Page 48 of A Hidden Past

The gentleness is gone from her voice. I lift my head and see her eyes boring into mine. If anyone looked in through the window, they would probably wonder why a six-foot-one nineteen-year-old boy was shrinking under the glare of a seventy-two-year-old woman who might be five feet tall in heels, but that’s exactly what I do.

“If you want to punish someone,” she says, “You have to be smart, and you have to be patient. So no more confronting Julian. No more robbing their home. No more lurking and trying to catch Clara doing something that the wider world couldn’t care less about. Talk to the police and tell them what you know. I agree that they would rather ignore crimes committed by the wealthy, but eventually, the headache of hiding things becomes too much for them to continue. Handle this the right way and accept that it takes more time than the wrong way.” She straightens. “The taste of victory will be all the sweeter for it.”

She takes the mugs to the kitchen and leaves me there to wonder who the hell I just talked to.

When she returns, she’s the sweet, grandmotherly lady I remember. We talk about things that have nothing to do with the Kensington. She tells me about vacations she’s taken earlier in life and asks me about school. I relax a little and leave feeling a bit better than I do when I arrive.

But the look in her eyes from before—that cold, hard stare—remains in my mind long after I leave.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I consider Edith’s words about punishing the wrong people. It occurs to me that my behavior earlier with Vivian was punishing her for something that isn’t her fault.

And it occurs to me that I have to apologize to her. Regardless of our personal relationship, what I did was rude. She didn’t deserve that.

So, when I leave Edith’s house, I head to Vivian’s.

I hesitate a moment on the porch. A part of me really wants to be here. Another part of me really wishes I had never come here the first time. Most of me just wishes this was all over, and I was in class at CSULB well on my way to forgetting Autumn Downs and everyone who lives here.

But I have to do this. I can't let the argument earlier be Vivian's last memory of me or mine of her.

So, I lift my hand, but before I can knock, the door opens. Vivian is wearing a nightgown, the silk one she wears the other day. Her hair is down, and she’s taken off her makeup. She’s still beautiful, but she looks her age for the first time since I’ve seen her, and it affects me strangely.

Then she smiles, and I stop caring about that. “You gonna come in, or just stand there with your hand raised like a dummy?”

I follow her inside, and she leads me to the table. “Sit. I’ll make you some tea.”

Not wine, I notice. Not that I feel like drinking right now.

She starts the water boiling and asks, “So did you come to apologize for being a complete asshole earlier?”

I lower my eyes and nod.

“Words, sweetie.”

The endearment cuts me, mostly because the tone she uses is not unlike my mother’s when I was younger, before Annie died.

“I’m sorry for being a complete asshole earlier.”

“And I forgive you.” She smiles at me. “See how easy it is when you take a moment to think instead of just following your emotions everywhere they take you?”

I nod again. She begins to speak, but I don’t want to hear her call me sweetie again, so I say, “Yes.”

She nods, then turns back to the tea. I sit in silence while she finishes it. I don’t know what to say. I know I should say something, but I can’t figure out what.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go sit in the living room.”

I follow her and start to sit on the chair, but when she sits on the couch, she pats the cushion next to her. I don’t really feel like sex right now, but my body has other ideas. Yet another reminder that I’m only nineteen years old. What a blow to my ego this day has been.

I sit next to her, but instead of kissing me like I expect her to do, she pulls my head to her chest and starts stroking my hair. It's the most comforting thing anyone could possibly do, but once more, it feels motherly, not the act of a lover. I don’t know why that bothers me so much.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” she asks gently.

I don’t want to tell her anything. I don’t want to encourage her to keep petting me like I’m her little boy. I know that’s petty of me, but there it is.

I can’t help myself, though. I might not like this, but it appears that even I don’t care what I would like right now.

"My sister died in a hit-and-run when I was ten years old."

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