Page 28 of August Lane
Luke slowed to a stop when he reached a metal sign withRANDALLwritten on it in peeling vinyl letters. The farm was emptier than it should be this time of year. The ranchers Ava leased the land to would typically be preparing for calving season and relocating livestock to give the pastures a rest. Now there were new fences and keep-out signs from a large oil and gas company, which meant she’d sold off more of the mineral rights to pay her bills.
When the house came into view, Luke barely recognized it. The bones were there, but the bottom half of the brick split-level was being devoured by neglected landscaping. Deep cracks lined the concrete steps that led up to the front door, and one of the living room shutters had nearly fallen off its hinges. He stared at that window a while before pressing the doorbell, which didn’t make a sound. It was a sign, right? He’d played the dutiful son and could leave. Wasn’t this bare minimum of effort all he owed her?
His answer was footfalls on the other side of the door. Ava smiled broadly when she saw him, her golden irises swallowed by blown, glistening pupils. Whatever painkiller she’d taken was doing its job, numbing her giddy.
“You’re here!” She kissed his cheek and waved him in.
The house smelled like Lysol and lemon Pledge, which meant she’d just finished cleaning. Only, it wasn’t clean. A few surfaces gleamed from her efforts, but the furniture was stained and sagging, the carpet in similar shape. A musty smell undermined her attempts to control the odor. The windows were covered with the same heavy curtains he grew up with, which turned the house into a dingy cave.
As a child, Luke was so used to existing in darkness that he found it comforting. That’s what he’d been doing when August found him that night at the county fair, using the dark to calm his fears. Part of his recovery had been turning to the light. At home, his shades were always open. He exercised outside. He did yard work for a local shelter so he could spend hours with the sun on his skin.
“Let me look at you.” Ava’s eyes swept over him. “You cut your hair off.”
“I do that every summer.”
She nodded, twisting her hands. “Makes sense. It’s so hot out there, isn’t it? Like we’re being punished for something.” She grabbed the small dime on a chain around her neck. The charm was supposed to protect her from demons. “That beard makes you look even more like him.”
Luke was tempted to feign ignorance so that she’d be forced to say his father’s name. They both knew how much he favored Jason Randall. Luke was only four when his father died, but he had seen enough photos to know they could be mistaken for brothers now.
“Where’s your suitcase? I can take it to your room.” Ava spun around, searching.
“In the truck.” Luke eyed the foot and leg massagers on her couch. “Do those help?”
Ava glanced at them and said, “A little,” while rubbing her arms like she’d caught a chill. Luke was sweating. She always kept the house uncomfortably warm because the cold worsened her condition. Luke and Ethan used to accuse her of being cheap. Years later, after her fibromyalgia diagnosis, they realized it was just another way of coping with her chronic pain.
“Are you excited to be home?” She rushed past him and picked upa copy ofPeoplemagazine with Jojo Lane on the cover. “I bought this at Kroger yesterday. Thought they’d have a picture of you, but…” She flipped it open and pointed to his name in a small text box. “There you are!”
Luke took the magazine and turned it over in his hands. “I didn’t know they still sold these in print.”
“Me neither. But I’m glad they do. Charlotte must be so proud of you. How is she? Is she coming to the concert?”
Luke put the magazine on the table. “We’re getting divorced.”
Ava sucked in a breath. “What?” She looked at his hand and saw the missing wedding band. “When did this happen?”
“A decade ago,” he said, which felt good to admit. He wanted to shed his lies. Peel himself down to the core. But he had to keep some of them. The big ones had become scaffolding, holding up all the rest. “She’s in love with someone else. I’m happy for her.”
“Well, I’m not!” Ava cried. “You two were so good together.”
Luke wiped sweat from his brow and started walking toward the kitchen. “I need some water.”
“I can get it.” Ava moved quickly, trying to cut him off. “How about a real drink? You like old-fashioneds? I know how to make those now.”
“I don’t drink anymore,” Luke said. He’d never considered telling her he was an alcoholic because he knew what she would say.Well, you came by it honestly.
Luke could recall the few times Ava had been sober with perfect clarity: Three Christmas mornings. One of Ethan’s birthdays. Two trips to Branson. There was one Wednesday game night when he was ten years old that had been nearly perfect. He’d convinced himself that three uneventful hours of Uno and pizza meant things would get better, that they’d reached a level of normal that made him cry himself to sleep. But two days later, when Ava became so flustered by her new coffee maker’s instructions that she shattered the pot against the wall, he’d cleaned the mess with tiny glass shards in his hand and hadn’t shed a tear.
“You shouldn’t be drinking, either,” he told her. “It doesn’t mix well with your medication.”
Ava touched her dime again and wound the chain around her finger. “Fix that droopy face of yours. We should celebrate! How about pizza?”
“I’m not staying,” Luke said. He was broke enough to convince himself that he could stomach sleeping in his old room until the performance fee hit his account. But he knew what would happen if he stayed in this house. Five years of sobriety wasted on grocery store chardonnay. “I just stopped by on the way to the motel. Jojo’s manager is paying for it.”
“For two months? That’s a lot of money.”
“Not for them.”
“Well. That’s disappointing.” Her voice had risen slightly with the effort to hide her distress. He was doing the same thing. Being there took him to dangerous places. Holding her hair back while she leaned over the toilet. Him blacking out after a game. Now they eyed each other, forcing small talk while their inner drunks tore up their insides.
