glimpse of something on his face. The tiniest little hint of a smile.
A soon as he was gone, they all looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“Kids!” came Dr. Capello’s voice through the door.
They went silent. Instantly.
Those approximately ten seconds after they stopped laughing and before they started laughing again—more quietly, of course—might have been the happiest ten seconds of Allison’s life. In those ten seconds, Dr. Capello was still the patriarch of the house. In those ten seconds, he wasn’t dying anymore. In those ten seconds, they were kids again. In those ten seconds, Allison feared nothing but getting grounded yet another week. And in those ten seconds, Allison felt completely and utterly and unconditionally loved and accepted and home. Her home. Her family. And she knew she was home, and she knew she was family, because at age twenty-five, her dad had grounded her for smoking weed in the house with her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend? No, but in that instant it felt like Roland was her boyfriend. Allison loved him. She loved him and Dr. Capello. She loved Thora and Deacon and even silly old Potatoes O’Brien sleeping soundly on the cot. Even the house Allison loved and the quiet tide and the friendly ocean and the kissing breeze and the comforting clouds and the bright and laughing stars hidden behind them. If one could marry a moment in time, she would have married that one. That moment when the stars were laughing with her and not at her. That moment when the sand in the hourglass was on her side and the house was once again her home.
She and Roland crept down the stairs to her bedroom and crawled under the covers and all over each other, and they didn’t part ways until dawn.
Chapter 19
One almost-perfect week came and went. If Dr. Capello had been well it might have been perfect. It took almost no time for Allison to settle back into the old family patterns, the old groove. In the morning she had breakfast with Thora and Deacon while Roland helped his father shower and dress. Thora and Deacon went to work, and Dr. Capello sat at his desk in his office and played at working while Roland slept. During Dr. Capello’s nap time, Roland would take her to her room. As kids they’d blissfully wasted summer afternoons watching movies or drowsing on the beach. As adults they found better ways to spend their lazy afternoons together. She was woven so easily and so quickly back into the fabric of life at The Dragon that she hadn’t noticed it happening. No one remarked on it. No one treated her like a houseguest. Perhaps the cord had never been broken between her and them. Perhaps all it took was one quick tug, one little stitch to weave her back into the fold. Allison even took up her old chores. Washing the breakfast dishes had been her job, which she did without complaint or even second thought. Her other chore had been straightening the toy room. As there was no toy room anymore, she replaced it with doing laundry.
She was halfway through folding a basket of towels on her eighth morning at The Dragon when her phone rang. The vibration rattled the whole couch and woke up Brien, who’d worn himself out battling with a pair of her underwear she’d let him play with and had fallen asleep against her hip. Allison, too, was startled by the call. She’d forgotten she was expecting one until she saw who was calling.
“McQueen,” she said. “Did you forget about me?”
“No,” he said. “Just took a little longer than I expected.”
No jokes. No flirting. No drunken rambling. Something wasn’t right.
“But you found Oliver’s number, didn’t you?” she asked, suddenly concerned by his serious tone.
“I found some contact information. I’ll email it over to you.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s for his parents,” he said. “His mother is Kathy Collins. The guy she’s married to now is her second husband, not Oliver’s father. She kept her last name.”
“No number for Oliver? He’s around my age. I’d think he’d be on his own by now.”
“Allison...” McQueen said, and from the tone of his voice Allison knew immediately the news was bad, very bad. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but...honey, Oliver’s dead.”
Allison nearly dropped the phone.
“What? How?”
“Just after his fourteenth birthday,” McQueen said, “he shot himself in the head.”
“Fourteen? No way. That would have been right after he left here.”
“I am so sorry.” McQueen sounded like a father now, not her irritating ex-lover. “When Sue told me what she’d found, I made her double-and triple-check before I called you with the news. But it’s all true. I can give you his mother’s phone number like I said and her address if you want to visit and pay your respects.”
“Sure,” she said. “That’s... Yeah, send me that.” She paused. “You don’t know if there was a note or anything? Or a reason he gave?”
“That’s not really Sue’s area,” McQueen said. “We didn’t want to bother his parents by calling. Looks like the father cut out when Oliver was eight or nine, so I don’t know if he could tell you anything. Mother’s the best bet.”
“Yeah, makes sense,” she said, still dazed.
A dozen memories of Oliver flitted through her mind in that instant. Instead of playing tag on the beach with the rest of them, he’d sit for hours in the sun digging for shells. And she remembered the funny way he’d stick his tongue out in concentration while coloring. The way he’d randomly stand on his hands because he was a kid and he could.
“I wish I had better news,” he said.
“I asked you to help.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
She shook her head, although McQueen wouldn’t have seen it. She was too dazed to think straight. Except, maybe there was something.
“McQueen? Can I ask for another favor?”
“What is it?”
“Two more names,” she said. “Can you get me their information?”
“What are the names?”
“Kendra Tate,” she said. “And Antonio Russo.”
“Other siblings?”
“Kendra came to the house a couple months before I left. Antonio... I never met him. He came and left right before I did, but I still want to talk to him, anyway. Deacon said Antonio was one of the kids Dr. Capello couldn’t help.”
“I’ll see what I can find for you.”
“Thank you. Really, thank you.”
“Of course. But, Allison?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to help me if you don’t want to,” she said.
“No, I mean, I don’t like hearing that a teenage boy killed himself a few months after leaving that house you’re in.”
“Do you think I like hearing it?” she asked.
“First you, and now this boy? I’m tempted to bring the police in.”
“That’s insane, McQueen.”
“Insane? Someone tried to kill you, and this kid kills himself a couple months after leaving that house,” McQueen said.
“I’m trying to find out what happened. And whatever did happen, children were involved. Young children, who probably didn’t understand what they were doing. I’m not trying to put anybody in jail,” she said. “I just want to know the truth so I can stop wondering what happened. That’s all. And I really don’t want anyone bothering Dr. Capello. He doesn’t have much time left, anyway.”
“I’m going to lose sleep at night over you,” McQueen said. “And not for the reasons I used to.”
Allison sighed heavily.
“Look,” McQueen said with a sigh, “I’m not telling you to leave. I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do. But where there’s smoke there’s fire, and if I were you, I’d keep my mouth and nose covered.”
Allison wanted to argue with him, but she was afraid he might have a point.
“I’ll be safe,” she said.
“Better be.”
She got off the phone with him and a minute later had the email. She found Roland in the side yard choppin
g wood again. It was warm that day, surprisingly so for October on the coast, and Roland was just in jeans and a T-shirt. For a couple minutes, she stood far back and watched him work. It amazed her how he made it look so easy as he raised the ax, brought it down, split the wood in two. His grip was strong and his swing fluid and fearless. This was not a man who worried about chopping off a toe. She took great comfort in Roland’s strength and size. He was the sort of man one instinctively ran to when scared or in trouble. A human umbrella, a living breathing shelter from the storm. McQueen had never done anything more physically taxing than lift weights at the gym three times a week with his trainer. If he could see Roland right now, he wouldn’t worry one bit about her. With Roland with her, she would be safe.
Roland finally noticed her presence. He took his safety glasses off and set his ax aside.
“You looking for me?” he asked.
“More firewood? Still not cold out,” she said.
Roland sighed. “What can I say? It’s good stress relief. I was the wood chopper at the abbey, too. Wonder who they suckered into doing it now that I’m gone.”
“You had to chop wood at the abbey?”
“We ran a working farm,” Roland said. “Grew most of our own food. And we had sheep and a few cows. We also brewed our own beer. It helps pay the bills.”
“Your own beer? Hipster monks. You even have the man bun.”
“It’s just a ponytail.”
“You’re so Oregon,” she said, smiling. “I was wondering how a monk got your bulk.”
“Throwing hay and chopping wood every day for eight straight years is a good workout. Now, what’s wrong? You look upset.”
“McQueen called me back. Finally.”
“He found Oliver?”
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
Allison told him everything while Roland listened in silence.
“Roland?” she asked when he hadn’t responded at all.
He ran a hand roughly through his hair.
“Shit,” he said, followed by a few more choice words. “He’s sure about all this?”
“He had his assistant triple-check it. He didn’t want to freak us out without reason. That’s why it took so long to get back to us.” Allison took a step toward him but didn’t touch him. He didn’t seem ready for that yet. “What do you think we should do?”
He exhaled heavily.
“You said his mom’s in Vancouver?” Roland asked.
“Vancouver, Washington,” she said. “Not Canada.”
“That’s two hours away,” Roland said. “Right across the bridge from Portland.”
“You really think we should go knocking on her door?”
“We’ll call first, but we should go, too. You can hang up on a call but it’s a lot harder to slam a door in someone’s face. Especially your face.”
“Do you want to come with me?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “But I will. I want to know why I never knew my brother killed himself. That’s something we should have known. And it wasn’t like with you. He seemed fine when they took him home.”
“Do you think they told your dad when he died?” Allison asked.
“If Dad had known, he would have told me.”
“You sure?” she asked. “He didn’t tell you the whole truth about why I left.”
Roland shrugged. “I thought I was sure.”
“You want to ask him?”
“If he weren’t so sick I might,” Roland said. “He barely slept last night. He’s in a bad mood this morning already. I don’t want to risk upsetting him.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to tell a dying man one of his foster kids killed himself, either,” Allison said. “You think he’ll be suspicious if we went away for a day?”
“Let me handle that,” he said.
She went to him and kissed him.
“I needed that,” he said.
“Me, too. I was doing laundry when McQueen called. I was folding your underwear.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to do my laundry.”
“I threw yours in with mine. I kind of like folding your underwear,” she said. “Is this what a real adult relationship feels like?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in one.”
“Me, neither. I’m enjoying it,” she said. Shared work, shared sorrows, shared joys...she could get used to living like this.
He kissed her again. “Don’t tell my abbot but...so am I.”
Roland offered to make the phone call to Oliver’s mother. He’d met her once and had been closer to Oliver during his time at The Dragon than anyone else. Meanwhile Allison returned to the house and changed out of her yoga pants and sweatshirt into her jeans, brown leather boots and her favorite burgundy wraparound cashmere sweater. She hoped it was appropriate for paying condolences to a total stranger. As she’d finished putting her hair up in a twist, Roland came into the bathroom.
“Well?” Allison asked.
“I got his mom on the phone. She said we can come by this evening for a few minutes. She remembered Oliver telling her I was his best friend.”
Allison smiled weakly. “That’s sweet. How did she sound?”
“Not very happy to hear from me, but it sounds like she’s never very happy to hear from anyone. I think she’s depressed. Can’t blame her for that.”
“She say anything else?”
“She said Dad did know. She called him right after it happened.”
“He knew?” Allison wasn’t as surprised as she wanted to be.
Roland nodded. “I couldn’t get much more out of her. She said we could talk about it this evening.”
“Did you tell Dad we were leaving?” she asked.
“I told him I wanted to get you out of the house and take you to Portland on a real date.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘There’s five hundred dollars in cash in the top drawer and don’t you dare show your face until morning.’”
“I take it he approves?”
“You could say that.”
Thora agreed to come home and watch Dr. Capello while they were out. She said she’d watch their dad day and night as long as they brought her Little Big Burger from Portland. An easy promise to make and keep. Allison and Roland got into her rental car and headed east down the tree-shrouded highway that linked the city to the coast.
“I’ll never get over how green it is here,” she said as they drove in and out of shadows.
“It’s not going to stay green much longer if it doesn’t start raining. We’re overdue.”
Roland wasn’t looking at her but staring out the car window. She saw the reflection of his face in the glass and his expression was grim.
“You’re worried about your dad,” she said.
“He tells me everything,” Roland said. “I’m the oldest. I’ve always been the one in charge when he was away. I’ve always been the one he told the bad stuff to, even when he didn’t tell Deac or Thor. It doesn’t make sense he’d keep this from me.”
“He is very protective of his kids.”
“I get not telling me when I’m sixteen or seventeen or even eighteen. But I’m an adult,” Roland said. “I can handle bad news now.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons. Medical confidentiality, maybe?”
“He did operate on Oliver. Maybe that’s it.”