“How are you going to get there? Delia’s gone to do whatever she’s doing—Dad was going to pick me up late tonight after work. I don’t have a car here.”
“I’ll take her.” James’ voice interrupted her pacing.
“No. You have your gig.”
I shook my head, imagining going to a party and barfing while Granna lay in the hospital. “Mom, it’s not that important. I’ll tell them I can’t make it. They can just play CDs on the stereo or something. It’s just a dumb party, and Granna’s here in the hospital.”
She stopped pacing and stared at me. “The Warshaws have planned this for months. You can’t back out. This isn’t going to change because you’re here.” She pointed at Granna, finger shaking slightly. “If only Dad didn’t have to work so late—”
Irritation bubbled up in me at how she clung stupidly to her damn schedule. “If you’d let me get my license, I could drive myself places. What a crazy idea, huh? A sixteen-year-old with a driver’s license?”
Mom pursed her lips at me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Deirdre. We both know you’re not ready to be driving on your own.”
James didn’t need to be psychic to sense the shit that was about to go down. He edged toward the corner of the room.
“That’s crap,” I told her. “I can parallel park better than you can! You just want to control every piece of my life. Of course you don’t want me to drive! How’d you be able to monitor my every fricking waking move?” I was terrified that I’d gone too far, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Why was I doing this now? Shut up, Dee, shut up. But I didn’t listen to myself. “I’m tired of doing everything your way. I’m tired of everything being planned out for me.”
Mom’s face hardened. “I can’t believe how ungrateful you are. Can’t you see how lucky you are to have parents who care about your future? I care enough about you to make sure that you do something with your life.”
“Because you didn’t,” I snapped back. “Because Delia did everything you wanted to do.” Oh God, I didn’t just say that.
Her face stayed exactly the same. “Do we need to have this conversation right now?”
“We never talk, Mom. You never ask how I feel about anything. You just push me all the time, and it’s stupid. We should’ve had this friggin’ conversation a long time ago.”
“So, what do you want me to say? Delia stole my life? Delia gets everything? You could be everything I couldn’t be—I push you too hard—I’m an overbearing mother—there, you happy?” She half-turned away from me and began to dig in her purse. “I’ll call Delia. Maybe she’ll come back and take you.”
I was still shaking from standing up to her, and shocked at my outburst. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, yelling at my Mom over Granna’s body. Her fingers hesitated on the cell phone—I think she was as excited about calling Delia as I was about riding in Delia’s car.
“No. I’ll call Luke. He can probably give me a ride.” I took out my phone and punched in his number, willing him to pick up, needing him to pick up. I just wanted out of this room and away from my family. Even away from James, who was standing in the doorway trying to look as if he hadn’t noticed our argument. I wanted away from everything that was my life right now.
“Hello?” The effect of Luke’s voice was slightly distilled by the distortion of the phone, but it still made me ache to be near him.
“Luke?”
At Luke’s name, James looked away.
But Luke’s voice pulled me away from the image. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
I thought about the dead bodies in the ditch. “Me too.” I couldn’t say much more in front of my unsympathetic audience. “Um. I’m at the hospital. Can I ask a favor?”
Luke agreed immediately and promised to see me soon. James mumbled some sort of goodbye and escaped from the room before I could think of what to say to him. And Mom just stood there, arms crossed, studying me.
I braced myself. “Okay, what, Mom?”
“Wear your blue cardigan set.”
I had been standing by the hospital entrance for twenty minutes when I saw Bucephalus cut through the pouring rain, a dark mass in a gray, formless world. I shivered, part nerves, part anticipation, part sheer relief, and watched the old Audi pull up under the concrete overhang, dripping water onto the slick-dark asphalt.
As I ran to the car, lightning flashed, brilliant and overwhelming, and a second later, thunder beat the air, momentarily deafening me. I slid in and slammed the door on the storm.
As the car started to move, a curious feeling of release overcame me, like a release from pain that I hadn’t known I’d had. I couldn’t help but let out a huge sigh.
“Sorry it took me so long.”
The moment I heard his voice, right there with me, I didn’t care how wrong he was for me. I was just so glad to be in the car with him that it was hard to imagine anything else mattered. I knew it was selfish, but I didn’t care.
I turned my face toward him. He looked back at me, unsmiling, with dark circles beneath his eyes—his battle scars from the night before. “Hi, pretty girl.”
I told the truth. “I’m really glad to see you.”
“You don’t know how much I needed to hear that.” He sighed deep enough to match mine. “Where to?”
“Home for my harp first. And my friggin’ blue cardigan set.”
“Brought you a present,” Luke said. Without looking away from the road, he reached into his pocket and dropped Granna’s ring into my hand.
“You got it out of the sink?!” I slid it back onto my finger; now that I knew how useful it was, it wasn’t nearly as ugly. Still running my finger absently along its edge, I looked out at the rain. Wind buffeted the car. Light filled it, brief and brilliant, and I cringed a second before the thunder boomed. “Great night for a party.”
Luke glanced in the rearview mirror, though there was nothing behind us but a wall of gray. “It’ll be over in time for the party. All this lightning, though.” His face darkened. “Puts a lot of energy in the atmosphere.”
I guessed what he was thinking. “Like the sort Eleanor could use to pull another vanishing act?”
“It’s not the vanishing I’m worried about,” he said ruefully. “It’s the appearing.”