Echoes Between Us - McGarry, Katie Page 0,106
appear as if the apartment is sneering at me, mocking my growing fear.
No, this is my home. I will not be scared of it. I step toward it, and Lucy scrambles to her feet and rushes me. “Don’t! Don’t go!”
“I’m just going to shut the back door.”
“Don’t leave me!” she yells. Tears fill her eyes, escape down her cheeks, and her fear, her grief, tugs at my heart. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
“Okay,” I say, “I won’t go.”
She allows me to swing her up onto my hip, and Lucy buries her head in my neck. I gently hug her close as I walk her away from her back door, to the front of the house and the safety of the second floor.
* * *
Lucy can barely function in Sawyer’s sweatshirt yet she’s doing her best to set out my Peanuts nativity scene near the Christmas tree. The sweatshirt is the one he had loaned me the night we first kissed and I have yet to give back as it smells like him and I love the reminder of our night together. When I offered it to her as a blanket, she hungrily pulled it over her head and wears it like a hug.
I stand by the window, watching for Dad. My anxiety level is higher than it should be. When I came up with Lucy, he went down the stairs. He wasn’t happy that a six-year-old was left home alone, especially for so long. Nor was he happy when I told him the back door to the first floor was wide open. Then there was the pièce de résistance—Lucy’s sob-filled rant about stalking monsters. There’s been no sign of Dad since he disappeared into their kitchen.
My cell is in my hand, and I look again at the message Sawyer sent me minutes ago: On my way.
Guilt niggles at me as Sawyer told me how important it was for him to be at work as he’s had to take off too many days due to his mother’s schedule, his swim schedule and AA meetings, but what else was I supposed to do? Lucy needs her brother.
A knock on my door, and I’m relieved when I see Sawyer on the security monitor. I cross the room, open the door, and I ache with how haggard he appears.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m sorry to have texted you. I know you needed to work.”
“Don’t be.” He walks in and pulls me in for hug. “I’m glad you did.”
A brush of a kiss along my temple causes my heart to flutter, but then he lets me go and heads for his sister. “Hey, Luce.”
Lucy brightens and abandons Snoopy as the Little Drummer Boy and runs into him. He lifts her and she winds her arms that have been swallowed by his sweatshirt around his neck.
He hugs her tight and after about a minute of her strangling him, he takes her to the couch. Sawyer has to pry and gently coax Lucy from being buried into this chest. He does it yet keeps her on his lap.
“Where’s Mom?” Even though it’s apparent Sawyer is attempting to sound lighthearted, the strain is clear.
“She left.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
Lucy shakes her head.
“She told Lucy not to tell you,” I say. Lucy’s head swivels toward me, her expression clear that she believes I’m a traitor, but I soften the blow. “But I told her that your mom reached out to you so she didn’t mean it.”
Lucy exhales while Sawyer’s face hardens. He knows the first part is the truth, the second part a lie.
“It’s late and we have to go visit Dad tomorrow.” Sawyer tries again for light. “How about a quick bath and then I’ll let you watch cartoons on my phone with me in my room?”
Lucy edges away from Sawyer. “I want to stay here. The ghost here isn’t mean. The ghost here is nice.” She looks to me then. “Right, V?”
“You told my sister that there are ghosts in this house?” Sawyer’s voice is low-pitched, and eerily steady. Storm clouds rage in his eyes.
I fiddle with my bracelet. For the first time in my life, I’m unsure of my thoughts … of my actions. “Lucy told me that first night that she was scared of ghosts.”
“And you told her that they aren’t real, right?” he presses.
I stare at him, he stares at me, and a sickening sensation fills my stomach. “I told her that there was nothing to be scared of.”
His jaw twitches as he