Page 24 of A Fighting Chance

“Look, I appreciate that you’re here. I do. And I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for me. But Gentry Bodine is hot—white hot. You know it, I know it, and the blind nuns at the monastery know it.”

“That’s not the point,” I say.

“Then what is?” she asks.

I take a sip of my coffee and consider her question. “The point is, there are several points. I’m here for you, not him—despite his hotness. I don’t even know anything about him.”

“People have seasons, Lyla. I am in winter. It’s cold and desolate here. It’s not a time for me to feel. But you’re not. You shouldn’t deprive yourself of a spring rain just because I’m not ready for one,” she says.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a spring rain,” I admit.

“Well, don’t you think it’s time?” she asks.

I don’t know the answer to that question. I think I’ve avoided it my entire life quite purposefully, actually. She’s just in a season of winter and I’m pretty sure I’ve been in a perpetual state. “It sounds like it could be painful,” I say.

“Sometimes it is,” she says.

We continue quietly for a few more minutes, and I let her words sink in before changing the subject. “So, how far did you get yesterday?” I ask.

“Not very,” she says, her voice growing small, and I hear something in it.

Shame?

Distance?

I’m not sure but I seek to comfort her and pat her back. “That’s okay. After today, we’ll be all caught up and you can put this part of the ordeal behind you.”

There’s a new kind of concern or shame written all over her face, and I don’t really understand why she’d be feeling so intensely about the belongings in her house. We walk a few more minutes in silence until we arrive at the cabin.

As we approach the door, she turns to me. “I made a mess yesterday,” she confesses, her eyes glossy.

I look at her, confused, trying to sort out her meaning without needing to ask. “Well, we can just clean it up while we’re here, I’m sure it’s not a big deal,” I say, waving my hand through the air like it might also wave away her concern.

She exhales a long, deep breath and turns back to the door. She slides the key in and turns the knob, opening the door, and it doesn’t take long for me to understand what she meant by her statement.

The place is wrecked. Harper was a hurricane, apparently. A tornado. She had been intentionally destructive. Furniture is flipped over, linens are shredded, pillows are stuffing-less. All the photos of her and Charles now have large holes in his face. Some of the frames are smashed. She’d taken what appears to be his clothing and thrown them into the fireplace, only she hadn’t burned them. Some dishes are smashed. I look at my little sister after taking in the scene before me and she looks back at me, her posture clearly expectant of a lecture.

But I just smile at her. A laugh begins to rise in my throat, small at first, but it grows. It escapes my lips and bellows into the air. She stares at me, starting to laugh herself. Her laugh grows louder and soon the two of us are standing amongst the rubble—which used to be her perfect and quaint life—laughing like mad women, clutching our stomachs.

Soon Harper’s laughs turn into tears and I take her in my arms. She cries onto my shoulder, her whole body shuddering with each sob. I understand. I understand her need to destroy it, to break this life down. It had been a lie and she needed to take its perfection and make it look as broken as she felt inside.

I untuck her from my arms and hold her by the shoulders at arm’s length. I wipe her tears from her cheeks. “Be done now,” I say, my voice both soft and stern.

She nods at me, straightening herself. She sniffles and wipes at her face.

“Where are the matches?” I ask.

She looks at me quizzically but ultimately retrieves them from a kitchen drawer. When she tries to hand them to me, I push them back into her hand and point at the fireplace.

“No, Lyla. I wasn’tseriouslygoing to burn them. I was just angry. I need to box them up,” she says.

“No, you will not. Why should you have to do that for him? He abandoned you. And the way I see it, he abandoned everything in this house he didn’t take, which means he doesn’t want it,” I say, folding my arms across my chest and jutting my hip out to one side.

She looks back at the clothes for a few moments, biting her bottom lip, then looks at me again.

I nod again, approvingly.

She walks over to the fireplace and kneels in front of it. She tucks the loose pieces of clothing farther back into the fireplace and inhales. She strikes a match and watches it calm and flicker. Then she throws it onto Charles’ corduroy jacket. No one needs a corduroy jacket anyway. This is a public service. I hear her exhale and reach down to rub soothing circles on her back.

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