Her brow furrowed as she drove with her knee and drew a line of mustard along a cluster of fries, then shoved them into her mouth. “Nevertell Vinh I did that. And if you want to put off seeing your dad, I can drop you at the cottage for a shower and a nap. How does that sound?”
“Better than anything I’ve heard in a long time. Thanks, Mom.”
She gave me a motherly smile again—something neither of us knew much about, but she still pulled it off—pleased to have me fed and with a plan in place for rest.
“Hey, if I do stay with y’all, do you think I can start calling Vinh ‘Daddy’?”
I grabbed the handle above the door as the car briefly left the roadway, but she corrected it quickly before glaring at me. “Redo the last ten seconds. Take two.”
“I got you presents.”
She nodded. “Approved. Use take two.”
I reached into the backseat and pulled a box out of my second duffel.
“Cody… is this going to make me cry?”
I shrugged even though she wasn’t looking. “Maybe. Want me to leave it on your bed at the cottage so you can weep in private, like a lady?”
She sniffed. “You know me so well.”
I sat the box at my feet, which was full of small treasures from all the ports I’d visited over the past six months. “What’ll you be doing during my nap?”
She took a big sip of her sweet tea and grimaced. “That’s too fucking sweet, even for me. Anyway, Ari’s is closed today, so Vinh and I won’t go in to do prep until the morning. I’ll probably see if I can catch Liem at the gazebo. It has become a sort of Monday ritual. Vinh will probably meet us there if he doesn’t getcaught up with work. He texted while we were in the drive-thru and said he was almost done with truck maintenance.”
Liem.
I’d barely gotten more than glimpses of him on those rare occasions I’d been able to get off the boat, though on one occasion he did pick me up from Mobile, just as Bree had done today. But that had been a particularly bad day, and I had not been in the space to really comprehend the way I responded to him as a whole-ass person. I cleared my throat and stayed on subject, despite the adrenaline of realizing I was about to be back in Liem’s orbit for good. “Tell Vinh to send me the bill, please.”
She snorted. “Tell him yourself.”
We fell into comfortable silence for the rest of the drive, and before I knew it, we were pulling into the cottage. I tucked the box under my arm before hopping out to get my luggage. Bree had already opened the trunk door and slung a bag over her shoulder before I got there, rolling her eyes at me when I mumbled something at her about it. I grabbed my other duffel, then followed her to the front door, my eyes automatically falling on the new scars on the back of her thigh.
As anxious as I’d been to get off that ship and away from the personal disaster I’d created there, I’d been even more on edge to get back here. If it hadn’t been for the entire Lott family looking after Bree so well, I’d have broken my work contract, consequences and bad blood be damned, and come back immediately after hearing about the fire at her grandmother’s house.
She let us into the house, and I slipped off my flip-flops as I glanced around for other occupants even though I knew they weren’t here.
Bree pulled a key off a row of hooks and held it out to me. “You’re always welcome here. But if you want a third option for a place to stay, you should talk to Vinh. He might have somethingelse for you to consider in the works. Either way, this is yours to keep.”
I put the key in my pocket and then took the duffel from her shoulder before pulling her in for a hug. Her familiar citrus-vanilla scent hit me, and a tidal wave of emotions threatened to flood every corner of my existence.
She let me hug her for a long time before she pulled back, keeping her hands on my upper arms as she studied my face. “It’s going to be okay. And why is that?”
I forced a smile and parroted the next part of our well-used mantra. “Because it has to.”
She drew her brows together in concern, recognizing how much I was phoning it in. But even so, she affirmed, “Because it has to.”
2
Liem
Sometime during the sultry,ink-blue hours of predawn, I’d worked up a sweat giving shape to my demons.
My headlamp—a gift from my brother Vinh after he’d caught wind of my very-early-morning activities—chafed my forehead fiercely as I directed it down onto my open palms, which were almost entirely covered in a layer of charcoal.
Vinh would be pleased to know that I had used it to safely navigate my way here to the town square’s public restrooms, where I vigorously washed my hands clean of smudges. Fortunately, it was a simple task to remove charcoal from skin.
But not from canvas. It was a decisive implement on canvas.
