Season of Change

“He never ran from Mom.” Christine washed her hands, intending to help make dinner.

Nana shook her head. “Did you ever think that it was your mother who didn’t run?”

Christine had. But she didn’t like to.

Because what was she supposed to think of her dad if she did?

* * *

SLADE LOOKED AT the Death and Divorce House, trying to see it the way his girls did.

White peeling paint. Drapes closed across all the windows except the two upstairs. Lopsided green mailbox hanging by the front door. He watered the lawn, but it wasn’t the green gem of Old Man Takata’s next door.

“It’s not Park Avenue.” Inside or out. He led the girls up the front steps, opened the unlocked door, and turned on the light above the foyer. There was nothing charming about the place. It was hot and shadowy. Tomblike.

In three steps from the front door, you could be on the stairs, be in the hallway leading to the kitchen, or be in the living room, with its tan velour couch, the scarred coffee tables, an old television, and his father’s brown leather wing chair. The best that could be said about the house was that it had dark planked wood floors.

“I’ve kept everything the way it was when your grandfather...left.” Slade flipped on the oscillating fan in the living room and then pointed toward the television. “Don’t count on anything other than basic cable.”

He headed toward the kitchen, hesitating in the narrow doorway when he realized they’d paused at the stairwell. Both girls stared upstairs, trepidation in their gaze. Grace reached for Faith’s hand as if they knew...

Impossible.

“You can eat anything you want in the kitchen. I warn you, I eat healthy.” Not that his body was a temple, but he disliked stripping down to a tank top to work out, so he watched what he ate instead.

His brain registered what it hadn’t wanted to for months—the kitchen was outdated and in need of some serious repair. A drawer had come off its glider. Cabinet hinges were loose, leaving cabinet doors lopsided. And the linoleum... Goldenrod polka dots had been fashionable during the swinging seventies.

Slade turned around. “We’ll need to make a run into Cloverdale for groceries.” He often ate at Flynn’s. He supposed that would have to change while his daughters were here.

His daughters were here.

He’d tried for years to obtain unsupervised visitation. They were here and he was happy, wasn’t he? Or he would’ve been happy if he could’ve arranged for the three of them to stay somewhere else. Somewhere without the memory of death and horrendous mistakes. He could still take them elsewhere.

But then he imagined Evy’s smirk when he told her they hadn’t stayed in the house. Where they slept shouldn’t matter to the girls. They didn’t know the house had a past. Or that he shared in it. Taking them to a hotel would mean Evy won.

Sticking with his decision, he led them upstairs, unable to shut out the memory of the last time the girls had been here when they were two years old. Evy’s screams. The horror on her face. Her accusations that everything was his fault. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that again.

“You’ll be staying in the guest bedroom,” he said. It had two single beds his mother had set up for when her twin sisters visited. He pointed out his room and the bathroom, ignoring the door to the master bedroom completely.

* * *

SILENCE WASN’T GOLDEN.

The girls were mute as he carried their possessions upstairs. The girls sat wordlessly in the truck’s backseat during the thirty-minute drive to and from Cloverdale to shop for groceries and pick up pizza. They played on a tablet after dinner without speaking while he sat in his father’s chair, which always made him feel as if he didn’t belong in the house. The back was too stiff. His legs were too long.

“How was school this year?”

Silence.

“Do you belong to any clubs? Girl Scouts? Sports teams?”

Silence.

“What’s school going to be like next year?”

Silence.

And they moved like ninjas over the normally creaky floorboards.

The house was used to the quiet. Slade was used to the quiet. But he’d expected the girls to be chatty or fidgety or sighing with boredom, breaking the stillness, not adding to the taciturn hush.

He took out the kitchen trash, listening to the sounds of the night—crickets, the rustle of leaves in the poplar in back, a distant bullfrog by the river. Some nights he sat in an old chaise longue in the backyard until the stars faded, preferring to be where there was noise than in a stagnant house full of soured memories. He hoped he wouldn’t add the twins’ visit to his the list of disappointing recollections.

“That you, Jennings?” It was Old Man Takata sitting on his front porch.

There was just enough light from a streetlamp hidden behind a tree across the street to see smoke rising from Takata’s porch. The man loved his cigars.

Slade crossed their parallel driveways, stopping on the edge of Takata’s perfectly bladed weed-free lawn, because no one walked across that golf-course-worthy green without risking a tirade. “Enjoying the cool breeze?”

Takata scoffed and resumed puffing on his cigar.

Slade waited. He knew his neighbor was building up to something. He’d had enough dealings with the former undertaker to know when the old man had something on his mind.

Takata didn’t disappoint. “It’s not so bad out here, is it? Inside it’s always too quiet, like I’m waiting for Nancy to say something...” Nancy being his deceased wife. “Only she never does.”

Air left Slade’s lungs in a rush. The older man nailed it. Slade always felt as if he was listening for his father’s voice, waiting for him to say everything was going to be okay.

Before he could formulate a response, Takata dismissed him. “Best get inside to your girls. Old houses can be intimidating at night.”

Later, as Slade lay in the twin bed of his youth, contemplating the ceiling and listening to his daughters’ unintelligible whispers through the shared bedroom wall, he thought about Takata’s words.

And tried not to listen.

CHAPTER THREE

SLADE MADE BREAKFAST early the next morning. Turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, whole-wheat toast. After breakfast he planned to update Flynn and Will on their need of a wine cave and recommend a course of action. His palms grew sweaty at the thought of admitting they needed more capital or a larger operating budget. The omission didn’t rest completely on his shoulders, but it felt as if it did.

He was piling the eggs into a serving bowl when the back of his neck prickled. A glance over his shoulder revealed it was the girls, standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Evangeline was right. Today the Goth was gone. Matching embroidered turquoise peasant blouses. Matching skinny jeans. Matching black cloth loafers. Their hair fell in single black braids down their backs.

“I can see your pretty eyes.” Yesterday, he’d been happy to note beneath those blond bangs they were still green—no colored contacts. Today, he was relieved their hair was still black. He’d been afraid they’d hid hot-pink hair under their wigs. “You got your eye color from your grandmother Jennings.”

They remained mute.

“What would you like to do after I get a little work done this morning?” He pretended they were as excited to be here as he was to be with them. “Go shopping? See a movie?”

The girls exchanged glances.

He’d read about twin speak, but he’d never seen his girls employ it before this visit.