“You know,” I say, “I bet it wouldn’t be too tough to grill up some of those steaks later.”

Ava looks down at the ingredients in her hands, sets them on the counter and twirls a troubled finger around a strand of hair.  “Maybe I could make a salad or something.”

I close the fridge.  “I love salad.”

Not true.  I’m a meat lover, always will be.  A bowl of green stuff is about as desirable to me as an enema.

Ava’s looking kind of desperate though.  I understand.  We have instructions.  We’re supposed to keep things interesting.  And if that means making asses out of ourselves in the kitchen and then suffering through an uncomfortable family meal then so be it.  My sister looks nervous and for a second I just want to hug her and tell her everything will be all right.   My other sister is screaming for someone to go fuck himself and the noise causes Alden to start howling for his mother.

Ava rushes back to the living room and when I get there a minute later she’s got her little boy in her arms, rocking him back and forth while his small hands grip her shoulders.  The sight of them, mother and son, makes my heart hurt a little.

When have I ever loved anyone like that?  Have I ever really loved anyone at all?

Of course, I love my brothers and sisters.  The affection I had for my father seems vague at this point.  Lita was impossible to love.

And beyond that…friendships weren’t strong, the relationships short and unfulfilling.  I’ve said them before, the words.  I’ve said “I love you” and meant it completely.  But that was a long time ago, when I was someone different.

I try to picture what he would look like now.   He was nearly a grown man when I knew him.  His arms, he had the strongest arms.  Once they carried me a distance that had to be well beyond a mile.

Spence had commented on the ghosts here, my ghosts in particular.   My brother is perceptive.  Or perhaps I just wear my heart on my sleeve.  Oscar stays inside my head whether I want him there or not.

I need some air, even if it’s satanically hot air.  There’s a knotty wooden bench on the shallow front porch and once I’m outside I plop down onto it uncomfortably.  I know I’m being watched.

The chickens run loose all over the yard.  I picture unseen predators nearby, waiting for the cover of darkness as the brainless birds bob their heads and peck at the dirt.  Suddenly a few of them squawk and some feathers fly loose.

A rather shabby pickup truck rolls into the yard and comes to an abrupt halt twenty feet away.  I’m not especially interested in who’s in there.  It’s probably someone from the crew, or maybe Monty.  The door opens and a man emerges.  He’s broad-shouldered and well built; tall, with a shock of black hair.   For a moment I don’t feel a shred of recognition.  Then a buzzing begins at the base of my skull and zooms through my entire body.

“Holy shit,” says a voice I recognize as mine.  Somehow I’m standing even though I can’t feel my feet.  I can’t feel anything.

He’s nothing but casual as he steps from the far side of the truck.  He sees me but doesn’t seem surprised.

I, on the other hand, am quite surprised.   Even though I’ve fantasized about this meeting six thousand times I’m still stunned.  I shouldn’t have been.

“Loren,” he says and his voice cuts me in half.  He knows it.  His grin is as devastating as it ever was.  I can see in an instant that he’s both different and the same.  His mouth still tilts into a mocking smile automatically.

But there’s a wide chasm of time between us. Somewhere in that deep gulf we went from being soul mates to being strangers.  I know nothing about the way this man’s body would feel under my hands.  Whatever agonies he endured after the terrible night he left, the night I coldly ordered him to leave, belong to him alone.

“Oscar,” I whisper. I notice the way he stops walking, and the way his face freezes.   Maybe he has an entirely new identity and the sound of the old one is unpleasant. Or maybe he’s hardened by the sound of my voice.  It’s probably easy for him to hate me.  This could be the start of some elaborate revenge. Obviously it’s no coincidence that he’s here now. While I’ve been wondering how I’m going to make cleaning horseshit look interesting for two months, Gary Vogel, knowing more than he ever hinted at, was scheming behind the scenes, ready to drop a bombshell.  The only demand I’d ever uttered was ‘No Lita’.  I should have figured out what else was up for grabs.

“I go by Oz now,” he says, rather tersely.

The cameras are here, ingesting every second.  I have to say something.  I have to do something.  I have to not fall to my knees or run into his arms.  Especially because he’s done nothing to invite me there.

“Welcome home,” I finally manage to say and it sounds strange to me because this was never home, not really.  It’s just a place.  That’s all it ever was.  It only matters because of the things that happened here.

Oscar Savage stares at me from ten feet away.  He looks me over shrewdly and I wonder if he sees more than a pathetic woman who has signed her private life away.

“Are you staying?” I ask him, clasping my hands behind my back to keep them from trembling.

“I am,” he answers and there’s an edge to the words, like he’s daring me to argue, which I don’t plan on doing.  He watches me, all six foot two inches of bristling, resolute maleness.

I couldn’t move him if I tried.

My mind scrambles to come up with more words, any words, to fill the void.  Oscar does nothing to ease the tension.  He doesn’t even seem to notice that we are being filmed.

There’s nothing separating us besides five years of silence that began with a terrible night.  So many details remain lost to me, intentionally lost, because I couldn’t stand remembering what it felt like to be in love.   All I know is that for a little while we were together.

I know it was powerful, tumultuous, intense.

And then it was gone.

He was gone.

I’ve been keeping all of it buried for so long I don’t know how to sort through it now.  But I’ll have no choice because here stands Oscar Savage, demanding either vengeance or acknowledgement.   He’s not going to give me a choice about it so I’d better start figuring a few things out.

After all, somewhere in all that buried history is the truth.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Five Years Ago:  Part 2

 

It seems like hours have gone by and still she waits for the whistle.  Never for a second does she doubt it will come.  That would mean doubting him.

Earlier tonight her mother was waiting for her when she ran, breathless and disheveled, through the front door.  Lita was perched on the edge of an enormous chair backed with ghoulish ivory tusks, a relic from the days of Rex Savage, when people didn’t know any better about much of anything.  It certainly never occurred to them that massacring a majestic animal for a few trophies was wrong.  Ren has always hated that chair.

Lita was tapping her thin fingers on the ivory arm.  Dark and gray roots showed through her blonde hair.  She made no secret of despising her husband for moving the family out here, for despising her children for failing to lift her out of these circumstances.  She observed Ren with a silent sort of disgust before lighting a cigarette.  When she decided to speak her words were like bullets.  “You better goddamn well watch yourself, girl.”

“Of course, Lita.  It would never have occurred to me to watch my step if you didn’t order it,” Ren answered with eye-rolling sarcasm.

She knew how it irked Lita Savage to hear her children call her by her first name.  Of course all five of them did it.

After Ren and her mother exchanged a tense look, one of ten thousand such moments of tension over the past seventeen years, Ren hurried out of the room.   The air was poisonous wherever Lita was and Ren didn’t want her mood spoiled.  She was still on a high from being with Oscar.