Your Hand in Mine (Blackbird Series Book 2) Read online

  Your Hand in Mine

  Lily Foster

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part Three

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part Four

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Also by Lily Foster

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  Part One

  The Long Goodbye

  Chapter One

  Skylar

  No one says it.

  They shake their heads, dab a tissue to the corner of one eye, say things like: Such a good man, Such a lovely couple, So devoted to one another and to their two beautiful girls.

  It’s obvious what’s on the mind of every single person crammed around the dining room table, but no one asks: What do you think really happened that night? I didn’t know they were having problems, did you? How will the girls manage without them?

  Nope. They lay their contributions to the sob fest down on the table, a gooey casserole or some sticky-sweet cake, then go on eulogizing my father like he’s some modern-day Ward Cleaver.

  Who made the tuna noodle casserole? That’s what I want to know. It wasn’t Sienna, that’s for sure. She would have fashioned parsley leaves or carrot sticks into the shape of a fish to decorate the top.

  My twin sister did make the strawberry shortcake, though. I’m sure of it. The blueberries clustered in one corner along with the rows of uniformly cut strawberries make the cake into an adorable replica of the American flag. My heart aches at the sight of it. Always looking to please, always making lemonade when life kicks you in the ass and gives you lemons. Decorating a damn cake Martha Stewart herself would be proud of—is that what she was doing when her I heard her bawling her eyes out late last night?

  Tyler scoops a heaping spoonful of the tuna casserole onto his plate, deftly balancing his beer bottle between two fingers. Craning his neck to see into the living room, his eyes are fixed on the obscenely large flat-screen TV where horses are being corralled into the starting gate at Santa Anita.

  I look back to him, watch as he lifts the fork to his mouth in slow motion. A few noodles dripping with that hot mayonnaise concoction fall back to the plate as he opens his mouth wide and shovels what’s left on the fork into his gaping pie hole. Chew, chew, chew, swallow and repeat the process again. By the time he takes his third mouthful I’ve got a white-knuckle grip on my own fork, poised and ready to stab the love of my life.

  I don’t love you anymore.

  And once I say this in the quiet of my own mind, I know it to be true.

  Tyler has been my other other half since we started dating back when we were sixteen. He was the captain of the basketball team, I was the head cheerleader. My first boyfriend, my first everything.

  I try to go back there. I do. I try to remember what it was like when everything was shiny and new, when he was golden and full of promise. The way his cheeks would redden when I’d catch him looking my way. His friends pushing him so that he stumbled forward and right into me when he was too shy to ask me to homecoming. Our first kiss standing on my front porch in the rain. Dancing to Copperhead Road under those purple string lights his mother hung outside their trailer, half-drunk and happy in a way that made us both lightheaded. I remember the thrill of him holding me close. And that first time with Tyler, whispering please when he asked me once and then again if I was sure.

  But Tyler’s gone nuts like so many of the men in this ass backwards town, with their get rich quick schemes and dreams of easy money. Since that casino in Powell opened up, I’d venture to guess that a good one-third of the homes in this county have gone into foreclosure or are damn near close to it.

  My father always liked to bet the ponies. I remember him sitting in his recliner watching the races, and the special dinners my mother would make before the Preakness or the Kentucky Derby, right down to the virgin mint juleps she served us girls. We even took a family trip to New York once, alternating nights spent on Broadway with day trips out to the track to see the horses race in person. It’s not like I have a lot in terms of world travel to go on, but I still look back on it as the best vacation of my life.

  Wicked and Mary Poppins. I’m impressed that my parents were able to swing tickets for two Broadway shows back then. I mean, we grew up in a house and never wanted for anything, but we lived a modest life in a small, modest town. I remember eating dinner in some fancy Italian restaurant after seeing Wicked, my mother and father stifling their laughter while shushing me and my sister every time we broke out into song.

  Everything about that week in New York was magical: sipping on Shirley Temples, trying bites of baked clams and baked Alaska, spinning in circles taking in the lights, the costumed characters and the over the top themed shops of Times Square. Even those day trips we took to Belmont created lasting memories, good ones. Cigar smoke mixed with the smell of sauerkraut, the jockey’s bright colored silks, the excitement when the bugle sounded the warning and the gates opened with a loud snap-clack.

  And they’re off!

  Back then it was all in good fun. My father would ask his “best girls” which horses to bet on, and we’d make our picks based on which rider had the most colorful outfit or the horse with the kookiest name. We screamed our heads off rooting for our pick, and more often than not my father would toss his stubs to the ground smiling as he said something like: That’s what I get for betting on a horse named Candy Cane Lane.

  I was busy with my own life, with the day to day drama of high school that’s oh so important when you’re in the thick of it, so I didn’t notice the subtle changes. I didn’t notice until much later that his empty beer cans were taking up most of the real estate in our recycling bins, didn’t notice the envelopes with PAST DUE stamped on them until my mother gave up hiding them, and didn’t notice that my father was changing before my very eyes, that he’d slowly but surely checked out.

  The police said he was intoxicated a few nights ago when his car swerved into oncoming traffic, but is that all there is to it?

  I haven’t told Sienna yet. I don’t know how to put a positive spin on what I’ve been digging through these past few days. We’ve lost our parents, isn’t that bad enough?

  We may be identical, we may be able to finish one another’s sentences and feel physical pain when the other is hurt, but we’re as different as two people can be.

  Sienna is the sail to my anchor. She’s happy, maybe even a little flighty, and she sees the world through rose-colored glasses. I’m practical, no-nonsense, and maybe I’m even guilty of seeing people’s faults before I see their strengths. Sienna’s husband calls me the un-fun twin. And if I’m being judged alongside Sally Sunshine, otherwise kno
wn as Sienna, then he’s right.

  Yes, my sister is already married, and the two blissfully happy idiots—whom I love dearly—have a baby on the way. They were blissfully happy up until last week anyway, so I’m not about to go pouring any more salt in her wounds or crushing her spirit with more bad news.

  Sienna doesn’t need to know that covering the funeral and burial alone is going to put us into debt, and that’s after we sell the house. My father refinanced the mortgage so many times to support his addiction that it’s now referred to as being under water. There’s no equity to be had. They’ll be no auction at Sotheby’s either, as my mother’s jewelry has already been pawned off, and they didn’t really have much of monetary value to begin with. No, Sienna doesn’t need to know.

  I can handle this.

  Garth is holding her, rocking her slowly from side to side. Sometimes I want to shake the two of them, tell them to wise up and start making better decisions, but I have to admit they have something between them that Tyler and I never had and probably never will.

  My brother-in-law works at a hardware store. He unloads the deliveries, stocks the shelves, works the register and gives out dubious advice to people who come in asking questions about their home improvement projects. He makes minimum wage yet has no concerns as to how he’s going to support the family they’ve decided they’re ready to start. My sister had aspirations of being a teacher, same as me, but I think she’s wanted to be a wife and mother since we started playing house in preschool and she’s never stopped. She got through one year of community college before she left to work full time as a receptionist at a dentist’s office. She will make a damn fine mother, I have no doubts on that front, but I wish the two of them hadn’t signed up for such a life-altering responsibility so early on.

  I worry, they don’t. They don’t ask for much from this life, don’t expect much, and while that makes me sad, I can’t help but acknowledge that they are happy. Garth may never move them out of that trailer, he may never pay off the ridiculous truck he bought last year entirely on credit, but he does love my sister with his whole heart. I have to be grateful for that.

  I turn away from the two of them, start clearing the paper plates and cups, nodding as I pass people who speak more words of sympathy and condolence. When I enter the kitchen I see Tyler in a corner whispering into his phone as he checks some paper that looks like the cheat sheets he used to rely on in high school.

  I ask, “What’s that?” even though I already know what it is. It’s the point spread, the over-under, the puck line, the odds, the what the fuck ever. He’s talking to his bookie, so sure about whatever sure thing he’s got going that he’ll risk my wrath.

  He holds up one finger, smiling his sweet smile as he gestures for me to wait. I cross the kitchen, rip the phone from his hand and throw it against the wall with all my might. His mouth hangs open as he watches the phone connect and then fall to the floor in pieces.

  I’m not afraid he’ll fight back, yell at me or even get angry. Tyler is a good person. He’s always been gentle with me, shown me in so many ways that he loves me. He would never set out to intentionally hurt me.

  I used to love the determined look he got on his face when he played basketball. I’d whine about the hours he spent perfecting his free throw, but I secretly admired his work ethic and the devotion he showed to improving his skills. And he was something to see back then. The boy is and has always been drop-dead gorgeous, but on Friday nights in the gym he was otherworldly. Crowding the sidelines with the other cheerleaders, I swear I used to feel faint when he’d wink at me running back down court after hitting a three-pointer as just about every person in the entire gym rose to their feet and chanted his name.

  But that was then and this is now. That drive and tenacity are long gone. He’s hopped from one job to another, spewing nonsense about his big plans to open a sports bar while making no concrete moves to make it a reality. The boy has never even tended bar or worked in a restaurant. He takes his paychecks, cashes them, and then bets on a winner in the hopes that he’ll be able to pocket a windfall to fund his dream.

  He is sick. I get that now.

  I also know that I don’t have the power to make him change.

  He won’t change, and I’m not about to ride shotgun with him down this miserable road he’s chosen. I’ve seen how this movie ends, and I’m getting out long before the final credits roll.

  Chapter Two

  Skylar

  The letter I’ve been waiting on, the one I looked upon as a key with the power to open a door to some unknown but fantastic future, now sits crumpled amid the others. Those other papers, with their threats and warnings, have the power to close every door and lock me in.

  It’s worse than I thought. He didn’t just gamble away the house and their savings. He didn’t just leave tax liens, outstanding credit card and utility bills behind. Nope, he went all in.

  Pardon the pun.

  Searching in vain for some life insurance, for some long-forgotten rainy day fund—for anything to pull us out of the hole we’re in—that’s when I came across it.

  My sister is the one who cries when she’s sad, I don’t. But last night I broke down and wept. Cried most of the night and got it out of my system. My eyes are puffy and red, I greet the rising sun tired, but the pity party is over.

  I’m not mad anymore. I don’t feel cheated or used. There’s no time for that. I am cut off from feeling, I’m disconnected and numb.

  My body feels cold, my thoughts are linear and focused, my movements take on a stiff and mechanical quality as I shift into problem-solving mode and begin sorting the papers into piles. One for the collection agencies, one for the IRS…

  I can’t sit and dwell on the fact that my father took our social security numbers, mine and Sienna’s, and opened multiple accounts in our names. No, I have to block it all out so that I can fix it. So instead of going online to start the process of registering for the fall semester, I’m now typing phrases into my outdated laptop’s search bar, looking for ways to untangle this mess.

  It’s shocking, and it’s no comfort to know that my sister and I are not alone. There are lots of us out there. Identity theft. Credit card fraud. I knew it happened, just never imagined that parents were so often the culprits. If I wasn’t staring at the papers right now, the proof in my hands, never in a million years would I believe that my father would set me and my sister up like this.

  I reach down to the floor and grab the letter, smooth it out against my thigh. I guess I’m not all out of tears because one lands with a splat, turning the admissions director’s signature into nothing more than a sad inkblot.

  Dear Skylar Perillo,

  We are pleased to offer you a seat as a transfer student into the University of Pittsburgh this coming fall.

  Your academic achievements have earned you a merit scholarship in the amount of…

  The letter drops from my hands again and I fall back onto the couch.

  “What’s the matter?” my sister asks, rushing over to me looking scared out of her wits.

  I gesture to the floor, incapable of speech because I can’t make sense of what I’m feeling right now.

  Sienna is jumping up and down, clutching the paper in one hand and rubbing her still-flat belly with the other. “You got in! Oh my God, you got in!” When I don’t respond, she looks down at her belly and says, “Did you hear that? Your brilliant auntie got herself a scholarship!”

  “I can’t accept it. I can’t leave.”

  Garth comes up behind her and places both hands on her belly while resting his chin on her shoulder.

  “Why?” the ask in unison.

  Their cluelessness knows no bounds. I look around, waving my hands at the stacks that clutter every surface, the folders and papers that lay on the floor. “There’s too much to do.”

  “School doesn’t start for two months.” Sierra smiles at me and nods. “We’ll get this all sorted out before then.”

&
nbsp; “Sienna…”

  I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want to wipe that sunny, hopeful look off her face. It’s the first time I’ve seen the girl happy in days. But no, I can’t keep this from her.

  I walk over to the stack of bills, the ones with the mounting finance fees and penalties, and fish out the two with her name on them. “Don’t freak out,” I tell her. “I think we can get this cleared up because the accounts were opened without your consent, and the charges…Well, I don’t think it will be hard to prove that Dad wasn’t looking to better your life since just about all of the charges are for on-line betting sites.”

  Her mouth hangs open as she skims each page and then hands them to Garth.

  “I read up on it last night. If the charges were for tuition or clothing or something else that could be looked upon as supporting you, then it would be a different story. But this looks like a clear case of identity theft.”

  “Daddy?”

  I can’t do anything but nod my head. I hold back from calling him every bad word I’ve learned over the course of my life because what good would it do?

  I’m too tired to be mad. And I’m too sad. This is the same person who perched me up high up on his shoulders so I could see the world, who taught me to line dance and taught me how to drive.