A Life, Forward: A Rowan Slone Novel Read online

  I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood. “I’m sorry. I mean, I…I’m sorry. I don’t know what kind of drug that is. Cocaine or meth. I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Anderson knew my sister. She knew all that Trina was capable of. And I thought she knew me. But there was just enough question lingering behind her bright eyes that made me want to crawl into a corner and hide. Because what I saw there was judgment and a hint of accusation. Like mother like son?

  “We’ll talk about this later.”

  I nodded and went upstairs on silent feet. Without changing, I crawled into my bed and pulled the covers over my head.

  THE NEXT morning when I walked downstairs, I didn’t know what was waiting for me. Maybe Mrs. Anderson packed my bags overnight and was ready to throw me out the door. Maybe she had decided I was telling the truth and realized Trina was not someone to be trusted—not now, not ever.

  What happened was something in-between. She must’ve heard me coming because she came out of the kitchen just as I stepped into the living room. Her eyes took a minute to study my face. As much as I wanted to look away, I couldn’t and found myself studying her in return.

  She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and said, “Good morning.”

  “Hi.” I opened the front door and Levi darted out.

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Good,” I lied.

  “Rowan…” She laid the towel across the back of the couch. “I just want you to know that I believe you. I was just shocked last night. I have never found drugs before. I wasn’t sure what to do.”

  “It’s okay.” My shrug belied how much last night had hurt me. “I mean, I’m sure it was a shock.”

  “Yes.” She went to the window and watched Levi roll in the grass. “You are a part of this family, Rowan.” She put her hands on my upper arms and tears filled her eyes. “You’re like a daughter to me. I don’t want this to change anything.”

  I swallowed against the knot growing in my throat and when she pulled me into her arms, I hugged her back. But just barely, my mind flashing with images of the look in her eyes last night as she held up the bag of drugs.

  AFTER LEVI came back in, I made sure his feet were clean and went upstairs to get ready for school. There had been nothing else to say so Mrs. Anderson went back to the kitchen after a quick squeeze of my arm that did little to reassure me.

  When I went into my room, my cell phone was ringing.

  “Hello?”

  “Rowan? It’s Mike.”

  I shut the bedroom door and sat on the bed. “Talked to your mom, I guess?” Was he calling to bawl me out about the drugs?

  “No. Why?”

  “Nothing.” I looked out the window. “What’s up?”

  “I don’t know. I was just thinking. About everything and how it ended.”

  Ended. Such a permanent word. “Well, it’s fine. I mean, everything is fine.”

  “Is it? I can’t get the image of your arm out of my head. It’s just, always there. I didn’t sleep at all last night thinking about it.”

  I rolled my eyes but kept my voice neutral. His problem with my arm was just that—his problem. “I know, you think I’m sick…” I made the word sound like a curse. “But I haven’t cut since that day at the hospital.”

  “But you are sick, Rowan. You need help. What’s going to happen the next time something bad happens? Or you get stressed?”

  His tone of voice pricked at my nerves like a million needles were sticking me through my clothes.

  “Mike, I don’t know what your problem is, but it’s not my concern. Call me sometime when you feel like talking and not preaching.”

  “I’m not preaching, but you obviously need someone to step in and take control.”

  “Stop belittling me, Mike. I’m eighteen. I would be in college like you if I hadn’t failed the fifth grade so save the sanctimonious bullshit.” I bit my lip. This conversation wasn’t going well. I owed so much to Mike; I didn’t want us to fight.

  “That’s all true, but you’ve gone through a lot.”

  “I have gone through a lot, but it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with me.” Somewhere in the middle of this uncomfortable exchange were the two people who had loved each other, loved each other still. I tried to remember that boy who had stolen my heart last year. Right now he was a boy who was about to get a swift kick in the ass if he didn’t stop badgering me.

  “Rowan.” His breath hissed through the line. “I don’t want to fight. I still care about you. You should talk to my mom. Maybe start therapy.”

  If he were standing in front of me, I would’ve punched him in the face.

  “You are such an asshole. Such an ass!” My voice rose. “What is wrong with you to sit there and judge me?”

  “Are you serious? I find out you use your arm as a chopping block, that you’ve hidden it from me all this time, and you think I shouldn’t be upset about it?”

  “Yes! That’s exactly what I think!” My hands shook and rage tore through me. Or maybe it was despair. He was right. Part of him was right. But I wouldn’t admit that he had a right to be upset. Not now. Maybe not ever. I’d done the best I could.

  “Are you always going to shut me out?” he demanded.

  “Are you always going to treat me as an inconvenience?”

  “What?”

  I knew I had changed the subject, but I was still upset about how little I’d seen him over the past months. If we were going to fight, we were going to fight over everything that had happened.

  “There is no room in your life for me. You went away to college and left me here for your mom to take care of!”

  “Rowan, you’re acting crazy. I have a scholarship. I can’t just run home every weekend!”

  “Fine. Then don’t bother coming home again.” It sounded so foolish. This was his home, not mine. But I couldn’t help it. Maybe the last couple of days were getting the best of me.

  He was quiet on the other end. Just as panic erupted through me and I was about to plead for him to forget those last words, he said, almost like he was talking to himself, “Maybe we should.”

  “Should what?” I demanded as his words drifted through the air. Then I realized it like a sucker punch to the gut; something I’d known for a while now. “Just say it.” I begged him to speak the words and not speak the words, all at the same time.

  “Break up.”

  There. He said it. The silence on the line was so heavy that surely it would send the entire house crumbling to the ground.

  “Break up,” I repeated.

  “Yeah.” He sighed heavily. “Maybe for a little while.”

  I looked out the window, focusing on the numbness coursing through my limbs.

  “Maybe if you get into the university next year, we can, you know, see where things are.”

  “Maybe.” My voice sounded robotic, forced.

  “I’m sure you can stay on there with Mom and Dad. They like having you there. Tabitha will kill me if you left.”

  An ugly sound burst out of my lips. “Sounds like you’ve been thinking about this for longer than just today.”

  The lack of response on the other end told me he had thought about this, and likely even talked to his parents.

  AFTER SCHOOL, for the first time since I left, I drove to my old home. It was strange traveling back down this narrow country road even though everything looked the same as it did the last time I was here.

  I almost missed the dirt driveway to my left—maybe it was subconscious, maybe it was sheer accident. But I slammed on the brakes and yanked the steering wheel, making the tires skid. Soon I was parked in front of my childhood home.

  Gran’s touches were everywhere: there were no broken flower pots lying around with dead weeds hanging over the sides; the front porch had been swept; the shutters were freshly painted. The gutter still hung off the right side of the house, but that would probably cost more money to fix than Gran had.

  Feeling like a st
ranger, I knocked on the door. Almost immediately it swung open.

  “You don’t have to knock, silly. This is still your home.” Gran stood before me in a green sweatshirt and a pair of dark blue jeans. Her sneakers were too white and blaring, but I didn’t tell her that.

  I passed through the front door and stood in the living room, looking around.

  “Come. Sit. I’ll get you something to eat.”

  I didn’t resist when Gran pulled my coat off. “Is Trina here?”

  “No. She’s with her friend, Jennifer. I don’t like that girl.” Gran hung up my coat. “But it seems like she’s Trina’s only friend. Of course, boys are calling here all the time. There is no shortage of them.”

  She veered me toward the chair, the same chair that my dad always sat in. I slipped from her touch and went to the couch.

  “Tea? Water? Soda?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve lost weight again.”

  I was suddenly very interested in the worn armrest.

  “I’ll make you something to eat then.”

  “No.” I looked up. “I don’t want anything to eat. Did you say that you had something for me from Dad? I can’t stay long. I have to work.”

  “Oh.” Gran’s face fell. “Okay. I’ll be right back.” She shuffled down the hall and into my parents’ old room, the room she had taken over after my dad left and my mom went to jail.

  She came back moments later carrying a wooden box.

  “You won’t believe this.” She sat beside me, making the couch dip under her weight. I scooted away to put a few inches between us. “But this box,” she ran a hand over the closed lid, “your dad made when he was in shop class in high school. He was pretty talented, wasn’t he?”

  The top of the box had an American flag and an eagle carved into its surface. I ran my finger over the dipped surface.

  “He was a really good artist. After he enlisted in the military, though, I don’t think he ever did another thing about it. He was good at drawing, painting, woodwork. He had a lot of potential. I think that’s why it was so hard when your mom got pregnant.”

  She opened the box. Inside was a stack of thick papers, folded so they fit. She pulled them out and I could see that they were paintings and drawings.

  Gran handed them to me. “These are your dad’s things from when he was in high school. His junior year, he won an award for best painting. It was even hung up in the local museum for a year or so.” She pulled out a certificate. “Here. This is what it was.”

  I read the certificate in confusion. I’d never known this about my dad. Were we talking about the same person?

  “But here, this is what you need to see.” She set the stack of papers aside and laid a single folded sheet in my lap.

  When I opened it, I saw a pencil sketch of a baby. It looked like it was at least two months old with a hairless head, chubby arms, and round charcoal eyes. Its lips were opened wide like it was laughing at something that I couldn’t see.

  Emotion erupted through my body. It was my sweet, little brother right before he died. I started to gasp for breath. Why would Gran show me this? To remind me that the only thing Dad loved, truly loved in the world was Aidan?

  There was a blanket drawn around the baby’s torso. Did he draw this after Aidan’s death? What did this mean? Gran was rubbing my back, right between my shoulder blades, and it was the only thing that kept me conscious. Otherwise, I surely would’ve gotten lost in the grief.

  “Here,” Gran said, her voice low. She pointed with a wrinkled finger, her nail long enough to show me exactly where to look.

  And I saw it; not the word Aidan, but the words My beautiful Rowan written in tiny black letters along the hem of the blanket.

  “See? He loved you, honey. Always.”

  I collapsed into my Gran’s arms. At some point she eased the paper out of my hand so my tears wouldn’t smear the drawing.

  What did this mean? My dad had loved me? He’d been happy enough to have a baby daughter that he drew a picture of me? And was it him I was smiling at in the picture?

  This changed everything. Everything.

  I TOOK the long way to the shelter, even though I was already late. The picture was lying in the passenger seat, my own baby face watching me as I drove. It was strange, unsettling, and freeing all at the same time.

  It did cross my mind that Gran had forged those words to make me feel better. I had held the paper close to my face and studied it the entire time she was on the phone with my mom’s caseworker. It looked like his handwriting. It seemed to merge with the other lines that made up the drawing. There was no reason to think that it wasn’t written by my dad.

  Aidan looked a lot like Trina when she was a baby and nothing like me. The more I glanced at the picture beside me, the more I saw my own face as it was in the baby pictures that used to hang on the living room wall. This wasn’t Aidan. It was me. Me.

  Did my mom know about this picture? Surely she did if Gran knew. Mom must have seen a side to Dad that he never showed his daughters. Back when they were in high school and their lives were full of the future and possibility and optimism, did Mom see his talent?

  Did he ever draw a picture of her?

  It was as if a curtain was being lifted from my eyes. There was more to my dad than I could’ve imagined. Did the same hold true for my mom? Was my mom more than what she seemed?

  My childhood memories overflowed with images of my mom sleeping all day, of my mom shoving candy and pastries into her already fat face, of my mom cowering behind her curtain of dark hair anytime something was expected of her. Was there a different person who used to dwell beneath that unpleasant exterior? Someone who had loved me and who I actually loved too?

  Suddenly an idea popped into my head like a little sprout from a long-dormant seedling. Forging a relationship with my mother was not an option right now. Was there another choice, though? Another way to find peace with her?

  I pulled the car over to the side of the road, and stared out the window for a long time.

  I WAS an hour late when I got to the shelter. Never would I have been late before, but I knew in my heart Janie would understand. She told me after the funeral to take as much time as I needed.

  When I walked in, she was with a customer. After a quick glance, she gave me a sympathetic smile and turned back to the older woman standing before her.

  I walked down the short hallway toward the dog room. The animals were quiet as I greeted them. “Hi, everyone.”

  Large eyes looked up at me from the different cages. A few stood and came to the edge, pushing noses as far into the wire as possible. I gave each dog an individual greeting as I made my way back to Charley-bear. He was still shy, unsocialized, scared, and timid, but there was a tenderness to him. I could sense it, and that tugged at my heart.

  I sat by his crate. “Hi, sweet boy.” I put my finger through the opening and rubbed his back. He looked at me with eyes that made my breath catch. It was like he had a human face with human emotions and what these emotions were telling me was that he was sad.

  And I hated to see animals sad.

  “It’s okay. I promise. I am really good at finding homes for our animals. I’ll find you a good one.”

  As quietly as possible so I didn’t upset the other dogs, I opened the crate. Charley-bear didn’t pull away when I slid my hand in. He jumped slightly when I started to rub his ear the way Levi liked. Within a couple of minutes, he rose to his feet and slowly crossed the small distance toward me.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”

  He came out, putting tentative paws on the cool tile. I kept rubbing his ear because he seemed to like that. Soon he was standing in front of me, his head leaning over my lap. I started on the other ear, too. His head dipped, almost like it was putting him in a trance.

  “Good boy,” I said.

  The other dogs didn’t whimper, or bark, or show signs of jealousy
. When I looked over at them they were just watching us. I smiled at them all. “Thank you,” I choked, so grateful for their understanding in that moment that I would’ve adopted them all if I could.

  When I turned back to Charley-bear, he was sitting. I leaned my face down, something I knew I shouldn’t do, but I couldn’t help it. I rested my forehead on his as I rubbed.

  His breathing was loud, mine was soft. I started to run my hands over his head, down his shoulders, over his back. He tensed a little but after several long caresses, he seemed to relax again.

  When I heard Janie’s heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, I started to whisper to him. “Janie’s coming.” My voice was just loud enough to hear, my caresses slow and gentle. “Everything’s okay. I promise.”

  “Rowan?” Janie came into the dog room. She stopped by the door when she saw me. At first her expression flashed with alarm, concern, irritation. Then her shoulders fell and she smiled. “How did you coax our little friend out of there?” She lowered her voice, too.

  My hands were steady and consistent, traveling a path from his ears, over his head, and down his back. He was watching Janie, but still seemed relaxed under my touch.

  “It was just time, I think.” I smiled back at her.

  “Well, it is good timing. The lady out front is interested in seeing him. She is a widower who never had children, so there are no young ones to worry about. She is interested in adopting him. I don’t think he’s violent. Do you?”

  I gazed down into his dark eyes, searching, trying to read into his little heart, his tender, damaged soul.

  “I don’t think he would hurt her.” I cleared my throat to try and rid myself of the lump that had formed there. “She wants to see him now?”

  “She just left. She wanted to see him now but then received a phone call she had to take. She has to go out of town on business and will be here next week.”

  That gave me enough time to find out if my idea would work and if it did, we’d have to find this nice widower a different dog.