Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
The community members nodded or shook heads and chattered in unison, apparently too stirred to stop things now.
“There still might need to be a reckoning,” someone to my left said. “Do we really need a public official who did what’s on page fifty-three? And in a church?”
“To be specific, it was in the graveyard,” another voice chimed in.
“That’s worse!” came a shout.
In my peripheral vision, Lucinda Rogers made the sign of the cross.
My head buzzed. Someone stood near the back and shouted another confession of their own that someone on the other side of the room responded to. My vision blurred even while a laugh bubbled up my chest. Yes, there might still be a reckoning, and I had a stack of checks to distribute that represented my entire life savings, but for a minute, I just had to sit, overwhelmed and shaken with too many competing emotions to name. I breathed out, taking a few steps to the plastic chair nearby and sinking down, turning as someone else rose, then another. Shouts ricocheted around the room, and I sat there watching as the whole place broke out in utter mayhem.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Haven
I placed my blue sundress into my suitcase, my heart twisting as the memory of the day I’d worn it to the blueberry festival came rushing back, and I swore for a moment I heard the laughter and felt the warm sunshine on my shoulders. I balled it up—the dress and the memory—and shoved them under some shoes.
Blueberry sat propped against my pillow and I stared at him mournfully, remembering the flood of excitement when Travis had won him, the joy when he’d placed him in my hands. I should leave him here. It would always hurt to look at him. And he was nothing but a dumb stuffed animal. I brought him to my chest, closing my eyes and burying my face in his flat, patchy “fur.” He smelled like dust. He’d sat on a shelf for a very long time. I placed him atop my clothes, gently pressing him down and creating a travel nest.
A sharp pounding on my door jerked me from my despondent reverie and useless attempt at balling up memories and shoving them beneath shoes. They just kept rolling in, vision after vision of my time in Maine. And I was so afraid they always would. “Haven! Open up, it’s me.”
I pulled open the door and he came rushing in. “Easton, what are you—”
He gripped my upper arms, shaking me lightly, his face lit in a grin. “You won’t believe what happened.”
I looked him over. His smile was bright and yet the rest of him looked…rough. His hair was sticking up in every direction, dark circles were smudged beneath his eyes, and it looked like he’d slept in his clothes. “You look awful.” The greeting was beginning to get repetitive. But so was my brother showing up in the morning looking like death warmed over.
“I know!” he answered, letting go of my arms. “The guys at the firehouse invited me to a get-together. Even after what happened, they rallied around me.” Something that looked like surprised gratitude altered his features momentarily, and it made my throat feel suddenly clogged. The kid who’d regularly been shunned, the man who’d very recently been publicly shunned, had been embraced. “I’ve been up all night, drinking and smoking and gambling,” he finished proudly.
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Gambling?”
Oh God. I hadn’t thought things could get worse, but leave it to Easton to prove me wrong. “Please tell me you didn’t gamble with our money. It’s all we have.” I’d known he’d been devastated after the town meeting…embarrassed…ashamed, but was he really so self-destructive that he’d leave us high and dry in the middle of Maine without jobs (we’d both quit) and a place to stay (I’d let Betty know we were checking out of the Yellow Trellis Inn today)?
But he shook his head. “No, no. I mean, yes, three thousand of it—”
“Three thousand!” I sputtered. We only had thirty-two hundred that we’d been saving over the past two years so if we settled somewhere and didn’t immediately find jobs or my car broke down, we’d have a safety net. My mouth dropped open. We had both promised not to touch it. I wouldn’t even be able to pay Betty for our stay. “Oh my God, oh my God—”
“No, listen! I won! I won! I doubled that money.” He spun away, raking his hand through his already disheveled waves. When he turned back, the grin had widened.
I was frozen to the spot, watching him, my heart in my throat, my stomach churning as I shot daggers with my eyes. I was going to kill him.
“Did you hear me? I said I doubled our money!”
“You could have lost every cent of it,” I said between gritted teeth. “Don’t you ever think, Easton?”