Page 27 of Bitter House
He nods, returning to work.
“For the record, I don’t think Vera was capable of hate. She didn’t hate you. Mostly because she also couldn’t love anyone, not since she lost her husband. There was something wrong with her. She was empty, I think. It wasn’t us, it was her.”
He doesn’t look at me, but I can tell he’s processing my words as his movements slow. “Well, like I said before, losing someone you love can do that to a person. It makes me sad for her more than anything.”
I don’t know what to say to that or how to feel, so I return to digging, but I quickly realize I have more to add.
“Also, for the record, I don’t know how to get close to people anymore. The issue is still with me. Sometimes I don’t even see that I’m being rude. I’m just…protecting myself. Vera really hurt me. And your mom, too. And you. The day I was sent away, it felt like my already small world just collapsed, and I’m scared to let anyone in, so I’m…” I smile to myself. “My friend calls me a cactus. I’m prickly, but it’s just because I’ve been hurt by everyone I’ve ever trusted, you included. It’s self-preservation at its finest.”
He cocks his head to the side. “I was a kid, B.”
“You were twenty.”
“It wasn’t my house. Or my mom’s for that matter. It devastated her to make you leave, but she had a job to do. It was never because she didn’t care about you. Or that I didn’t either, for that matter. Because I did. I do. As much as I teased you, as much as I picked on you, you were always family. You have to know that.”
“Family?” I ask softly. “Is that why you punched Cory Steele in school after he made fun of me?”
He jerks his head backward with surprise. “You knew about that?”
“The whole school knew about that,” I say with a scoff.
“You never asked me about it back then.”
I shrug. “I’m asking now.”
“Cory was an asshole.” His response is clipped.
“Was it over me?” I push again.
He sighs. “Look, a lot of people talked shit about you back then, but not around me. Cory knew that, and he chose to do it anyway. There were consequences.”
A strange sort of warmth blooms in my chest. “You were the only one allowed to pick on me, hmm?”
He meets my eyes briefly with one corner of his mouth upturned. “Something like that.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” He waves me off. “But we should really get back to work before it gets too dark to see anything.”
We’re already almost at that point, so he’s right. We work in silence for another hour, finding nothing. The entire garden has been destroyed, including the earth around Vera’s bench, though it’s cemented into the ground and can’t be moved.
“There’s nothing,” Cole says, out of breath. His entire T-shirt is soaked through with dark patches of sweat. He stabs his shovel into the ground, leaving it standing on its own. “Nothing here. This was a waste of time.”
I stare around at the mess we’ve made. “Maybe we have to dig deeper.”
“How much deeper can we go?” He looks around from the hole where he’s standing, the dirt reaching just level with the top of his head. “I’m nearly six foot tall. You really think Vera could’ve dug a hole like this by herself?”
I smile to myself. “If Vera had enough time, I’m not sure there’s anything she couldn’t have done.”
“Fair enough.” He tries to pull himself up out of the dirt, clawing at the ground to find a place to get hold, and when I stick out my hand to help him up, he hesitates before taking hold of it, the two of us dragging him out of the hole and to his feet. Once he’s standing, I realize he hasn’t released my hand. We’re so close I can smell the scent of him—an intense mixture of sweat and earth and cologne. We look down at the place where we’re connected, his hand in mine, and all at once, we drop hands and take a step back.
He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, smearing mud wherever he touches. “We can dig some more tomorrow, if you’d like, but it’s getting dark. We should…we should get inside and clean up.”
I nod. As much as I want to argue, to insist we stay and keep digging until we find something, I know he’s right. It’s too dark to properly see anything at this point.
We put our shovels away for now and make our way into the house. There is dirt under my fingernails and in my hair, and once I’m in the shower, I watch the mud painting the water brown as it washes down the drain.
I feel strangely empty, though I don’t know why. Not finding anything in the garden should be a good thing. It’s not like I wanted to prove that Vera was a murderer. But it leaves me with more questions than answers. Who is writing the letters? Why did they lie? What do they want from us?