Ava’s still gathering kitchen implements and trying to hide the fact that she’s furtively looking over my shoulder to see what’s going on outside.  Meanwhile, I’m at war with myself.

On one hand I want nothing so desperately as for Oscar Savage, Oz, or whatever he’s decided to call himself now, to climb right back in his pickup truck and return to whatever pocket of the world burped him out.  But then the other hand holds out a big stop sign.  Because the second I saw him, some shriveled, long dormant piece of my heart swelled.

This is something I can’t help.  This is something that happens despite the fact that I know very well he’s been paid off.

Ava’s watching me worriedly and trying to corral her son as he starts galloping around the kitchen island carrying a wooden spoon.  She looks like she’s scouring her mind for something to say to me and I wish I could let her off the hook.  Really though, we’re not the sort of sisters who pour our hearts out to one another.    And even if we were, I simply have nothing to say at the moment.

Then the heavy wooden front door swings open and a second later Brigitte comes flouncing in, all apple-cheeked and bright-eyed.   Even though I know I shouldn’t, even though I can see myself in my mind’s eye already in a television promo clip grabbing my sister’s arm in a vice-like grip and hissing in her face, I do it anyway.   It’s all I can do not to slap her when I demand, “What the hell have you done?”

She’s startled, her face frozen in angelic innocence.  If a cartoon balloon materialized above her head it would read “Who, me??” 

“I haven’t done anything, Ren,” she pouts and lets her soft blue eyes fill with tears.  She looks down at my fingers clamped on her arm, likely wondering what kind of mark will emerge on her delicate skin and how she can capitalize on it.

I let her go.

“Damn you,” I choke out.

“Ren,” whispers Ava with hurt bewilderment.  She always has and always will defend Brigitte.  Ava is not a good judge of character.   Beyond her reputation as a hardcore party girl, she’s really flighty and naive.  But she doesn’t have the kind of self-serving nature that our little sister does.  She wouldn’t have sold me out in exchange for a few close ups.   And the boys wouldn’t have blabbed about me and Oscar, not for any amount of money.

But all bets were off when it came to Bree.  She might have inherited a little too much of Lita.

I stalk back to my bedroom, ducking in there only long enough to grab my keys and purse.  My sisters are exactly where I left them in the kitchen.  Bree is traumatized by the way I manhandled her and Ava is patting her injured arm with maternal comfort.  It makes me want to scream.

“Imma bat!”  Alden announces winningly when he sees me.

Even though I’m not feeling especially cheerful I’d have to be heartless not to smile at him.  None of this is his fault.  He was just born in the middle of it. I smile at the little boy.  “You sure are, buddy.”

“Where are you going?” Ava calls as I head toward the door.

“Town.”

Bree practically knocks the kid over as she lunges in my direction.  “Wait, Loren,” she calls a little too loudly.  “We need to talk. I’ll come with you.”

“No, you won’t, Brijeeet.”  I slam the door without looking to see if she’s got her fingers on the doorjamb.  I need some time with no sisters and no brothers and no wronged, angry ex-lovers.

However, apparently I can’t have some time without cameras.  At least it’s just Rash who trails after me.  If Cate Camp shows her face right now I just might gouge her artificially inflated boobs with my ignition key.

I get behind the wheel and wait for Rash to follow me in there.  He has stopped though.  He’s standing about ten feet away from the car and he’s got his camera off his shoulder and stares down at it with a frown.  He looks up and winks, then jerks his head briefly in what seems to be a ‘Get out of here,’ gesture.

I get it now.  He’s actually being decent, pretending to have technical difficulties.  He’s trying to do me a favor.   Rash does point to the dashboard though and I notice the tiny camera now mounted to it.  I give him a thumbs up and get the car pointed toward Consequences.   I think about tearing the camera off the dashboard and chucking it to the side of the road but I don’t.   In the end I just crank up Katy Perry tunes and sing in a very loud off key voice, feeling perversely gleeful that someone is going to be forced to sit through the footage of my rotten performance.

It’s good to be out alone.   The ever-present feeling of slow suffocation relaxes a little.  Mercifully, Oscar was nowhere in sight when I pulled away from Atlantis.  His truck, however, was just where he’d left it in the large clearing between the house and the brothel.  So he isn’t gone, just hidden.

The Consequences Convenience Store is just as I remember it.  Beside the door they have the same air freshener carousel with probably the exact same merchandise that was hanging there five years ago.  An older man wearing a red smock and a tag that says ‘Kenny’ is dusting off a shelf of fishing gear, which doesn’t make any sense because there’s no fishable water within a hundred miles.  He doesn’t look up when I enter.

The booze is still in the back, exactly where it’s always been.  Monty used to make raiding the CCS, as we called the store, something of a hobby.  He was always brazen and foolish about it so I don’t know how he managed to never get caught.

The pickings are rather slim here.  I’d meant to bring back some wine but even I know a seven-dollar bottle probably isn’t go win over anyone.  I grab a bottle of red anyway and snagged a six-pack of beer on my way to the cashier.

Once I’m done at the CCS, I drop the bags off in the car and take my time, dawdling around Consequences even though there’s little to see.  It’s not that it’s the crappiest place on earth.  It’s just kind of a dull void.  One that’s been loosely sprinkled with people who seem half asleep.

There’s too many memories here though.  That’s the whole damn problem with this godforsaken wrinkle in the state.  It was hard enough to keep Oscar at bay and out of my head when he was somewhere unknown.   But now he’s lurking back at Atlantis, waiting to assume whatever role in the Savage comedy he plans on playing.  If there was ever a good reason for me to ditch this whole project and drive in the opposite direction until I can’t drive anymore, this is it.  Gary couldn’t physically force me to return.  Whatever kind of power Vogel Productions has, they still might run into some legal trouble if they try to drag me back to Atlantis by my hair.

My fingernails are digging into my palms.  No, I won’t do it.  I won’t run. There must be some feisty blood left in me somewhere.  Maybe I can call on the spirit of Margaret O’Leary to spare some of what made her so hot-tempered and indomitable.  If I’m weak enough to be chased away by a ghost of old heartbreak, then I’ll never really make much out of myself.  I’ll be another sad drifter, perhaps like Aunt Mina, always confusedly searching and always coming up short.

Let Oscar Savage do his worst.  Whatever scripted part he means to play can’t be any more painful than what we’ve already done to each other.

No.  Lie.  What I did to him. 

Oscar walked away from me because I told him to.  And as I watched him disappear, a boy alone cast out like garbage, I silently pleaded for the world to be kind to him.  I begged him to forgive me, to forgive all of us for being too flawed and cowardly to stand up for anything.  My own father had stood by with vague confusion and didn’t say a word because he was too drained to notice anyone else.  And then Oscar was gone.

It’s too late now.  I don’t even know who he is anymore.  I don’t know what kind of revenge he has in mind.  I just know that I’ll be taking at least a few cans of that six-pack to bed tonight.  I need the edges to be numbed just a little.  Hopefully it will be enough.  I need it to be enough so that when I close my eyes I don’t dream of him, that I don’t dream at all.