A Thousand Fires by Shannon Price

Author:Shannon Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

14

One summer I went to a camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was just a week long, but I remember coming back and feeling foreign in my own home—it was too clean, too organized, and too different from what I’d just gotten used to.

Tonight feels a lot like that.

I unhook the gate to the backyard and retrieve the spare key from its hiding place beneath the clay pot that I painted in the second grade. The garage door is rusty, but after rattling the handle a bit, it comes dislodged.

Our alarm is on a timer, and I rush over and punch the code before it starts blaring. I wait, heart thundering, to see if the sound was enough to wake my parents.

What am I going to say to them? I’m not even sure why I’m here. Pacing the kitchen, I stick my opposite thumb on the spot on my wrist where the Young Heron’s scissors tore my skin. I just wanted a moment of peace and solitude, of something I know for sure. The house smells like my house, in the weird way you get to know by virtue of having lived there before. I’d know it blind.

Walking into the living room, I run my hand across the fabric of the couch. Fatigue tugs at my eyes, but it vanishes when I hear a telltale creak on the stairs, followed by the padding of slippered feet.

“Mom?”

“Valerie!” she yells, and a moment later I’m in her arms. Her cheek is warm, arms strong. We dissolve into sobs like waves into sea foam.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Val, oh honey.” She pushes the hair from my face, her thumb pressing into my hairline. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “I’m fine. Totally fine. Where’s Dad?”

“In LA meeting with a— Oh my god, you’re bleeding,” Mom says, gripping my wrist so that I too can see the new, dark well of blood beading up. “What happened?”

“It’s hard to explain,” I tell her. “All of it is.”

Something clicks in her, and she goes full Mom-mode. She makes me sit, grabs the first-aid kit from the bathroom, and starts diligently unpacking a Band-Aid. She lays it on gently, holding on to my hand as if letting go would make me disappear.

“Thank you,” I say quietly. “How are you?”

She closes the kit. “Fine, baby.”

“Mom.”

Tears brim in her eyes. “What do you want me to say? I’m a failure as a mother. You hated me so much that you signed up for … for … well, you know. And Leo—” Her voice cracks. “My baby. My sweet baby boy.”

“Oh, Mom.”

“If your dad and I had been around more … I don’t know. We did our best. But look at our family now. Your father isn’t even here. Again. No wonder you resented us. I would, too.” She dabs her eyes on the sleeve of her robe. “I’m so sorry, Valerie.”

She cries, and I do, too. My emotions well up in my chest, beating so strong against my ribs that I wonder how I don’t explode.

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