She sighed. "Don't you get it? It's all this sharing of opinions and feelings that's gotten everyone into this mess right now. Mom, Emily, you and me. Everyone is mad at everyone else because nobody can agree on anything. I just want everyone to stop fighting and get along already!"
And then she burst into tears.
Whoa. I turned and took the risk of gathering her to me. She surprised me by not fighting me and instead burrowed into me. I bent my head, resting my chin on her soft hair, its familiar lavender scent filling my nose.
Oh, yeah, the situation had definitely gone way, way too far. But at least it had finally gotten my girl back into my arms.
Silver linings.
Now if I could just find a way to keep her here...
I stroked her back until her sobs calmed down. "Sav, you've got to stop doing this to yourself. It's not your fault that Emily and your mom aren't trying harder to get along. And you and I are going to be fine, even if we argue sometimes."
"I don't want to fight with you anymore," she said, her voice thick and muff led against my shirt. "I miss the way things used to be between us."
I turned my head, resting my cheek against her hair and smiled. She'd finally come around. "I missed you, too."
But she was listening to my thoughts instead of what I said. She stepped out of my arms with a frown. "I didn't say I'd changed my mind about killing Mr. Williams."
I scrambled to play mental catch-up. What had I missed? "I thought you said you missed me and don't want to fight anymore-"
"I do miss you. And I don't want to fight with you anymore. But that doesn't mean I agree with you." She quickly dragged her wrists over her cheeks to dry them as her frown deepened into a scowl.
Great. So we were still at square one on this. "Look, Sav, I told you killing him's the only way out of all of this. Sick of Emily and your mom's fighting? Tired of being stuck in a trailer with them in some RV park somewhere? The answer's obvious. We have to kill Mr. Williams. It's the only way."
Growling, she turned around and started walking back up the hill toward the trailer, muttering things under her breath about how stubborn and reckless and suicidal I was. Not that the muttering kept me from hearing every word.
At the top of the hill, I said, "Look, disagree with me all you want about Mr. Williams. But you can't disagree that we have to talk to those two women in there-" I nodded at the RV up ahead "-and fast, before they kill each other."
She stopped walking and stared at the RV, silently debating. But at least she was still listening to me.
"Just talk to her about the dog for starters," I said. "She doesn't have to get rid of it completely. We could board it at a kennel or something. Think short-term solutions here."
"She'll never agree to it. She'd hate the idea of sticking that dog with a bunch of strangers who might mistreat it or starve it and never pet it or give it any exercise."
"Well, what about somewhere else, like a foster family?"
She frowned. "It would have to be someone Mom knew and trusted."
"What about one of your friends?"
"Maybe. I could call Anne and see what she thinks. I'm still not sure Mom would go for it, though, even if one of my friends could take Lucy. That dog is all she has now."
I touched her chin, lifting it until she looked me in the eyes. "That's not true, Savannah. She still has you, and if she loves you, then that's what should matter the most."
Everything inside me went still, leaving me confused and thrown off track by my own words.
Savannah's soft half smile further derailed me. "I'm not sure she'll see it quite that way." She sighed. "But I do have to agree, life would be a whole lot better for everyone, including Lucy, if she went on a doggy vacay for a while." Her glance f licked down the hill and across the creek, where her mother and the dog were strolling together. Something that felt an awful lot like dread drifted from her through the air between us. "Okay. I'll see what I can do about the dog." "Thanks, Sav."
Still frowning, she turned and dug her phone out of her pocket. Dialing Anne's number, she shot me a wish-megood-luck smile over her shoulder. Then Anne answered.
I stood there for a moment, watching Savannah fall into her usual habit of pacing around the campsite while listening to Anne rattle on and on about everything Savannah had missed in Jacksonville since their last conversation. I didn't try to listen to either end of their discussion, though. I was too lost in my own thoughts.
I'd meant what I said about how having Savannah should be more important than anything else.
So why was I still holding on to my need to avenge my mother's death?
Was I acting like Savannah's mother and that dog, holding on to something even when it hurt everyone else around me?
Confused, I walked away, needing space to think. But even after I walked all the way down the hill to the bridge, across the creek and along its bank, I still hadn't cleared the mess inside my head.
The trail distracted me for a moment as I hiked over rocks and in between towering boulders the creek cut through when its winter waters f looded a wider path. Now dry from the summer drought, part of the trail branched off and upward, and I followed it, climbing over rocks until I reached the top of one of the dark gray boulders and could look down at the creek below me.
I sat there for a while, listening to the gurgling f low of the water below, thinking about my mother and all the arguments we'd had over the years about football and Savannah and leading the Clann. I had loved my mother, of course. Who didn't love their mother, even when she drove us nuts? And mine had definitely done her best to drive me crazy. Especially with that dream-blocking charm she had insisted on hiding in my bedroom somewhere so I couldn't dream connect with Savannah for years.
But I'd also always known all of Mom's arguments had come from one place...her love for me and her desire to protect me, however misguided she might have been. Maybe Savannah was right and even Mom's casting me out of the Clann had been a way to protect me as well, though at the time it sure hadn't felt like it.
Again, the questions haunted my mind... . What had Mom wanted to tell me at that dinner before she died? Had she planned to apologize? To tell me she still loved me in spite of what I'd become?
Because of Mr. Williams, I would never know.