The Next Best Thing
Page 45

“Well, Faith,” said Mrs. Holland, “I think you should date a long, long time. Your grandfather took me for two walks before we were married. I wish I’d gotten to know him first, rather than count on my parents’ judgment.”
“So you guys were an arranged marriage?” Abby asked, perking up.
“More or less,” Mrs. Holland said. “You think I would’ve married him if my parents weren’t—”
“Dying to get rid of her?” Mr. Holland interjected.
“—pressuring me to marry him for his land.”
“Well, your mother and I were a love match, kids,” John said loudly, clearly trying to drown out his parents. “Love at first sight, as they say.”
“Like Faith and Jeremy,” Abby said. Levi felt his jaw locking. Jeremy smiled and said nothing.
“Abby, why are your panties in a twist?” Faith asked.
“Levi’s making me clean the tourist restrooms, that’s why! I screw up one time, and I have to clean bathrooms!”
“Guess you shouldn’t go drinking with idiot boys, then, huh?” Ned said.
“At least I wasn’t sleeping with anyone, Ned! I read your texts the other day. You and Sarah Cooper are so cute.”
Levi felt his hackles rise.
“We’re only friends,” Ned said, his voice panicky.
“Do not distract my sister, Ned,” Levi ground out. “And do not sleep with her.”
“No, no. I wouldn’t. Abby doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s an idiot, right, Abs?”
“Can everyone just settle down?” Honor said calmly. “Levi’s our guest tonight. Let’s save the reality of Holland family life for another time. Dad, Levi’s dating Faith, he’s her first boyfriend since the g*y ruined her for other men, she’s thirty years old, and you already have one spinster daughter, so get over it.” She picked up her fork and took another bite of potatoes.
“She’s right,” John said after a minute. “Sorry, Levi. I just... She’s my daughter, that’s all. I want the best for her.”
“Understood.” His watch must be broken.
“So,” John continued, “who planted those chrysanthemums on your mother’s grave?”
“I did,” Honor said.
“Beautiful color, honey.” He sighed. “Hard to believe it’ll be twenty years in June.”
There was a moment of silence.
“How’s the dating going, Dad?” Jack asked.
“Since the transvestite, you mean?” he answered, which went right over Levi’s head. He supposed he should be grateful. “Well,” John continued, “I think I’ve given it a good shot, but I’m probably happier alone.”
“Oh, Dad, no! Don’t give up,” Faith said. “You said that the lady from Corning was really nice. Please give me another chance!”
“Just don’t let Lorena back in the house,” Jack said. “That woman makes my testicles retract.”
“Preach it, Uncle J.,” Ned murmured.
“I’m fine on my own,” John said. “Don’t worry, Faithie.”
“Grandpa, you live with a daughter and a housekeeper. You’re not exactly on your own,” Abby said.
“Exactly. I have Honor and Mrs. J. and all you kids.” His eyes grew distant. “Connie was the love of my life. You only get one of those, and you can’t replace it just because you want to.”
* * *
THEY WERE FINALLY ABLE to leave a decade or so later (after Jeremy had kissed Faith robustly on each cheek and hugged her. Levi was seriously considering punching him). Faith, though, had been a little...wan.
The full moon turned the landscape blue and white, casting wide shadows of the house, the trees. “Thanks for asking me to come tonight,” Levi said, holding the car door for her.
“Oh, sure,” she said. “You’re welcome. Sorry if it was...a lot.”
“It was nice,” he lied. “Did you have fun?”
“You bet.”
Seemed he wasn’t the only liar in the car. She was quiet on the short drive home, quiet as they went into the Opera House, quiet as she unlocked her door. “Do you want to come in?” she asked.
He leaned against the door frame, frowning. “Is everything okay, Faith?”
“Sure. Of course it is.” Her eyes didn’t meet his.
“Seems like something’s the matter.”
“Nope.”
Something was very much the matter. “You feel okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Have you been taking your meds?” he asked.
“Yes. Want to count them and make sure?” Her voice was sharp.
“No.” He looked at her another minute, ignoring Blue, who was nosing his leg for a little lovin’. “Maybe I should stay at my place tonight,” Levi said.
“Okay. Thanks for coming tonight. Um...sleep well.” She kissed him on the cheek and closed the door.
Well, shit. He’d screwed up somehow. Maybe he hadn’t talked enough. Maybe...he hated this next thought...maybe Jeremy was on her mind. Obviously, Jeremy wasn’t exactly a rival, but he was still her buddy, still completely at home with her family, still here if she wanted to fall asleep on his couch. Love at first sight, love of her life. You only get one of those, according to John Holland.
He went into his own apartment, which suddenly seemed very bland. Sure, he had his own family photos here and there. But he didn’t collect little treasures the way Faith did, didn’t keep too much from the past. He was a guy, after all.
A guy who was in trouble with the woman across the hall for reasons unclear to him. She’d pried some information out of him the other day up at the barn, had seemed intent on digging, and now she kinda wasn’t talking to him.
Time to bake cookies.
When Levi was little, most of their desserts had come from a Hostess box, especially after Sarah arrived on the scene. But his mother had this one recipe, and she could whip a batch together in seconds, it had seemed. Levi’s job had been to put the ingredients on the table, then stand back and watch, and maybe lick off the rubber spatula.
He took out the flour, the squares of unsweetened chocolate, sugar, vanilla. Eggs from the fridge.
A knock came on the door. He answered it, and there she was. “Hey,” he said.
“What do you know about my mom’s accident?” she asked.
He blinked. “Uh...you want to come in, Faith?” She did. “Sit down,” he said, and she obeyed, perching stiffly in the middle of the couch cushion, like she’d forgotten what a couch was for. He sat down in the chair opposite from her and leaned forward.
She didn’t look right.
“So did you ever hear anything about it?” she asked.
“Sure. The guidance counselor talked to us.”
“What did you hear?”
“Uh...he said you guys were T-boned, and your mom died right away.”
“Is that all?” Her eyes were bleak.
Levi ran a hand through his hair. “You had a seizure, right? You didn’t remember anything. The fire department had to cut you out. We weren’t supposed to bring it up.”
She nodded. Kept nodding. Hadn’t really looked at him since she came in.
“Faith, are you okay? You don’t seem—”
“I didn’t have a seizure. I lied about that. I told my father I did because I didn’t want to tell him the truth.”
The oven ticked as it preheated. “And what was that?” Levi asked.
“I made her crash.”
Those four words seemed to be torn out of the deepest part of her. Her face didn’t change, but her eyes were desolate.
“How’d you do that?” he asked as gently as he knew how.
“I was mad,” she said. “I didn’t want to talk to her, and she turned around, because I was sitting in the back. She asked me if I was okay, and I didn’t answer.” Faith swallowed. “She thought I was about to have a seizure, because I space out before one, as you know. So I let her think that. And then we got hit.” Her face was white, her bloodless hands knotted hard in her lap.
“Faith, you can’t—”
“She wanted to leave my father.”
Ah, shit. “She told you that?”
“Yes.”
That wasn’t how Levi remembered Constance Holland from the few times he’d seen her. She’d seemed to be the Disney Channel’s version of a mom—pretty, happy, wisecracking and capable.
Or maybe he was confusing her with his mom.
“That’s why I didn’t answer her.” Faith’s voice was hollow. “She kept talking about how it’d been a mistake to get married so young, how she always wanted to do more but got stuck with us. I let her think I was about to have a seizure so she’d stop talking. And then we got hit.”
The look on her face was like an iron spike going through his heart. “Faith, you were a kid. You can’t blame yourself.”
“I knew what I was doing. I wanted her to feel guilty.”
“That’s not the same as wanting her to die.”
She flinched. “No. But I’m responsible all the same. When I came back here in September, I thought if I found Dad someone else, maybe I could make up for it. But I haven’t. My dad worships her memory—Jack and my sisters do, too.”
Yeah, that seemed true. “You never told anyone?”
“No! I... When my father came to the hospital, he was so...broken, and I was afraid he’d stop loving me if he knew. So I lied.” She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I just wanted you to know. I don’t want you to tell me how it wasn’t really my fault. I know what I did.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“You can’t say anything,” she said, her voice level now, and somehow that hurt his heart more than ever. “I don’t want them to know how she really felt.”
Levi ran his hand through his hair again. “Why don’t you stay here tonight?”
“I’m gonna go home, actually,” she said. “But thank you.”
“Please stay.”
“No, thanks. I’ll...I’ll see you around.” She stood up, and he did, too, pulling her into a hug. She felt cold and brittle, Faith who was all soft and sweet and warm.
“Stay,” he said one more time.
“I’m fine,” she said. “See you tomorrow, maybe.” And with that, she opened his door and went across to her own apartment.
The quiet of the night settled around him.
Faith’s mother had been dead for twenty years. That was a long time to keep a secret.
The cookies would have to wait. Levi turned off the oven, grabbed his car keys and headed for the police station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE DAY HER MOTHER had died had been utterly normal except that Faith had needed shoes.
Faith had always loved being the baby of the family. In exchange for all the fun things the rest of them had done before she was born or when she was tiny, it seemed only fair that she got special treatment. She knew her family viewed her as vaguely cute but somewhat useless. Mom still never asked her to start supper...only Honor could do that (and had been doing it for years, as her older sister liked to point out). Jack was in college learning how to make wine and already knew cool stuff like how to fix the harvester and clean the thresher. Prudence was a grown-up, married and everything.
So Faith got to be the cute one. Her parents’ attention was spread thin, and Faith used it to get away with stuff...not being a straight-A student, for example, unlike her siblings. Not going to bed on time, because who really noticed? She didn’t have to eat all her vegetables, because with four kids over seventeen years, her parents were a little weary of enforcing the rules.