Page 103 of Snake
That colossal blow had been delivered gently, while Abigail rubbed his back, but still it rocked him back a step.
Though she wasn’t much older than him, her smile was maternal. “There’s joy to be had. You just gotta open your hand and let go of the pain so joy can come to you.”
Had his mother killed herself to free him? Could he live better with that than with the idea that he hadn’t been important enough to live for?
Abigail’s words were among the first he’d really heard in weeks, but it was her touch that finally reached him. That touch so like Autumn’s.
For that endless, unclockable time between getting Tally’s call and standing outside the cemetery telling Autumn to get out of his life, she had been there for him, been exactly what he’d needed, the only thing that gave him any kind of ease.
He’d been so fucking angry at ... her, for taking control of his life, at himself, for being weak enough to let her, at his mom, for being too weak to live, at the world, for being an unmitigated chunk of shit. He was still so fucking angry. But as Cox stood on his porch and watched the people before him through Abigail Freeman’s light, he saw.
The people here today weren’t maggots, they were his friends and neighbors. They weren’t looting, they’d attended a sale he was putting on. Buying things he was selling. He had made the deal with the estate sale folks. Tally had leaned on him, but he’d made the call. The only thing weak about that was blaming someone else for a choice he’d made.
The Horde were out there helping, doing tasks that needed to be done, tasks he’d known would need to be done when he selected the ‘package’ in the estate agent’s list that did not include a whole staff of strangers marching through the house, loading, selling, directing traffic. He’d left a hole there, and the Horde had filled it.
And Autumn? Same thing. She hadn’t taken control of his life. She’d stepped in where he couldn’t. His mother had left a hole in his life, and Autumn had made sure he didn’t fall into it. She’d taken care, not control.
Then Abigail said the thing that shook him to his soles and filled him with the first vivid emotion he’d felt in weeks that wasn’t anger: regret.
“This is love, what they’re doing out there, what Autumn did,” Abigail said. “It’s even a love language. Acts of service, it’s called. People do for the ones they love. When it’s deep, true love, they do the hard things for the ones they love. And Autumn? Comin’ from away, just ‘bout gettin’ tarred and feathered for months around here? Nobody’d have a better reason to bolt at the first sniff of trouble like yours. But she stayed.” Abigail gave him a wry little smile. “Wonder why that might be.”
Cox barely heard her last few sentences. His head had filled with thunder and his chest was caving in. He staggered backward a couple steps; Abigail helped him into a chair.
Words, thoughts, ideas clamored through his mind, they fought to get free, but there were too many. He didn’t know what he could or should say. All he could think was how badly, how completely, he’d fucked up.
He’d been so goddamn angry, so lost. He still was so goddamn angry, so lost. The black caul of his rage had turned everything he saw dark. Seeing his friends as maggots? Because he was having an estate sale and they’d come to buy things? To put money in his pocket? They weren’t just buying, they were helping. What kind of rot was in his soul that he saw that as a burden?
And Autumn. Fuck. She’d been a lifeline, and he’d cut her loose.
She’d loved him, and he’d thrown it in her face.
He loved her, and he’d crushed that fragile, infant joy in his clenched fist.
“It’s too late,” he said aloud, the words barely wisps slipping through his lips.
Abigail Freeman leaned down before him. For the first time, he noticed her voluminous sundress, dark blue with big red poppies scattered over it. Her bare shoulders were freckled and pink. Her dark curls were pinned messily at the top of her head, as always. A round, silver pendant, like a coin, dangled under her chin. What appeared to be a woman with too many arms was embossed into its face. Or maybe too many heads? Both? He couldn’t make sense of it, but focusing on that mundane question brought the world back into clarity.
She put a blunt-nailed finger under his chin and lifted his head. Her eyes were soft and her smile affectionate as she said, “S’long as you’re both still alive on this plane, ain’t no such thing as too late. There’s only what you decide to do, and what you decide to don’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ida pulled a teal crocheted sweater from a drawer in Autumn’s dresser. She spread it over her chest and modeled at Autumn’s cheval mirror.
“I love this sweater so much.”
Autumn was trying to figure out how much she needed to pack up, how much to leave behind, and how much to clean out and donate while she was at it. She paused her consideration of the two piles of plain t-shirts she’d just made on her bed and looked over at her friend.
“I know. You borrow it so much you’ve probably worn it more than me.”
“Can I have it?” Ida lifted the sweater up and peered at Autumn through the lacy weave of the sweater.
Autumn went over and snatched her sweater from Ida’s vampiric claws. “No, you can’t have it. I love this sweater!”
“But now I won’t be able to borrow it!” With a melodramatic swoon, Ida dropped to her back on the bed, making the t-shirt piles bounce and tip over. “I just got back to town. I can’t believe you’re abandoning me and absconding with all my favorite clothes.”
SIGH. “St. Louis is only like a three-and-a-half hour drive. I’m not moving to Buenos Aires like you threatened to do. I’m not even selling the apartment. I’ll be back at least a week every month. And your wardrobe is twice as big as mine. You won’t be naked.” She gasped theatrically. “You could even buy your own sweater!”
Ida dropped her arm over her eyes. “Not the same. Your sweater smells like you until I make it smell like me.”
