Chapter 13 - The Echoes of the Past
The afternoon sun shifted, throwing long, skeletal shadows across the orchard as Marcus packed up his laser levels and headed back to his truck. Ryan and I remained behind, walking slowly down the sloping grade toward the natural spring that bubbled up through a ring of mossy basalt rocks at the edge of the property. The water was crystal clear, reflecting the brilliant canopy of oak and maple leaves overhead. It was a place of profound, undisturbed peace—a stark contrast to the sterile, suffocating perfection of the suburban home I had grown up in, where every surface was wiped clean of emotion and every conversation was scripted for public consumption.
My phone buzzed in the pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out, expecting an email from the county zoning board or a text from Marcus about lumber delivery. Instead, the screen displayed an unknown number with a local area code from Oakridge. I stared at the glowing digits for three full seconds, my thumb hovering over the decline button. Since changing my number the previous winter, only a select few had access to my direct line—Ryan, Natalie, Dr. Aris, and my firm’s administrative desk. "Who is it?" Ryan asked, noticing the sudden stillness in my posture. "An Oakridge number," I murmured, my voice flat. "Could be a wrong number. Could be a telemarketer." "Answer it on speaker," Ryan said quietly, stepping closer and resting his palm against the small of my back, offering an anchor of unwavering support. "Whatever is on the other end of that line, you don't carry it alone anymore."
I swiped the green icon and held the phone between us. "Hello?" I said. For a moment, there was only dead air, punctuated by the faint, rhythmic scratching of wind through the phone’s receiver. Then, a sharp, ragged inhalation echoed through the speaker. "Marissa?" The voice was thin, cracked, and older than I remembered—stripped of all its theatrical authority, reduced to a desperate, trembling whisper. It was Elaine. My breath hitched, not from fear or grief, but from a strange, hollow realization of how small my mother had become once the stage lights were permanently cut off. "How did you get this number, Elaine?" I asked, dropping any title of familial endearment with surgical precision. The silence on the other line stretched out, heavy and suffocating. "Please, Marissa," Elaine choked out, a sound like dry paper scraping against stone. "Your father... your father had a minor stroke this morning. He's at St. Jude's in Oakridge. The house... the bank served us the final foreclosure notice an hour ago. We have nowhere to go. Paige is locked in that apartment in Bakersfield refusing to answer her phone. You’re our daughter. You can't just let us be thrown out onto the street."
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I stared down at the clear, bubbling water of the spring, watching a single autumn leaf drift across its surface and get swept away by the current. There was no anger left in my chest—only a profound, chilling clarity. For my entire life, I had been the designated shock absorber for my family's dysfunction, the person tasked with catching every piece of fine china my mother dropped while pretending the crashes never happened. "You didn't ask if I was okay when Paige shoved me into that pool," I said, my voice dangerously calm, cutting through her sobs like a razor. "You didn't ask if my shoulder was broken when you watched me walk out of that reception hall bleeding from the inside out. You watched your favorite daughter try to humiliate me for five hundred guests, and you laughed right along with her because it played well for the cameras." "That was the past!" Elaine wailed, her voice rising into a frantic, hysterical shriek. "We are your family! Blood is—" "Blood is just biological fluid, Elaine," I interrupted, the words dropping like lead weights into the silence. "You made your choices. You built your house on sand, and now the tide has come in. Do not ever call this number again." I tapped the red end button, killing the call instantly. The screen went dark, reflecting my own steady, unblinking eyes. Ryan didn't say a word. He simply reached down, took the phone from my hand, slipped it into his own pocket, and pulled me tight against his chest.
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