Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
“Maybe that’ll do the trick.” My sister nudges me with her elbow. “You joining us, Abel?”
I muster my best death stare and aim it at Abel.
He takes the hint. “I got, uh, some work to do. Lots of work.”
Thank God. Last thing I want is for my sister to end up pining after someone she can’t have.
It’s a special hell I know very, very well.
I shoo everyone—Maren, Jen, Katie—out of the house while I make dinner. I hear them playing on the deck while I make a big pot of mashed sweet potatoes and sear the pork chops in a cast iron skillet.
The silence in the kitchen is suffocating.
Or maybe it’s my sense of duty, always urgent, that’s suffocating. I need to stay away from Maren, so I do. I need to be smart, so I am.
I drink my whiskey sour alone and miss her in the meantime. I think I miss talking to her most of all. I always felt better afterward.
I shake up some extra cocktails for her and Jen, which they gratefully accept when they come back inside half an hour later.
Jen sips, then smacks her lips. “Wow, that’s good.”
“Everything Tuck makes is excellent.” Maren brings the glass to her mouth. Sips. Her brow immediately creases. “Did you put something different in it this time?”
“No. Why?”
She takes another sip. “I don’t know. Just doesn’t taste like it usually does. It’s not bad, just . . . different.”
“I can make a new batch?”
“No, really, it’s fine.” Maren waves me away, even as she gets this funny look on her face. I can’t read it, but I know whatever she’s thinking about—feeling—definitely isn’t fine.
Jen looks at me, then looks at Maren. Looks at me again.
Ignoring her, I turn back to the stove. The girls set the table and I plate the food. We all sit, Katie included. She even sits on her bottom without having to be reminded.
The pork is an old recipe, one I’ve made dozens of times, and I’ve learned how to cook it perfectly.
“Delicious,” Jen says.
Katie nods enthusiastically as she shoves a forkful of sweet potatoes into her mouth. “Yummy, Daddy.”
But Maren takes one bite and drops her fork. The creases in her forehead deepen as she puts a hand on her stomach. “Y’all mind if I skip dinner? I’m not feeling so great.”
Jen looks at me. Why does she keep doing that?
“Of course,” I say, anxiety unfurling in the pit of my stomach. Something is wrong. “I got some Pepto if you need it?”
Maren shakes her head. “Thanks, but I think I just need to lie down. Sorry to bail in the middle of dinner, y’all.”
“No apology necessary.” Jen rubs her arm. “Let us know if you need anything, okay?”
Katie frowns. “Mare, are you sick?”
Maren rises and tucks Katie’s hair behind her ear. “A little bit, Katie Bear, but I’ll be okay.”
“Poor thing,” my sister says as Maren disappears down the stairs. “Stomach bug going around at school?”
“Not that I know of.” The anxiety is gnawing at my insides. “But something gross is always going around Katie’s class, so maybe.”
Jen insists on clearing the table and doing the dishes, so I sit with Katie and open a dinosaur stamp kit Dad brought last time he was here.
The kit is cute, and Katie is engrossed in stamping purple stegosauruses all over herself and her piece of construction paper. But I keep glancing out the window at the crofter.
My stomach flips when I see one of my golf carts backing out of the driveway. Maren is driving it. I can’t see her face, but it’s obvious she’s in a rush.
My immediate reaction is to find out what’s going on. Do I call her? Text? Or maybe she wants to be alone. I told her to reach out if she needed anything.
I hold my phone in a death grip for ten minutes. Twenty. Maren returns, parking the cart in the driveway. Where the hell did she go? It’s none of my business, but I’m still dying to go out there. Talk to her.
Touch her.
“Daddy, look!” Katie points to the back of my hand, where she’s stamped a blue triceratops. “Do you love it?”
“I love it. But it’s time to clean up and do bath time, okay?”
Only I’m so distracted wondering what’s up with Maren that I end up filling the tub with cold water. I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.
Really wrong.
Jen pats me on the shoulder. “I think you need a break. Why don’t you go lie down? Watch some TV?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
But I just pace in the kitchen, watching the crofter through the windows. No sign of Maren. Did she leave again?
I can’t take it. I gotta check in on her.
Keeping my footfalls as light as possible—I don’t want my sister knowing what I’m up to—I head downstairs and out onto the deck. Into the garage. Up those stairs.