Chapter 1
The invasion began disguised as a cardboard box—her sister’s Trojan horse. The package waited under the eaves of the front stoop, nestled up to the door like a newborn foal. A muted brown against the gunmetal house.
Aden Crawford dipped her head around the edge of the garage and into the drizzle to confirm it was there. Within the past few days, the mild San Diego fall had begun its descent into habitual early evening showers and sudden wind gusts that signaled the start of the wet season. Most days remained all warmth and sunshine, but that wouldn’t last long.
She had lived on the West Coast long enough to recognize the subtle changes in weather. The slight dip in temperature as October raced to a close. And the flowering bushes in her front yard that held onto their last blooms a few weeks longer than normal before going dormant for the duration.
As Aden squinted at the box on her front porch, cool drops from the season’s first soaking rain settled onto her face and hair, making the twenty minutes she spent that morning straightening her natural red curls a waste of time. But she didn’t care. The possibility of a surprise gift from her sister made her cheeks feel like small rubber balls, round and tight from the excited smiled plastered on her face.
She darted through the house and pulled the box inside before the damp rendered it unsalvageable. Its sides buckled as she lifted it. Her fingers sunk in and left small indentations as she tightened her grip. Holding it at arm’s length, she carried it across the room, tensing as droplets hit the floor. She bypassed the wooden table in the living and dining rooms in favor of the waterproof Formica in the kitchen.
It was not until the box was secure on the counter that she read what was scrawled in her younger sister’s mix of print and cursive below the return address: An (un)welcome reminder.
Finley’s short message, bleeding from the rain into a watery offense, fired the first shot. Thoughts of her adoptive parents fought to the surface before Aden’s mental wall engaged, clamped down. She forced the images back into submission with more effort than usual.
Curiosity to see what Finley sent warred with her need to block the memories—then overtook it.
Unable to deal with thoughts of the parents who raised her among the normalness of her living room, Aden hauled a ladder out of the closet and slid the attic access panel aside. The contents of the box strained against the bottom testing the adhesive which held the soggy cardboard intact as she lifted it overhead. She nudged it over the edge. She remained on the middle rung of the ladder, her foot suspended by indecision.
She climbed the rest of the way and sat on the floor. She tucked her knees into her chest as much for comfort as to avoid the dust. Nerves shot ice up her spine as she willed her courage to hold out. The tape needed little encouragement when she peeled it off. It removed a thin layer of cardboard that left a strip of fuzz along the lip of each flap.
Her hands shook as she reached inside for the inevitable note that would be waiting. There was always a note with anything her sister sent. And the note was always the same. It asked her to come visit, said they missed her. Loved her. Asked her to put the past behind her.
But the past was behind her, chasing her, making her hands tremble harder as she reached inside again. She removed the familiar photo album. Breath hitched in her throat as her mind clogged with images from her childhood. The tips of her fingers played lightly across the cover in a zigzag pattern. A low swish, swish as her nails trailed across the soft leather.
The edges of the album were worn from countless viewings during her childhood. It had been a gift from her adoptive dad. As a professional photographer, Sam Crawford spent his life taking pictures and turning them into stories.
He liked creating moments, fake memories.
He once cut her body out of a picture of her fourth grade field trip to the zoo and pasted it to a postcard of the Grand Canyon he had gotten for five cents at a yard sale. Her mom hung it on the fridge next to the magazine cutout of the Golden Gate Bridge with a family photo taped to it.
The first picture in the album revealed a family trip to Orlando when she was seven. She stood rigidly in place next to a Walt Disney World sign; scarlet spirals snaked around her head untamed by the plastic barrettes pinned in them. Her hands were shoved in the pockets of her blue jean shorts. The balls of her fists bulged under the denim.
After her father had snapped separate shots of both her and her sister, he’d herded them back into the station wagon with the peeling wood grain trim. The plastic seats had burned her shins as she watched through the rear windshield as the sign grow small and blurry, then fade from sight.
The next picture showed her standing with a gnome at Rock City Gardens on Lookout Mountain, Georgia. She was eight the summer her father had been obsessed with Civil War battlefields and had taken the family on a tour of the major battle sites in the southeast. The tourist attraction was not part of their itinerary, but he had detoured up the mountain after Aden begged to go after passing countless dilapidated barns with red painted roofs advertising “See Rock City” along Interstate 75.
She let the album fall to the floor. Closed it this time. She didn’t want the memories.
She lowered the album back into the box, folding the flaps closed to lock the memories in, and covered the entire thing with a ratty blanket for good measure. She slipped through the access hole and slid the panel over until it dropped into place. Then she continued down the ladder, folded it and quietly put it back in the closet.
Aden sat on the couch, legs tucked under her Indian style. She wanted to pace or run. Anything that would force her to move and not think. But her body rebelled. She remained immobile as the rain shifted to a delicate mist against the window before ceasing altogether. She had yet to turn on the lights.
The familiar details of the living room looked foreign in the filtered gray seeping in through the windows. Framed photographs she had taken two years before clung to yellow walls offering escapes to various fog-drenched beaches. On the mantel sat a potted goldfish plant that spilled vines dotted with orange blossoms to the floor. A snapshot of her husky, Layla, was propped frameless against the brick next to it.
The room held no mementos from her childhood, no family pictures, nothing to remind her of the life—or the people—she left behind a decade before.
Unable to shut her mind off, images of her parents continued to bombard her—her mother’s chubby fingers, her father’s day-old stubble.
Almost a year has passed since she last saw her parents. Half as long since Finley visited. She spent her birthday with them each year, but Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving she made excuses to stay away.
Her indifference toward them, though, was all for show. A vain attempt to convince herself she didn’t need them. Their relationship had been broken for so long she wondered if they could ever forgive each other. A simple I'm sorry, no matter how heartfelt, couldn't erase the years of lies and heartbreak they were each guilty of inflicting.
Yet, missing them had lodged itself in the deep recesses of her gut like a stubborn splinter—innocuous and small. It was easy to ignore most days; on others, however, it crept throughout her body like a dull ache, making any pretense she weaved for herself about her parents seem foolish.
Darkness crowded her small living room and amplified the tension knotting in her back. She jumped as the phone marred the silence.
For a split second she considered not picking up the call when her sister’s name flashed on the display. But she couldn’t be upset with Finley for sending her the photo album. All Finley wanted was for people, her family in particular, to get along. If that meant ambushing Aden with memories of happier times in an attempt to bridge the chasm in their family that grew ever so slightly with each year that passed, her sister did it with the best of intentions.
“Haven’t heard from you in a few days,” Finley chided playfully. She had her mother’s voice—the soft, southern inflections that held onto vowels as if they were cherished friends. The honeyed, feminine lilt complimented the dresses and heels that she lived in. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Work is really busy, which is great, but I don’t get much time to myself. This is the first night in over a week that I’ve gotten home before seven-thirty. By the time I think about calling, it’s too late.”
She glanced at the antique clock in the makeshift dining room. Its pendulum swung in a monotonous rhythm as the little hand crept toward nine.
“Yeah, Yeah. Likely story. And one I’ve heard many times before.”
“I really have been busy, Fin.”
“I know. We just like to know you’re okay,” she said.
Aden ignored her sister’s use of the plural. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
“Good. So I called to tell you that I sent you a package. I just wanted to let you know that it’s coming. You should get it sometime in the next day or so if it didn’t already come. Let me know when you get it, okay?”
Not ready to delve into the turbulent conversation bound to come with that particular topic, Aden ignored the flutter of guilt at lying to her sister. “Yeah. I will,” she said. “So how did your date go with that guy from your surf class?”
“His name is Heath. I didn’t look it up before the date so it couldn’t influence me one way or another. I should have because it basically means wasteland. It would have saved me a couple hours.”
“So he was a dud?”
“Dud doesn’t begin to describe him. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say Travis was highly amused at class the next day when Heath asked to switch out of my group into Travis’.”
At the mention of her longtime boyfriend, Aden felt a pang of jealously that Finley could have such an easy relationship with him, when her own was in a constant holding pattern. But the long distance relationship had been her decision after all. She was unsure how to give him what he needed when she barely knew who she was or what she needed herself.
“So teaching class together is going well for you and Travis?” she asked.
“So far. Makes us both miss you even more though. As great as the two of us are, he’s no substitute for you, and vice versa. I think it’s a little harder on him. He’s been dropping hints to mom and dad about you staying with him this visit, but they’re not having any of it. He even tried to get me to say you’d stay with me, so you could sneak off to his place after they went to bed.”
“Sounds like him,” Aden said. She’d be in love with Travis more than half her life and couldn’t help but smile. He tried every year, but never succeeded, to sway her parents.
Despite their differences, she couldn’t deny her parents the few days a year she allotted them. Staying in her childhood home, she could almost convince herself that nothing had changed. That the relationship with her parents wasn’t so strained. That her life with Travis could be one that made them both happy.
“He’s started the Aden’s-coming-home-in-x-number-of-days count down. We’re down to sixteen, just so you know. The man can’t wait to see you. Neither can I.”
“The feeling’s mutual, little sister.”
By the end of the hour-long conversation the only thing on Aden’s mind was bed. When the phone rang twenty minutes later, jarring her from the hazy moments before sleep could fully set in, she tried to ignore it.
“C’mon, Aden, pick up. Aden. I just talked with Fin, and she told me you were there. I know you can hear me anywhere in your house. I’ll call back in a minute,” Travis’ voice boomed from the machine in the kitchen.
Travis Tate had been a constant in Aden’s life, longer than her sister. Their parents had been friends and, as a result, they spent every waking moment together growing up. But neither had ever wished it any different. And by the time they reached high school, they had become inseparable.
In the dark, it was easier to remember the way things had been between them. How they had hidden their relationship from their families under the guise of the close friendship they had always shared.
It had been a shock to all involved when on her sixteenth birthday Aden and Travis stumbled directly into the spotlight.
The weather had turned cold during the last week of October, so that the wind gnawed through her lightweight jacket. It had been a disappointment to learn on the ride home from school that the heater in Travis’ hand-me-down truck had broken the day before.
They sprinted out of the car toward her house. They would have it to themselves for a few hours before she had to meet her family for her birthday dinner.
Travis caught her on the stairs in a hard hug and nuzzled her neck. A river of chills that had nothing to do with the wind flowed down her arms. “Stop it,” she insisted despite the giggle that escaped. “We’re going inside to warm up and them you are going to make good on your promise.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I take it back,” he said. His arms were still wrapped around her waist to hold her in place.
“Too late. You already promised you would. Plus, it’s my birthday. You’re not really going to tell me no today, are you?”
She pulled hard and broke his grasp around her. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door, but before she made it inside, he positioned himself in front of her blocking the way.
“Fine,” he said and kissed her hard so that she clung to his shoulders for support. “Happy birthday. But you have to promise not to tell anyone. And you have to do everything exactly like I tell you. Being your first time and all, you could get hurt. And if you wreck my car, I may very well kill you.”
His last sentence was lost in a cheer of “surprise” as people brandished banners, balloons and a cake burning with sixteen blazing candles.
Her mortification burned just as brightly on her face. She tried effortlessly to pull her frozen hand from Travis’. He held onto her like a vise. The expressions of her family and friends who had come to her surprise party ranged from curiosity to excitement to shock. She locked eyes with Finley who looked more confused than anything.
“Did you know about this?” she whispered to Travis anxiously.
“Of course not,” Drew, who had sidled up to them from behind, answered for his younger brother. “Kid’s shifty. Couldn’t be trusted to keep his trap shut. Obviously he can’t be trusted to be alone with you either.”
“Yeah, I’m kinda okay with that,” Aden said.
“I’m not so sure I am,” Drew said, sliding his arm around her shoulders to pull her away from Travis.
“Get used to it,” Travis told his brother.
And twelve years later, they were still together despite having the whole width of the country between them.
Aden yawned hard enough to make her eyes water and waited impatiently for his follow-up call.
“So do you and Finley talk about me behind my back often?” she asked. Heavy with sleep, her voice radiated irritation as she pulled the phone into the warmth of her bed three minutes later.
“As often as possible,” he said with a laugh. “You know, since she just happens to live down the street while you live all the way across the whole freakin’ country.”
“Yeah, well, that’ll happen.”
“So, how are you?” he asked, ignoring her.
“Other than half awake?”
The darkness released its tight hug on the room as her eyes adjusted to the dark slowly revealing the bedside lamp then the outline of a framed field of poppies clinging to the wall.
“What are you doing half asleep at nine-something?”
“It’s been a long day and not such a good one at that. And before you ask, no it’s nothing I want to talk about, so talk about anything but how my day was. Okay?”
“Alright. You excited about your birthday?” he asked. His enthusiasm about seeing her in a few weeks was evident in his rushed words.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. Her tone oozed with sarcasm. “Thrilled.”
“You don’t have to sound so happy. I remember when you used to spend the whole month counting down to your birthday.”
“I was a kid. Birthdays are so much more fun when you’re little.”
“Says the girl who gives gifts like candy for other people’s birthdays.”
She concentrated on the calendar on her nightstand until the days’ outlines solidified in the dark. Red slashes marred the previous two weeks. Devoid of the excitement of youth, her countdown had begun.
“It’s just a birthday. Cake, presents, family, changing the number I write down on forms at doctors’ offices,” Aden said. “I do get to see you and Fin, so that’s a plus.”
“That’s a big plus. So big in fact it should count as two plusses.”
“Okay,” she consented. Her voice softened at the thought of seeing him in a few weeks. “So maybe I’m a little excited.”
“You only get to turn twenty-eight once,” Travis said, repeating her sentiments from his last birthday.
“I seem to remember someone complaining a few months back that twenty-eight was old,” she teased.
“It is old if you don’t have anything to show for it. But now I have a mortgage.”
“It’s sad when bills are the only things we have to show for getting older.”
“A mortgage means I’m a homeowner, Ade. The house, the miniscule plot of land, even the opossum who lives in the crawl space under the house are mine. Loads of windows. Jacuzzi tub. Oleander in the yard.”
“It was nice of you to include the opossum. I’m sure he appreciates it as it was probably his home first,” Aden said. She held the laugh in for a fraction of a breath. Then gave herself over to it when he grumbled on the other end of the line.
“Alright, Miss Smarty Pants. No need to make me feel bad,” he said. “I’m well on my way to achieving the American Dream. I can’t have it ruined by some oversized rodent.”
“Now all you need is a wife, two-point-five munchkins, and a minivan.”
“Are you offering?” Travis asked.
Yes, her brain pulsed. Of course.
Instead she said, “Not today.” She tried to sound nonchalant. Like talking about marriage was an everyday occurrence she had the luxury of joking about. But the tingling in her hands and stomach at the thought of spending her life with him was hard to ignore. She hugged the covers tight around her.
“You may change your mind once you see the house.”
“I’m shaking with anticipation as we speak.”
“Smart ass,” he muttered, as he had countless times before.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Her response was just as habitual.
“I’m not saying one way or the other. Just stating a fact.”
“Uh huh. If you keep calling me names, Travis, I’m hanging up on you.”
“You kinda lose the element of surprise when you tell me before you do it,” he said.
“Maybe, but it doesn’t diminish the satisfaction,” she said, laughing. Then she punched the off button before he could respond.
Just as she was certain he would find the abrupt end to the call amusing, she also knew he wouldn’t call back.
Aden tightened the covers around her again and, thinking of her stagnant relationship with Travis, added one more mental strike against her parents.