Lancaster Green Chapter 20
Auntie Jules ended up getting James’s parents at the airport and setting them up at her house. James knew his and Graham’s place wasn’t a good setup for guests and he’d been about to offer to pay for a hotel when Auntie Jules called to not so much ask him as tell him that he wasn’t going to pick them up, she would go. And they’d be staying with her while they were home. And while she didn’t know what was going on and wasn’t going to ask, she hoped he knew he could always come to her for help too.
So now it was about five-thirty and he and Amelia were both about to be done with work. She’d offered to drive him over to Auntie Jules’s house afterward, but he’d refused. He could drive himself. But right now, James was out of tasks, so he was trying to burn off some of the nervous energy by cleaning for his last half an hour here.
He changed the bedsheets in the pink bedroom, then forced himself to go into the gray bedroom and do those ones too, blasting music on his headphones to drown out any thoughts or memories as he went through the motions of cleaning. He managed to get the fresh sheets on the beds, but the quilts were definitely crooked as he hurried back out the door.
The back bedroom had been empty earlier, but when James went inside now with a laundry basket on his hip, Bradley was lying very still on the bed with his eyes closed. Based on the tension radiating off of him, he didn’t seem to be asleep.
James lowered his headphones. “You okay, bud?” he asked.
Bradley’s eyes snapped open and he sat up, looking disturbed as he glanced around the room. “Fine,” he said, one hand grazing over the bottom of his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“What were you doing?”
Bradley sighed, glaring at James, who was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. “Trying to find her,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Trying to fucking find her, alright? You’re all so adamant that I’ve got magic powers,“ Bradley wiggled his fingers mockingly in the air as he said it. “And on the very, very slight chance that you’re right, then maybe there’s the tiniest chance that I could see where Adele is.”
James managed not to drop the laundry basket. “Did you see her?” he asked.
Bradley looked away from him. “No.”
“Did you see something else?”
Again, his hand went up to almost unconsciously touch the bottom half of his face, glancing over his mouth and nose. “No.”
“Bud-”
“I fell asleep, it was a messed up dream. And no, I didn’t see her. It was worth a try, but I’m not psychic.”
James knew not to push for once. “Okay,” he said. “Scooch, I’m changing all the bedding.”
Bradley scowled at him, but got up and walked out of the room.
***
Thirty minutes later, Amelia was driving James to Gran’s house. He’d been certain he could drive himself up until the minute they were walking out together and his hand was shaking too badly to unlock his car. He’d refused her second offer to drive him too. She was too busy, she should go home and take a break. Besides, Gabriella and her mom were probably going to be there, so if he could just get himself there, he’d have Gabriella’s support if things went badly.
“It’s going to be fine,” Amelia had said as they stood on the sidewalk outside his car. “They’re your parents. They flew all the way back to see you.”
“I know,” James said. “But maybe it’ll be different when they actually see me. And now Auntie Jules probably knows. So my whole family is going to find out.”
“What do you think will happen if they do?” Amelia asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe nothing? Or maybe they decide they don’t want me around anymore.”
“I doubt it.”
She didn’t elaborate, but she sounded confident. And after one more failed attempt to drive himself there, James had accepted her offer and followed her to her car.
“Hey, Amelia?” James said now as they pulled up outside of Gran’s house.
“What’s up?”
“I’m sorry.”
“James-”
“No, I mean for all of it. I know it made things so much harder for you. And it still is.”
Amelia was quiet for a second. “I’ll be captain until if and when you want it back again,” she said.
He waited for her to say anything else, but she just looked at him. “Come on.”
The breeze was cold as James got out of the car, and he watched the swaying of the old pine trees behind the house. Auntie Carrie’s car was here, parked behind Auntie Jules’s in the big dirt driveway. Was Gabriella here yet? She was off today, but hadn’t said what her plans were beyond coming here. James followed Amelia up the steps and took the wobbly doorknob in his hand. Then he took a deep breath and walked into the house, Amelia right behind him.
Auntie Jules walked out of the kitchen and peered down the hallway as the screen door slammed shut behind them. But before she could say anything, James’s mother was moving past her in the doorway, nearly shoving her sister down as she ran down the hall toward him.
She was sobbing as she threw her arms over him and he nearly broke down too, holding her tightly, weak with relief. And then his father was there and his father was crying, something James hadn’t seen since he was a kid. And that was too much, now James was crying too.
A little while later, Auntie Jules had everyone situated in the living room with tea or coffee. Auntie Carrie was there, as was Gabriella, who smiled at James as he sat on the couch between his parents, leaning against his mother’s side like a child, exhausted with the relief of finally seeing them. And even though he’d said he’d get a ride home if Amelia wanted to head out, she was still here too, sipping her tea and asking about the new farm. Like James had expected, his dad already had seedlings growing in his new greenhouse and his mother’s record room had been fitted with custom speakers. She’d also bought some recording equipment because it was finally time, and she was going to record an album.
Everyone in the room knew what had happened to him and it wasn’t just people who dealt with these things every day. And yeah, there was a risk of the shittier members of their family getting their hands on this information. But the fact that he could sit here with his family and not have this enormous secret nagging at the back of his mind the whole time was worth it.
“How have things been at your house?” Amelia asked Auntie Carrie.
“Quiet,” Auntie Carrie said. “I haven’t heard anything from Virginia or any other ghosts since you were up there.”
Good. James had been sick with the flu a year ago when Gabriella had climbed down a hidden well on her mother’s property to solve the mystery of a dancer who had disappeared on the property over a century earlier. “The new captain of the Hillsborough County branch – Saskia, I think? The nervous girl – she called to check in a few times, but there was nothing.”
That was good of Saskia, who James had to admit was turning out to be a decent captain. “Good,” Amelia said.
“And how are things at your branch?” Auntie Carrie asked. “Oh, and how’s your friend Bradley doing? I liked him a lot.”
James had just enough energy to look at Gabriella, who glared at him, but stayed silent.
***
James woke up to a dark room, the only light coming from the kitchen doorway down the hall. He was only disoriented for a second before realizing he was still in Gran’s living room, stretched out on the couch with a blanket over him. Because apparently this was just what he did now.
“Hey, kid.”
He sat up and looked over. His mother stood in the doorway, her body a shadow blocking the light. She flipped on a lamp, the warm yellow light filling a space that had barely changed in the past fifty years, then came in and sat down next to James.
“What time is it?” James asked, his voice hoarse.
“A little before nine,” she replied. “It hasn’t been that long.”
“I accidentally fell asleep for six hours at work the other day.”
His mom’s booming laugh seemed even louder than usual in the quiet room. “Did you still get paid?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m salaried.”
“That’s my boy.”
They were quiet, but it was a comfortable quiet, something he hadn’t allowed himself to hope for when he called yesterday. Though now, it was starting to almost feel obvious that this was how it was going to end up. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” his mom asked after a moment.
He didn’t, but then he was, the words spilling out before he realized it. He told her about the threat of layoffs, how Adele had trapped him, and how Amelia figured out what to do. His mother didn’t say anything as she held his hand, her guitar-callused thumb running over the fabric of his glove. As he finished with the results of the Lancaster Green case, she said, “Do you still want to do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you still want to work at the Foundation?”
“For now,” he said. “I don’t really trust them, but I trust my team and I love the actual work. I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“When you told me you wanted to join up, I hoped you’d change your mind during college,” his mom admitted.
He’d never known that. “But you’re stubborn, so I should have known better,” she continued. “And you’ve done so well there, even if you do scare me with some of the cases you have to take on.”
He’d give her that. If his stress over Gabriella – who he’d brought onto the job in the first place – was even a fraction of the stress he caused her, then she must have regularly worried about him. “But it helps to know you have the team you do,” his mom finished.
His throat was almost too tight to answer her. “They saved me,” he said.
“I know.”
She ruffled his hair, which was a disaster. Tomorrow before work, he was getting it cut.
“I like Amelia,” she said. “Is there anything…”
He shook his head. “No,” he said with a laugh. “No, she’s ten years younger than me and a lesbian. She’s my best friend.”
“Good,” his mom said. “I thought maybe the two of you might be a thing, but I’m glad you found a best friend there.”
“No, not my team,” James said. “I love them all, but no. Even if I wasn’t captain.”
“Are you taking the captaincy back?”
James paused. It had just come out so naturally. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe? I don’t want to, like, steal it from Amelia.”
She laughed and it was clear he’d missed some conversation earlier. “I told her I would drive you home,” his mother said. “Want to show me your apartment?”
***
After his mother left, James let himself smoke that night. He lay awake for a while, looking up at the cheap plastic stars that still glowed pretty well, smoking and thinking.
The Foundation wasn’t going to find Adele. Deep down, James knew that. Was he going to wait to live his life until they either managed to or closed the case? What if he didn’t? What if he just…
He got a few hours of sleep, then got up early to get a haircut before his shift started. The stylist – yet another friend of Angie and Della’s – barely blinked when he flinched at her fingers brushing his scalp. Before he could apologize, she got her clippers and began telling him all the gossip from salon, including a really juicy argument that had broken out between a stylist and a client three days earlier.
And before he knew it, he was looking at his old reflection in her mirror. He was thinner and those dark circles under his eyes might be permanent. But it was him. He tipped her a hundred percent, then went home to get ready for work. And when he got to headquarters, it was like the decision had made itself without him realizing it.
He knocked on the office doorway and Amelia looked up from what she was doing behind a stack of paperwork. “Hey,” she said. “Nice haircut.”
He touched his hair. “Thanks.”
“How are you doing?”
“Good, I guess. Sorry, I hope you didn’t wait too long for me last night.”
She waved him off. “No, don’t worry about it. I actually ended up going out for dinner with Gabriella and her mom.”
That was surprising, but in a good way, so he tried not to show it. “Besides,” she said with a laugh. “If anyone tried to wake you up, I think your mom might’ve taken their hand off.”
“She drove me home last night.”
“I know. Are you seeing her today?”
“Yeah,” James said. “I’m going back over after work. She and Dad are apparently staying for a week.”
“That’s great,” Amelia said. “If we don’t get slammed, I’ll try to get you out early.”
“Thanks.”
He stood awkwardly by the desk for a moment, wondering exactly how to approach this. Finally, Amelia looked up curiously.
“What’s up?”
“Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.”
He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs he remembered carrying into this office nearly two years ago. “What’s up?” Amelia asked again.
“I think I want to be captain again.”
Then he realized how that might sound. “If you want to keep it, tell me to shut the fuck up,” he said. “And check with the whole team first. But if not-”
“Yes,” Amelia said immediately. “It’s yours. Are you sure?”
“As I’m going to be. But talk to everyone, I don’t want anyone to be afraid to work with me, or-or if they think I shouldn’t-”
“They all say yes,” she said. “We’ve talked about this, did you think we wouldn’t?”
It hadn’t occurred to him and he could tell that was obvious on his face by the expression on hers.
“Alright,” she said as James looked around the office and wondered if he was making a horrible decision. “When?”
He thought for a second. “A month?”
That gave him time to ease back into it and her time to ease out of it. “Done,” Amelia said. “We’ll start it gradually from today. Can your first action be telling me what the fuck this is?”
She pointed at a dense paragraph on one of the forms and James immediately recognized it, even upside down from this angle. “Yeah, hang on,” he said, getting up and pulling one of the kitchen chairs behind the desk so he could sit beside her. “It’s a mess, but I can explain it.”
END
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