The Things We Carry (The Town Book 1) by Kate Anslinger

Author:Kate Anslinger [Anslinger , Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798397782395
Publisher: Lighthouse Pen, LLC
Published: 2023-07-31T23:00:00+00:00

23

After

APRIL 2021

Evie

I understand why Lauren is mad. If I were her, I’m not sure I’d talk to me again either. It looks bad. I was the one driving the car in the middle of the night. With her daughter in the passenger seat. Matt asks me the same questions that are likely spinning through her mind.

“Honey, why were you in a car with Lily so late at night?”

I pick at the edge of the cast with my free hand. “She needed me.” I answer his question matter-of-factly.

“Why would Lily call you for a ride in the middle of the night?” he asks. I would ask him the same question if he was in a similar situation. We are close with the Rivers, but our bonds have never spilled out into separate parent/child relationships.

“Because she was drunk.” The response comes from Jack, who is sitting in a chair by the window, swiping across his phone nonchalantly.

I’m just as shocked at his answer as Matt is. “How?” I start but can’t finish. Confusion ripples my brow.

“How did I know?”

I nod. My normally reserved and calm son is on edge. He bounces his knee and changes position two more times before he continues. “Because I was at that party.”

“You left her at the party, knowing she was drunk and had no way to get home?” Anger rips through me, altering the calm and grateful state I had just moments before when I was reunited with my boys. That changed to sadness when Lauren stormed out of the room, and now I feel my face growing red with fury. I thought I raised my boys to be polite gentlemen, to look out for girls, especially girls they were best friends with. And then it dawns on me. “I thought you weren’t going to that party anyways.” It was the end of year celebration of college acceptance letters but the majority of the kids celebrating were the ones who would be attending mostly Boston area colleges.

Jack’s gaze skitters away from mine. His head swivels and he looks everywhere but at me and his father.

“Jack? What’s going on?” Matt, already standing, sidesteps with hands resting low on his hips. He’s a pacer. He always has been. Never has he been able to sit still when the wheels in his mind are spinning. And I know they’re spinning. In different directions and with varying speed, the wheels in his head are spinning, trying to figure out why Jack left the party early and why I, not Lauren, picked Lily up in the middle of the night from a party. I didn’t think to check Jack’s room before I left to go get Lily. I assumed he was out with his friends and his curfew was midnight. It was only 11:30 when I got in my car.

Jack huffs as he shakes his head left to right. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but there is no way he’s getting out of this without giving me an explanation and I make that clear when I escalate my voice and sharpen the edges of my words.

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