Page 75 of House Rules
She huffs a laugh. “That’s creepy, Storm.”
“It would be, if I meant it how you heard it.” I exhale. “I knew your mom.”
Her head snaps toward me. “You did not.”
“Not in the way you’re thinking.” My mouth goes tight. “She worked nights sometimes. Sometimes when my parents had late-night events and stuff, they…” I roll my shoulders once, a shrug that doesn’t shake. “They didn’t believe in babysitters. They were right there in the hotel, after all. Your mom would check in on me. Keep me company if I got scared. She didn’t deserve to be a story that ends and then gets forgotten.”
She’s silent. Then, softly: “No. She didn’t.”
We turn off the highway. Gravel unfurls under the tires, pops and pings in the wheel wells. The sign’s old iron with paint flaking, a name swung between two posts. The gates yawn open in derelict invitation.
Her voice is thin when she asks, “Where are we?”
I don’t want to tell her yet. “Somewhere you’ll like.”
“Storm.”
“Trust me,” I say, and this time it doesn’t taste like a line.
Her hands hold the seatbelt like a rosary, both palms gripped around it in front of her chest. I cut the engine when we reach it—the low rise of ground under a stand of old trees, the hum of insects sayinglife goes oneven when it stops.
A single security light buzzes above the narrow track of asphalt that weaves in and out of concrete monuments.
I step out, and the night carries the smell of damp earth, cut grass, the sweet rot of flowers.
I open her door. She doesn’t move, just looking up at me. “You brought me to a graveyard?”
I hold out a hand. After a beat, she takes it, and I pull her out and a few steps over to the plot.
The marble isn’t grand. It’s just…right. Simple lines. Her mother’s name, clean and sure. The dates. A small etched sprig in the corner because I remember her once telling me she had tried planting an herb garden and failed miserably. I guessed it was rosemary—remembrance—because that seemed like a promise I could keep.
Phoenix stops two paces from the stone. She doesn’t breathe. Or maybe I don’t. The bouquet there tonight is fresh—white lilies this time, because lilies are what people think of when they think of after. The ground around the base is clear of leaves. Someone’s been here with a soft brush and a bottle of water.
She steps forward like the earth might crack and swallow her if she moves too fast. Her fingers touch the carved letters of her mother’s name and curl. The sound she makes folds me in half from the inside.
“How,” she whispers, and I realize I’ve never heard her voice do that—fall open without armor. “How is it…this?”
“Because this is what should have happened.” I keep my hands at my sides. I want to touch her shoulder. I want a lot of things, but it’s not time for that yet. “You were a kid. You didn’t have a car. Youdidn’t have anyone who made this a priority. So I did.”
“You did…what, exactly?”
“All of it.” The words feel too big and too small all at the same time. “Picked the stone. Paid for it. The plot was covered, but the rest wasn’t. The caretaker was cutting corners because that’s what people do when they think no one’s watching. I watched. I come out here on the day. Not for points. Not for…anything. She mattered.”
Her face breaks. It’s not pretty, not careful. It’s honest. She covers her mouth like she’s trying to hold the pieces in, but they won’t stay. Tears slip down her cheeks, quick and hot, but she doesn’t wipe them because she’s still braced against the stone, and she needs both hands to stay upright.
I step closer—not to touch, but close enough that if she falls, I’ll catch her before she hits the ground.
“She talked about you,” I say, and it’s only half true; it was more that I saw the shape of a girl I liked in her tired smiles, and that made me like her. “She was good. You were hers. That was enough.”
Her shoulders pitch forward like a wave took her. I hold my ground and let it hit and pass. When she straightens, she looks at me like she doesn’t know me at all and maybe for the first time, that’s good.
“Why?” she asks, her voice raw. “I don’t understand why you would?—”
“Because I could.” My throat feels like it’s been lined with sand. “Because I knew how much she meant to you, even when you pretended you didn’t care about anything. Because I am not just this crazy person who plays with knives.”
The night breathes around us. Somewhere, a cicada saws its life into the air. Phoenix stares at the stone like it might answer for me. Then she wipes at her face with the heel of her hand, her anger trying to put itself back together out of habit.
I don’t let it.
