Not What You Seem by Lena Maye

Author:Lena Maye [Maye, Lena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

26

Ella

I can’t write this letter. I’ve stared at a blank page for the last hour. I did start it—put the judge’s name at the top and introduced myself as Mira Jacobs’ daughter. But that’s it. The words after that just wouldn’t come. Then I called Laura to make sure she’s okay, and she assured me she was. Benny calmed down.

“Everything’s fine,” she repeated a million times.

I tuck my phone in my sweater and slow my steps, rounding the corner onto Becham Road. The place Dean was talking about is a few buildings down. A low, white building with a drooping awning. A square sign out front says it’s Palmer’s Assisted Living.

If I can’t write the letter, then I need something else. I called Carly yesterday, and she said it’s not looking like she can put a stay on my mother’s pleadings.

I asked her what that meant, and she wasn’t fully sure. It depends what the judge thinks. How fast he moves. How clear cut he thinks the case is. And about a million other things that I don’t even know what to think about.

I walk down to the glass door, humming a soft lullaby. I have to wait a moment until someone buzzes me in, but then I step up into the building. My heart hammering. My palms instantly sweating. The whole world suddenly feels very surreal.

What am I even doing here?

I step through the second door and turn the direction of the front office. I stop.

Benny.

He’s in the office, speaking with a thinly haired man. I still, as if I can hide in the hallway. If he turns around, he’ll see me. My heart launches up into my throat. Remembering how he looked yesterday, I hardly slept last night. Hardly felt normal except for the few minutes when I was texting Dean.

What is Benny doing here? He wouldn’t be here to see Charles.

Would he?

“Family only,” the man is saying. He gestures a hand toward the door, and I jump to the side and out of view. I press my back into the dingy beige wall.

“I’m an old friend,” Benny says. His voice is tight, restrained. And as unfamiliar as his anger was.

“I’m sorry.” The man’s tone is sharp, decisive. Like there’s no chance he’s going to be convinced otherwise. “His sons have been very clear on this matter. Family only.”

Family only.

If I want to see Charles, then I’ll have to talk to Dean first. My stomach twists up into about a thousand knots. My moments with Dean feel so far away from all of this. Ever since the lighthouse, it feels like the past doesn’t really matter anymore.

In all the time I’ve been working at the bakery, making that olive bread for Ms. Joanna and pulling on that easy-Ella smile, I’ve never felt like I fit the way I do around Dean.

He makes my smile real.

I know that I probably can’t hang on to that forever, but I want to hang on to it for as long as possible. Clutch on to him and step away from the past and into the present.

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