When We Let Go, Delancey Stewart [early reader books .txt] 📗

After twenty minutes, Cameron returned. “Let’s go.”

He climbed into a massive forest green truck and started it as he watched me climb into my little SUV. Somehow I couldn’t imagine him driving that huge thing in Los Angeles, but I guessed that on LA freeways, you have to stake your claim. And no one would tangle with a truck that size.

I led Cam back to the trailer, trying hard to stay calm while simultaneously preparing myself for whatever he might be here to say. It couldn’t be good.

Cam got out of his truck at the top of the hill and looked around with wide eyes. He glanced over the trailer and the half-erected building and focused on the trees and the land. I could see him watching himself play as a child, his eyes following shadows of us running and whooping and leaping, through the ferns and over logs. We were wild up here, and we were partners. Always together. Always a team.

Until now.

His gaze fell on me, and for a split second he smiled, and I knew he saw me as I was. As we were together. But then the curtain fell over his eyes again. And I was shut out.

“It’s the same,” Cam said. “It all looks the same. Except this monstrosity.” He pointed at the foundation and frame of Jack’s house. My house. He sat at the table and I sat across from him.

I bowed my head. “I know.” I had to try. Maybe if he knew that I could acknowledge my mistakes, maybe that would be a start. “Cam, I know I messed up. I know you needed me, and …”

“That doesn’t matter.” He interrupted me. “Yeah, you screwed up. And I’m still angry about it. But I didn’t come up here to talk about any of that. I need you now.”

I stared at him. His face was still an impenetrable mask. “What do you mean?”

“Jess is sick. And I can’t afford to get her what she needs while I’m paying for Dad’s care.” Our father lived in an assisted care facility that looked after dementia patients. Insurance covered part of it, but the rest wasn’t cheap. “I need you to step up. Do what you haven’t done in three years. Be a daughter. Be my sister.”

Warring emotions boiled inside me, but I was afraid to tell Cam how unfair his words were because he might walk out of my life again. “I wanted to be both,” I said. My voice sounded weak and I hated myself for it.

“Where is Jack?” Cam asked after a long silence.

“We’re divorced.”

He nodded. “I assume you’re doing fine, though. He had a pretty solid cash flow, I’m guessing.”

“He did. He does.”

“And you?”

I shook my head. “Cam, I live in a trailer.”

He dropped his head into his hands, his elbows on the tabletop. “Please, Maddie. Tell me you can afford to take care of Dad.”

The pain in his voice shredded me. If I thought I’d felt desperation before, it was nothing compared to what I felt ripping me into tiny pieces now. “I don’t know.”

“When you could, you wouldn’t be bothered. And now? Now that I really need it?”

I searched myself, as if I might find some reserve of resources that I’d just forgotten about. But no reserve existed. If it did, everything would be different. “Things have changed a lot for me, Cam. I want to help, though. Maybe if Dad moved to …”

“Forget it.” Cam said, standing. “Just forget I ever came. Go back to whatever frivolous thing you’re doing with your life now. Go back to pretending you don’t have a family.”

“Hey,” I said, standing and blocking his path to his truck. “You’re the one who quit calling, quit telling me what was going on.”

“You didn’t care.”

“I did care.”

“Your husband didn’t.”

“No. And I was weak. And stupid. And maybe I needed some help to see it.” I paused, feeling myself building some momentum. It felt good to blame him, to finally get out some of the anger I felt at his disappearance from my life. After what he’d just told me, I knew it was unfair, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Maybe I was the one who needed some help. But you never thought of that. You decided to abandon me, Cam! Where were you?”

Cam stared at me, shock on his face as he considered my words. Then he shook his head, a sad smile crossing his face. “Don’t turn this around.”

He climbed into the truck and slammed the door. The window slid down and he glared at me. “We’ll be here tonight because Jess can’t handle another long car ride right now. But we’re leaving tomorrow. Just forget you saw me.”

The truck roared off down the road, leaving me in its dusty wake. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I watched my big brother leave me, turning his back on me in person this time as I stood alone on top of my wretched hill.

There was little consolation for the mood that Cam left me in that night. I moped around the lot a bit, standing in my unbuilt house and staring out the nonexistent windows, looking for glimpses of my childhood self, hiding behind tree trunks. But I wasn’t out there anymore, and neither was my big brother. I was truly alone up here.

Images of Connor’s smile drifted through my mind. I couldn’t help but let myself linger mentally in front of his warm fire, in the glow of his attention. I didn’t want to need a man to make me feel good, to make me feel like my life wasn’t swirling down the bowl. After what Jack had done, I didn’t want to need anyone.

I shook my head fiercely, forcing myself to focus on the present—I needed to speak to my lawyer.

I made the call, dialing my lawyer’s number from memory. Her receptionist picked up and connected me, and I took a deep breath as she said hello.

“Maddie, I’m making good headway,” she assured me. “I’ve gotten Jack’s lawyer to push forward the paperwork for the deed.”

“That’s good,” I said. I was glad to have everything in my name, as it was supposed to be in the first place, but it didn’t help me much in the short term. “The account? Any progress there?”

“No,” she said. “I wish I had a different answer for you on that.”

My hopes fell. “Right. Well.”

“Hang in there, Maddie. This isn’t over. I still have some avenues to pursue there, and it’s always possible that Jack will have a change of heart.”

“That would require a heart.”

I hung up and forced myself to put emotion aside and think. There were ways for people to make money—for most people, that meant work. And the diner was not going to help in this situation, especially as hours got cut in preparation for winter. But once I’d had a lucrative freelance business as a photographer. Maybe I could do it again.

I sketched some ideas on paper for the idea. I was a photographer. With no clients. But I could change that. I had a portfolio, a collection of decent shots that were lingering in a cloud account that I hadn’t accessed in at least two years. I could see if my old site was still useable. I could reach out to previous clients, ask for recommendations. And I could start the new venture I’d been too afraid to begin since Jack had made me question my talent and myself. It might not result in the immediate money that I needed. But it was better than doing nothing.

If I’d been a different person, I might have used this desperation as an excuse to sell the photo of Connor I knew would undoubtedly bring a good price. Jack had left a message goading me about it, telling me his friend would pay thousands of dollars for a good up-close photo. While that was a good amount of money and it would