LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t know?” she asked.

      “Here’s what I know. You and I were alone at the house. The ‘incident’ happened. You stopped talking to me. I’m at work a couple days later, and Deacon called and said you fell down the stairs and you were going to the ER. Next thing I know, your aunt showed up and told Dad she was taking you home with her. I told him we had to stop her, but Dad said we had to let you go. What I don’t know is why you didn’t come back on your eighteenth birthday. Or nineteenth. Or anytime between then and now.”

      “There’s a lot more to it than that. Dr. Capello didn’t tell you about the phone call?”

      Roland looked at her, wide-eyed and baffled. “What phone call?”

      “Roland... I thought you knew,” she said. “Someone called my aunt. It was right before my... Before I got hurt. Whoever called her, they pretended to be me. They told my aunt someone in the house was going to kill me. And then, bam, next thing she hears I’m in the hospital with a head injury.”

      Roland rubbed his face and shook his head. “Dad said you fell. That’s all he told us. So who the hell called your aunt?”

      “I don’t know,” Allison said. “My aunt said it sounded like me, but she also said the person cried the entire time on the phone, sounded hysterical. I’ve never figured it out.” She knew it had to be one of the kids in the house but she could never picture any of them betraying her like that for any reason.

      “Why would anyone pretend to be you? Why would they say those things? I know none of us would do that,” Roland said. “I was at work. And Deacon and Thora were devastated when you were gone. I’d never seen either of them cry so hard. Thora screamed at Dad to find a way to force your aunt to give you back to us. Deacon tried to talk Dad into buying you back from your aunt. I cried. Kendra cried. God, even Dad cried when he thought no one was looking.”

      The thought of them all weeping for her, mourning her, broke Allison’s heart all over again. Had she lost her family over a dumb prank gone wrong? Or had something truly sinister happened? Both seemed impossible to believe.

      “I cried, too,” Allison said. “But Aunt Frankie wouldn’t even let me talk about visiting. No letters. No phone calls. I guess she told Dr. Capello you all weren’t allowed to contact me, either.”

      “Dad said something about your aunt not wanting us to call you. But he said it was because she didn’t want you getting homesick or trying to run away or something. He never told us... Why would he never tell us about that?”

      Roland stepped back from the water and sat on the sand. She sat next to him.

      “I can’t believe Dr. Capello didn’t tell you about the call,” Allison said. “I thought you knew.”

      “Do you really think someone tried to kill you?” Roland asked. “Not by accident, I mean?”

      “It doesn’t make much sense but...something bad definitely happened and then I never heard from you or your dad or anyone again. That’s why I didn’t come back before. Whoever wanted me gone got what they wanted.” Allison forced a smile. “See? Not your fault at all.”

      Roland rolled onto his back and lay in the sand. Allison stayed sitting upright. She didn’t really want sand all over her black T-shirt or in her bra.

      “I want you to know I never forgot about you,” Allison said. “I would have come back if I hadn’t been too scared to. Sometimes I dreamed about...”

      Roland took her hand again and twined his fingers within hers, hers within his, and rested their joined hands on his chest.

      “Tell me what you dreamed of,” Roland said.

      She smiled and looked up at the gray late-evening sky. The first stars were peeking out from behind the dark curtain of night, and she was alone on the beach with the first boy she ever loved, holding his hand with no witness but the ocean.

      “I dreamed you’d come and find me,” she said.

      “Why me?”

      “Wishful thinking,” she said. “You were always my favorite.”

      “Favorite sibling?”

      “Favorite person. Ever. On earth. I was a little in love with you. And maybe a little in lust...”

      Roland did a double take.

      “What?” she said. “Twelve-year-old girls think about sex. News at eleven.”

      “I’m stunned. Stunned, I tell you,” he said.

      Allison tried to punch him in the arm, but he caught her hand before she could make contact and then held it a moment before suddenly letting it go as if he realized he was doing something he shouldn’t.

      “You can hold my hand,” she said teasingly. “I’m not going to jump on you and start grinding again.”

      “Too bad.”

      She went to punch him again, and once more he ducked and caught her hand, and with one impressive show of strength he swooped her up into his arms and carried her to the edge of the water.

      “No, no, no! Don’t you dare!” She screamed and laughed and laughed and screamed.

      “You’re going in the drink,” he said.

      “I’m wearing suede!”

      “Fine,” he said with a sigh, and then dumped her on her feet on the dry sand. “But only because of the suede. You probably need a dunk in cold water. Not that it helped last time,” he teased.

      “It’s not my fault you were so sexy at sixteen. I lost my head. I won’t do it again, I promise,” she said.

      “Good.” He pinched her nose. They were having the conversation they should have had thirteen years ago. Better late than never.

      “Unless you want me to do it again,” she said, grinning.

      “Behave, twerp. I’m...unavailable.”

      “Ten minutes ago you told me you weren’t married and you had no kids,” she reminded him. “And don’t call me twerp, jerk.”

      He laughed and her heart danced a little in her chest. She was too happy. Happiness like this scared her.

      “This is...a little different.”

      “Now I’m intrigued,” she said, more nervous now than curious.

      “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise you won’t act weird after I tell you,” he said. “Everyone acts weird after I tell them.”

      “I will not act weird,” Allison said. “Promise. I’ll tell you my weird thing if you tell me your weird thing. Deal?”

      “Deal,” he said. They shook hands to make it official.

      “Now tell me.”

      “Before I came back here to help take care of Dad, I was living...in a monastery,” he said.

      “You were living in a monastery? Okay. Why?”

      He smiled at her, almost apologetically.

      “Same reason anyone who lives in a monastery lives in a monastery,” he said. “I’m a monk.”

       Chapter 7

      “Holy shit.”

      That was either the most wrong thing for Allison to say or the most right. She couldn’t be sure.

      Roland lay on his back on the sand, hands twined behind his head, and quietly smiling. He must be used to reactions like that. One didn’t normally suspect ruggedly handsome men of about thirty to be monks. At least, she didn’t. She laughed but it wasn’t a happy sound. Fifteen

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