Page 44 of The Spider & the Storm

I hoped there would be a next time.

And I hoped for that so much that I nearly forgot about the rose on Annabel’s grave.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CONNECTICUT, AGE TWENTY

“Luke! I’m taking the car, okay?” I called up the stairs, pulling on my jacket and feeling more excited than I'd been in a long time.

I had a job interview down at the cemetery where my parents were buried. Luke and Melanie had thought I was insane when I applied for the position. They thought it was too weird, too creepy, too …depressing, working in such proximity with the dead—including those that meant the most to me.

But to be honest, I couldn’t have thought of a better job for me to have.

Even Dr. Sibilia had agreed when I told her about the interview.

It had decent pay. It required only a high school diploma and the ability to handle physical labor. I was overqualified academically with my bachelor’s degree, and physically, I wasn’t too worried since I’d started hitting the gym with Luke a few days a week. The thought of working very little with the public was more than appealing, but—and Dr. Sibilia had been sure to point this out—whatever interaction with people I might have would help in building my social skills.

Not to mention, I'd work in close vicinity to my parents. I'd be able to ensure their graves were cared for, I'd be free to visit them whenever I wanted, and while the thought made me feel a little nervous—I hadn't seen their headstones since the day they'd been buried—Dr. Sibilia thought it might be a little cathartic for me to have that kind of closure.

It seemed like an all-around win to me, especially because I’d finally be able to help financially. It wouldn’t all have to come down to Luke and Melanie, and I thought that, maybe, it could help to lift some of the strain off them.

With my jacket on, I checked the hook beside the door for the car keys. They weren’t there.

Maybe Luke’s pocket.

But after checking his leather jacket dumped sloppily over the back of Dad's recliner, I found they weren’t there either.

“Luke!” I shouted louder this time. “Where are the keys?!”

There was no answer again, and sighing, I rolled my eyes and began the climb upstairs when Melanie came hurrying down.

“Hey,” I said as she passed. “What the hell did Luke do with the car keys?”

She shrugged, her eyes exhausted and weighed down by the dark circles beneath them. “Who knows? He came home last night and passed out before I could even talk to him.”

I shook my head and headed back down the stairs behind her. It’d become routine. Luke went down to Tony’s to have a few beers with his self-proclaimed pals. I was glad, so far, that Ritchie never seemed to be among them—that I was aware of anyway—but still. I had yet to understand what was so appealing about Tommy and Rob, at least from what I remembered, and I had no desire to figure it out.

“So, he’s still sleeping,” I guessed out loud, checking the pockets of his jacket once more. Just in case.

“Yeah,” Melanie replied, sounding as tired as she looked. “And whenever he does wake up, he’s going to be hungover, so you know how that’s gonna be.”

Luke was insufferable when he was hungover. He was almost angrier than when he was drunk.

I checked the clock and groaned. “I’m going to be late for this damn interview.”

Melanie reached out for her keys on the hook beside the place where Luke’s were supposed to be. “Here. You can take my car.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, passing the keys to my hand. “Yeah, I’m off tonight, so it’s not like I have to go anywhere. All I have to do is clean up around here, do some laundry, and deal with your brother.”

I didn’t like the way she’d said that—deal with your brother—as if the very thought of spending any time with him wasn’t unlike a trip to the dentist. And it wasn’t that I didn’t understand. Luke’s bad days, the ones where he’d go right to the bar from work and come home late and drunk, were becoming more common than the good ones—times when he’d come home immediately after he was done at the shop and spend time with Melanie or me or both. Dealing with him was just that—dealing. Tolerating. Trudging through one day and into the next, only to do it all over again.

But if she was unhappy, then she was likely to leave. And I wasn’t sure what I’d do if Melanie left.

Both of us really—God, would Luke have any reason to be sober at all if she left? Would he evensurvive?

But … mostly me.

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