My Stepbrother Silenced Me for 72 Hours, Then Begged Me to Talk novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Welcome Dinner
Lucy's new stepsister cries at her welcome dinner and accuses her of things she never said, and the whole family storms the gatehouse to find her; her mother locks her in the guest room.
Melody started crying before the bread basket had gone around the table.
It was my welcome dinner at the Lindholm house in Medina, and it was my first night in it.
Ten minutes earlier Melody had hugged me at the front door and whispered, "Just be yourself, everyone's going to love you."
Now her eyes were full, and she pointed her fork at me.
"Lucy told me she's the daughter of this house now," Melody said. "She said I should pack tonight."
"I said the guest bathroom was beautiful," I said.
"She wants my chair next to her mom, too." Melody dabbed under one eye. "I just won't eat. I don't want her to see me upset."
My mother stared at her water glass.
My stepfather put his napkin down very slowly.
"Colleen," he said to my mother, "do you want to say something?"
My mother said nothing.
Reed, who had not said a word since the soup, turned his gray eyes on me.
"First day in the house," Reed said, "and she's already giving my sister orders."
"I've said eleven sentences to Melody," I said. "Eight of them were about bathrooms."
Nobody at the table answered me.
My mother said "Lucy" in a low, tight voice.
Eleven foster families had taught me what comes after a voice like that.
So I stood up, said "I'll be back," and walked out the front door.
The only lit window on the property belonged to the gatehouse.
I had met Gus there that afternoon, when the car pulled in.
He was the gate guard, he was sixty-three, and he had eight security monitors, six walkie-talkies and a bag of pretzels the size of a pillow.
"You're the stepdaughter," Gus said when I pushed the door open. "Sit. I'm losing a fight with my girlfriend and I need a second opinion."
The fight had started on a dating app and moved to text.
I read his last three messages, deleted two of them, and told him to send a photo of the soup he'd made her.
"Soup?" Gus said.
"Nobody stays mad at a person holding soup."
The phone on the desk rang.
It was a neighbor, complaining about a raccoon at twelve past nine.
A walkie-talkie squawked about a delivery.
Another neighbor called to say the first neighbor was imagining the raccoon.
"It's a late-night talk show down here," Gus said, and he looked so happy that I forgot I had been thrown out of a dinner.
"When you retire," I said, "where are you going?"
"Nowhere good. My sister says a home."
"Not a home. A community, with a pool and a bingo league." I had three tabs open on my phone already. "I'll find you the best one in the state."
Gus's eyes went wet. "Nobody's ever said that to me."
The door banged open.
My mother came in first, then my stepfather, then Melody, with her face wet.
Reed came in last, and he did not look at me.
He stood in front of the monitor wall instead.
One screen showed the dining room, and the table was still set with my empty chair.
He watched it for a long time.
Then he took a printout off the stack by the door, folded it once, and put it in his jacket.
"So you're the one who wants this family all to yourself," he said.
"No," I said. "I want somebody to talk to. That's the whole crime."
"Down here you've got a raccoon and a security guard," Reed said.
"And a bag of pretzels," Gus said, and held it out to him.
Reed did not take the pretzels.
My mother crossed the room and took my arm so hard it left four marks.
"Gus," my mother said over her shoulder, "she isn't to come down here again."
"She's already promised me a pool," Gus said, and my mother's face went green.
She marched me up the back stairs to the guest room.
For eleven years she had kept me out of this house, because she thought a rich man would never marry a woman with a daughter attached.
Now she looked at my hair, which was a briar patch after the car ride, and sighed.
"You will be quiet in this house," my mother said.
The key turned in the lock on her way out.
I lasted three minutes.
By minute four I was restless, and by minute five I had found the number for a department store's customer service line.
The rep who picked up had a gentle voice and nowhere else to be.
We talked for thirty-one minutes about a coat I had no plans to buy.
She told me to hang in there, and she meant it.
I was hanging up when I heard voices in the hall, right outside the door.
"Northridge starts tomorrow," my mother said. "Melody's friends are all in that camp, and you're in charge of it, Reed."
"I know," Reed said.
"Make her quiet. Make her small."
"I'll handle her," Reed said, low and flat. "Leave her to me."
I sat on the bed and listened to their footsteps go away.
Nobody had ever said that about me before.
I didn't know yet whether that was a threat or a rescue, and I was eighteen, so I decided to find out.
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