because Libby was in the process of moving out. Nope. He was investigating the arsonist – even though he was no longer in the fire department. Even if he knew what this shit did to him.
What it did to us.
“Does he enjoy torturing himself?”
Esther winced. “I think he does, yes. Some kind of penance for what happened to Winston.”
I nearly choked on a swallow. “I thought he was back.”
“Back?” she asked, edging toward me. Her hand drew small comforting circles on my lower back.
Such a mom thing to do. It sharpened my sadness. I forced myself to take the kind gesture as bile rose up my throat.
“What do you mean, Violet?”
“Back from that place he disappears to in his head.” Back to me. Back to our life together.
“Oh. Sweet girl.” Esther gave me a maternal hug, the kind that usually eases most ailments. It didn’t. “He’s still lost, I think.”
My eyes burned, and the white-hot heat spread to my throat. This didn’t make sense.
“Do you think he’ll ever find his way back?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” She inhaled before loosening a breath. It sounded like a whimper. “I don’t know. He does seem to be better lately, his investigation notwithstanding.”
“What do I do, Esther?”
My question lingered in the air.
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” She gulped down a sob. “If Winston were alive, he’d take Rowan out on the porch and have a few beers. They’d have words, and just like that, things would be better.”
“I’ve tried everything.”
“I know. We all do.”
“I booked him appointments with grief counselors. He canceled each one. I tried to warn him away from calls and begged him to stay away from the station for a while. He doesn’t listen to me anymore.”
Her smile was sad. “You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t force the stubborn thing to drink.”
The front door slammed, cutting off my reply.
“Hey.” Libby’s voice resonated from the entryway. “I’m here, Mom. You ready to go?” Libby’s footsteps were loud explosions in the silent house.
“Vi! I haven’t seen you in forever.” Never mind that we saw each other at Daphne’s birthday party. She rushed forward and gave me a hug.
Libby wasn’t exactly fragile, but she wasn’t exactly sturdy, either. Her heart issues were a major concern. During the first ten years of her life, she essentially lived in a protective bubble because everyone was scared she’d excite herself to death.
And Libby was excited. A lot.
She was the sweetest person in the world. When Winston died, I honestly thought it would be hardest on Libby. That it would break the already fragile heart of a daddy’s girl. She surprised me and became Esther’s rock.
“How’re things?” she asked, sitting beside her mother. “This is insane, right? Are you here to save my brother from himself? Please tell me you are.”
Fuck. No pressure or anything.
I shrugged. I couldn’t use my usual response of I mean.
Even I didn’t know what I meant – what anything meant.
How was I supposed to feel about the murder board?
It made one thing glaringly obvious: Rowan struggled.
He obviously wasn’t done with the fire department or with the dark pull of the undertow.
He’d quit. He handed in his pager in front of my sister and a few other firefighters. It was the talk of the entire fire district up and down the Caribou River for weeks. One of EFD’s golden boys. Over and done with the fire department.
But this?
I shook my head, trying to find words. Thoughts. Sense. Anything.
“Diego told me that Rowan’s a force of nature at work lately. So that’s good, isn’t it?” Libby gave a tentative smile. “Apparently, he’s taking all the late shifts, doing all the cleaning. Even signed up a few clients. Diego was this close”—she pinched her forefinger and thumb together—“this close to booting him from the business. Of course, he didn’t want to. He’s a really good guy like that. Not gonna lie, though. Definitely worked some magic and convinced Diego to hold on a little bit longer.”
“Libby,” Esther gasped. “That’s not right.”
She waved off the reprimand. “He owed me a favor. I cashed it in.”
“Why did Diego owe you? After everything he’s done for this family?” Esther tutted. “No. Never mind. Don’t want to know. I’ve got a feeling it’s none of my damn business.”
“We stick together,” Libby explained. “Even when it gets hard. Especially then,” Libby insisted. Sweet, little, innocent twenty-something Libby.
She was right in a lot of ways.
She was also wrong.
If anything, Craig had proved that there is a limit to the love, shelter, and understanding a family can give. If Rowan went dark again, he wouldn’t be able to come back to his life. He pushed us all to the brink of what we could take.
Or maybe that was me.
Maybe I was too weak to love a lost man.
“I don’t like to talk about all this. I guess you understand that better than most.” Esther wrung her fingers. “I still have a hard time going into the store. A business I ran most of my adult life.” Her shoulders shook, her words as wobbly as her chin.
Please don’t cry. Please do not cry.
“When I called 911, I made sure, you know. I told the operator that Rowan was on the fire crew. That he should be warned. That he shouldn’t see…”
“Mom, don’t,” Libby pleaded.
“No. I need to say this.” She rubbed her forehead, blinking back tears without realizing they were already flowing. “I remember it like it was seconds ago. The fire trucks pulled up. I ran to Nelson. I begged him not to let Rowan onto the scene. He promised me Rowan wouldn’t…” A deep gulp broke into a sob. “It was too late.” Esther closed her eyes and shook her head. Her fists were tight balls at her chest now. “His screams. I can’t get them out of my mind. I’m scared of sleeping because, sometimes, that’s all I dream about.”
Libby wrapped her arms around her mother’s shaking, frail form. “You need to stop, Mom. You’re upsetting yourself.”
“That’s the thing, Libby. I don’t ever talk about it. Your brother, either. It just sits here.” She punched her chest with another whimper. “That boy worshiped his father. Worshiped him. That last call they had… It was nasty. The things they yelled.”
My.
Heart.
Dropped.
It fell right out of me with a reverberating, teeth-chattering crack.
My legs stopped working, and I collapsed on the very edge of the couch.
“What?” Esther wiped tears from her reddened cheeks, confused. Her concern froze my already trembling soul. “He never told you? The last things he said to his father?”
I pressed my fingers into my temples. I couldn’t hear this, wrung out of all my strength.
“They fought. That was their last conversation. After all those beautiful moments they shared. The bond they had. They fought.” Esther bolted from the room with murmured apologies.
“Sorry, Vi. I need to check on her. I’ll text you later, okay? You’re fine?”
I nodded.
I wasn’t fine.
Rowan never told me.
He never explained.
All because he knew. He knew. I fought with Craig before he died.
The day of my brother’s funeral, Rowan made a promise. The solemn kind kids make with all the pure naivety in their hearts.
Rowan vowed never to leave on angry words with anyone he loved.
He broke that pledge so many times after Winston’s death.
Not only did he not talk to me for days on end sometimes, but he stopped leaving with I love yous.
All this time, I thought it was about me. That somehow, I stopped mattering to him.
I was wrong.
Here it was, that last piece of the puzzle to Rowan’s darkness.
I didn’t know what to do with this new understanding. I didn’t know what it meant. For him. For us.
Deep in my soul, the rush of water hit against the crack in the dam. It stole my breath. It threatened to break, to sweep me away.
25
Pause
Rowan
Violet hopped out of her pickup truck and repositioned her EFD snapback over her long, flowing hair. She walked to the entrance, head held high despite the cold, strong wind. It made her eyes glisten and pinched her cheeks red.
My heart swelled with love, settling over me like a warm heavy blanket.
A nice, cozy cocoon of everything will be all right.
I would always be happy to see this woman. Sure, sometimes I didn’t know how to express it. I took her for granted, too.
That was in the past now.
I met her at the door, wrapped my arms around her, and gave her a dizzying kiss. It told her everything she needed to know.
Her hands clutched my shirt, and her fingernails dug into me. I groaned into her mouth and tugged her closer. She pulled away too quickly.
“Is there something you wanna tell me?”
I frowned. “I love you?”
Her nostrils flared. “Not what I meant.”
“Hello?” I tried again.
Another headshake.
“Is everything okay, babe?”
Her eyes, bluer than I’d ever seen them, drilled into me. Her lashes fluttered, and she took a step back. “I don’t know.” Her whisper worried me.
I towed her to one of the workout benches, but she sat on the very edge, ready to bolt.
“Vi, you’re kinda scaring the shit out of me. Did something happen?”
Her fingers toyed with her amethyst necklace. Her gaze — serious and… watery? — nearly had me breaking out in cold sweats. I knelt and took her hands in mine. “Violet?”
She looked straight into my soul as she asked, “You know I love you, Rowan, right?”
“Yeah, of course I do.” Alarm bells rang out.
“Okay. So you know that there’s not much you can’t tell me, right?”
“Yes.” My response was immediate.
I meant it.
Mostly.
I wasn’t sure how to explain my meeting with Nelson, but I would. Soon. Before I met with him tomorrow.
“Rowan…” Her voice trailed off. She all but launched herself at me and cupped my face in her hands. “You listen to me, you great big brute.”
My hands flew to her hips, steadying her on her precarious perch. My heart was rolling thunder as I waited for her to go on.
“Rowan, I need reassurance right now.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
“Reassurance.” I repeated the word like I didn’t know what it meant. “I’m a little lost, babe. Can you start at the beginning?”
She swallowed hard, nearly hurling me into a memory.
The last time I saw Violet cry.
She didn’t shed a tear the night Craig died nor the day we buried him.
Don’t go there.
I brushed a knuckle along her cheekbone. If those were tears, I didn’t know how to cope. How to help.
“Do you remember the long drives we used to take? How we used to tell each other everything?”
I smiled, hoping to comfort her. “Never ran out of things to say.”
“But you didn’t tell me about your dad. About the fight.”
I fell on my ass, my hands slipping from hers. The impact made my teeth rattle. The room started to spin, closing in on me even as the cold spread inside of me. It leaked from my sternum all the way to the tips of my fingers. It left numbness in its wake.
“What?”
“When I was at your mom’s, I saw it. The wall.”
I was speechless and shivering. Violet went on.
“It’s not okay, Rowan. Not the mural of death. That’s fucked, too. I mean about your dad. About the fight. Why didn’t you tell me?”
My voice was gone. My mind filled with thick fog.
“Is it because of Craig? Because of what I said to him before he died?”
I think I coughed. It felt like I did, somewhere, somehow, but I was no longer in my body.
“You remember, right?”
I hovered away, completely unprepared for this moment. The edges of my vision blurred no matter how hard I tried to focus on Violet.
“Rowan…” She knelt on the floor with me. “I didn’t know. I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”
Her chin trembled as she waited for my answer.
“Because then it was real.” My voice cracked on the words, my strength shucked right out of me.
“Oh, Rowan.” She held me tight, keeping me whole and steady. “I’m so sorry.”
For three years, I hadn’t told anyone about the argument with Dad.
Acknowledging it now was too much.
“I didn’t mean any of the shit I said to him.” My limbs were cold and paralyzed.
“I know, baby. I know. I get it.”
Violet lapsed into silence. I did too. We sat on the floor, holding on to each other as if our lives depended on it.
The special date I planned for us went right down the drain.
After our emotionally charged exchange at the gym, neither one of us was in a romantic mood. Instead, we decided to go straight home.
I might have struck a deal with Diego and the guys from the station about the eggshells they’d been wading through, but home felt like one massive egg carton.
Every word, every look, every touch threatened the uneasy silence.
Yet, even though the quiet hurt, it was better than tearing myself open and telling Violet everything.
I wasn’t ready. Probably never would be.
“I’ve ordered the pizza,” Violet said, padding into the living room.
Her hair was wet from her long shower and piled on top of her head in a knot. Her black leggings were paired with an oversized Bullseye sweatshirt. The sleeves dropped way below her fingertips. Violet bunched the material in her hands as she sat down on the sofa, bringing her knees to her chin and holding herself tight.
A full hour had passed since we left the gym, and we hadn’t spoken. Violet’s questions were tangible weights around my lungs. She hadn’t voiced them yet, but I could sense them from my vantage point on the floor. I continued petting Picasso in hopes of keeping the conversation at bay.
