Page 33 of The Way Back Home

“No, honey,” I lie. I don’t have the heart to explain what happened between us, because I barely understand it myself. “I was just ... sad about something, and he was trying to make it better.”

“Auggie doesn’t like sad,” she says with a frown. I climb the stairs towards her. “Sad makeded him angwee. He got angwee all the time when Mamma and Papa died ’cause I cried a lot.”

I smooth the hair back from her face and tilt her chin up to me. “No, honey, he wasn’t angry at you. August loves you. I think he got mad because he misses them too, and he doesn’t know how to feel about that.”

She nods, and I can see how hard she’s trying to keep her tears at bay. “Mamma used to wead me bedtime stories, but Auggie doesn’t do that. Will you wead to me?”

I blink back my surprise and say, “Of course. You lead the way.”

Bettina takes my hand in her small one and guides me to the room at the end of the hall. It’s the first time I’ve been this far. I’ve never needed to visit her and August’s bedrooms before, and the bathroom and guestrooms are all at the opposite side of the house. I can’t help but peek as we walk past August’s room. It’s easy to see his Marine training hasn’t left him, because his corners are all tucked away nice and tight, and the room is obscenely neat. From what I can see, there are no personal belongings, no pictures on the walls or frames sitting on the bedside table. A pair of combat boots are lined up at the end of the bed, as if he’s only just taken them off and plans to step into them again. I draw my gaze away and come to a stop in a very pink, very princess-themed room.

It’s exactly the kind of room I’d dreamed of as a kid, and I smile, because Bettina has already had so much taken from her, but I’m glad that at least this one special place hasn’t been taken away too. I wonder if every time she enters this room she thinks of all the nights her mother must have tucked her in. I wonder if Pearl Cotton did the same to August, and when he got too old for that, if he pushed her away. Did it break her heart? I imagine that’s exactly what it would feel like, when your children were too big for cuddles.

Bettina runs over to the bed, but I stop on the threshold. I’m not sure August would want me in here, but right now, this is bigger than the two of us and our demons. A little girl just lost her mother and father, and she needs comfort. Incidentally, that happens to be what I’m good at, so I step inside her room and wait until she gets settled in her princess canopy bed before I climb in beside her, and I read from what she tells me is her favorite book. She snuggles in, and I stroke her silky hair between each turn of the pages.

Ten minutes later, Bettina is fast asleep, and the top stair creaks beneath August’s weight. His eyes meet mine down the long hall. I’m not sure he’s not going to fly into another rage, so I carefully slide out of the bed and switch on her night light. I cross the room and flick off the overhead lights, and just as I’m turning to close her door a fraction I’m pulled by the waist into August’s bedroom and pushed up against the door. I’m panting; my heart thunders against my chest as I glare up at him. He pens me in on either side of my head with huge forearms. I hadn’t noticed how many scars he has. There are two long keloids, and a few little divots from what appear to be shrapnel wounds.

“Olivia, I’m sorry.”

I nod. I don’t tell him it’s okay, because we both know it’d be lying.

“I’m so, so sorry. I wasn’t ... here. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, and I know it’s no excuse. Jesus. Please say something.”

“I need a drink.”

He frowns, and then a strange chuckle escapes his throat and he moves closer. He tilts his head, looking at my lips. For a beat, I think he’s going to kiss me, and then his gaze dips to my throat and his whole expression shuts down. Carefully, he reaches out. The pad of his thumb traces the sensitive flesh of my neck, the places where his fingers have bruised me, and I suck in a sharp breath at how tender a gesture it is. August shakes his head and backs away from me. I take it as my cue to leave, so I quietly open the door and exit. Closing it behind me, I lean against the heavy Cherrywood, and let out a deep sigh.One step forward, ten steps back. That’s the way it always seems to go with us.

I walk the hall to my room, where I close the door and let the world, and August Cotton, melt away as I collapse onto the bed. I’m raw, spent, and exposed, and I’ve done enough for one day. I sleep, and my dreams are filled with demons that hold me down and rape my mind and plunder my body as if it were treasure, as if I were a precious toy, and not broken on the inside.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

August

IN THE MORNING, I GETBettina ready for school and drop her off before Olivia is even out of bed. I have plenty of work to do at Tanglewood, but that won’t ease my guilt, so I take the tape we found at the shelter into the station. Magnolia Springs can’t boast more than three cops, two of them reasonably new recruits, but then we’ve never had a lot of crime here. Lot of kids doing stupid shit, but nothing as bad as destroying the shelter.

Sheriff Webb and I went to school together. She never did much like me before I went away to war, much less afterward, and I know she’s going to like me even less after this visit. Every day I walk through town, I see the way they stare at my leg and think I don’t notice. I notice, believe me—when you lose a limb and have to walk with a prosthetic, people pay attention, and you feel like you got a fucking neon sign over your head that says “war cripple.” It’s ironic that the cost of living in the land of the brave and the free only comes at the expense of those who are willing to die for it.

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