“You want me to stay away from them?” I ask.
“Them and the house.” She looks around. “The shop. Starlee, it’s not because I want you to, but because it’s for the best.”
“How can removing someone that supports them be good for them?” I’m grasping at straws, but I feel them slipping through my fingers regardless.
“I don’t make the rules, but if we follow them, things can work out.”
“If I do what you want, and the investigation clears you, will Charlie and George get to come back?”
“I don’t know.”
Sierra turns to the kitchen, leaving me alone in the shop. She returns with two pastry boxes stacked on top of one another. “I’m assuming you came over for these?”
I nod, feeling numbness rolling over me. There’s nothing left for me to say so I turn, realizing this may be my last time I’m allowed in here. My eyes land on George’s mural and I don’t miss the wording at the bottom.
“Family is More Than Blood.”
Until this moment I thought that declaration included me. That there was room for me in this wayward family, but I understand now that isn’t the case.
“Starlee,” she calls and I force myself to look back. “I can’t lose Dexter. He’s all I’ve got and my parents…they’d want me to do everything I can to keep him here. Do you understand that?”
I stumble out of the store without responding and head back home, passing by the office and the rowdy, fun-filled reunion going on in the cabins.
I drop the pies on the kitchen table and sink into a chair, letting the tears really fall. My mother had been right. Friendship, school, reaching out to people…it was foolish. Stupid. Hurtful.
This is my fault for breaking down those barriers.
She told me boys would bring nothing but pain. I never thought I’d bring the same to them.
44
Starlee
Heartbroken is the appropriate word.
Like the actual moment a person feels their heart being ripped into two. Or make it four, in my case. That pain is how I spend Thanksgiving Day. I drive Leelee the two hours to Lake Tahoe, barely taking in the beauty of the countryside, barely acknowledging my great uncle as he pulls me into a hug.
We sit around the dining room table of his cabin and I listen to stories from their childhood. He was mischievous and adventurous; very much part of the Nye family. He collected and lost snakes in the house. Hid a motorcycle in the woods from his parents. Left for the Air Force the minute he graduated high school. And traveled the world. Korea, Germany, Japan. Their closeness fills a space that I’m not sure I can begin to occupy. I’m lost.
It’s dark when we get home. The Wayward Sun was closed for the day. A yellow light shines in Jake’s window. Charlie’s is dark. They all feel a million miles away.
The morning breaks in typical fashion for the Sierra Nevadas—blue-skied and cold. Our little town is up and bustling. The tree lighting is tonight, and with the large family staying at the lodge, we’re busy. I’m busy and I keep everything together until Katie corners me in the supply building.
“I heard about Charlie and George,” she says. She’s wearing a silly winter sweater. One with Yoda dressed like Santa. “Are you okay?”
I look down at the box of oversized, plastic ornaments. My shoulders begin to shake and she pulls me into a hug. “It’s my fault.”
“Hey,” she says, stroking my hair. “There is no way this is your fault, Starlee. Those boys had a lot of problems before you got here. A lot of baggage that came with a shit-ton of rules.”
I knew the truth, though. Somehow in my quest for freedom I’d become a bad influence—at least on paper. “I’m not allowed to see them anymore.”
“Like…ever?” she asks.
“Maybe at school? But even that seems risky. Someone seems to have a direct line to the social workers. Their involvement with me only makes things worse.”
“That’s stupid.” She hugs me again and I don’t push her away. I need someone to hold onto. “It has to be a mistake.”
It isn’t though, because when Dexter sets up the hot chocolate and coffee tent, he doesn’t make eye contact. And when Jake climbs the ladder to put the star on top of the tree, he never once looks my direction. And I pretend like I don’t feel the ghosts of the twins around every corner; when the extension cord won’t work and we desperately need Charlie’s electrical skills, and when Tom puts on the Santa costume and asks where his elf is this year.