THE STARS ARE BEAUTIFUL - WATTYS AWARD NEW ADULT WINNER 2019

Callum | Chapter 11

MY STEPMOTHER Marta was in the middle of packing summer clothes in a spare room when I arrived home.

"Oh, hello, Callum."

"Where's Pop?"

"Resting." Her fake smile was more honest than her words. Rest in our house meant he was passed out drunk. I stepped into the room and nearly choked, covering my arm over my mouth.

"What the hell is that smell?"

"It's a mixture of moth balls and cinnamon. Not pleasant, I know, but I was in the middle of pulling out summer clothing and found some decorations in the—" Marta paused immediately and looked away from me. "Well, I just found some old boxes. There were scented pine cones inside. It's quite amazing the smell hasn't gone away, not even after such a long time."

My stomach churned with betrayal. "You have no business in my mother's attic."

"I was only looking for our suitcases so I could start packing for Montauk. Andrew said he'd get them down, and then he stayed up there for the entire morning. When he came back down empty-handed, he went straight to his office and then I lost him to..." She swallowed down the bitterness she never allowed to surface. "He was just very emotional."

I relented because I had to get this anger in check before I could go to the attic.

"Why didn't you just wait for me?" It was a stupid question, and her eyes agreed. Still, I argued my case. "Christ, I'm not thirteen. I can go up to the attic."

She folded her arms across her chest. "My name is Marta."

"I'm aware, but you see, there's this deal Christ and I have when I'm pissed off. He lets me take Holy names in vain in exchange for my noble work healing the sick. We're good to each other like that."

"Mocking our Lord isn't an improvement on taking His name in vain, Callum."

That freed the ire. "And pretending to be my mom after you were upstairs snooping through her shit, trying to figure out why my father just can't let her go, isn't helping to ebb the contempt I have for you right now, Marta."

She ignored the venom I spewed because she'd waded through it for nearly a decade. "I wasn't snooping. I would never do that."

"Too scared of what answers you'd find?"

Marta turned away. "Yes."

"God would be so proud of your commitment to Him and your willingness to tell the truth."

"Pride is a sin," she chastised. "If you went to church with us, you'd know that, Callum."

"Then what's the point—? Strike that question—I don't want to know. The luggage? Yes or no to help. I could be doing something useful like studying right now. Think fast."

"I'd love to spend time with you under the guise of packing summer clothing. Yes." I followed her out of the room until we reached the ladder leading to the attic.

"I detected a bit of wise-ass in that response," I said. "Will God wait until we're done packing to smite you? I don't want to be guilty by association."

"Being a wise-ass isn't a sin," she argued. "If it were... you'd have been toast a long time ago."

***

The attic reflected a world that no longer existed. My hand rested on hardwood flooring I remembered playing on as a child while my mother rehearsed her lines. The tall gold-framed dressing mirror still rested against the far wall, near the window.

A few boxes in the back of the room hid the luggage Marta needed. I couldn't talk myself out of digging inside of the boxes, where I found four red-velvet Christmas stockings. My hands trembled as I stared down at the broken lines of glitter where our names had started to chip off. For a moment, I thought it best to shove them back inside the box, but it felt too wrong, so I shoved them under my arm and moved on to finding the luggage. Before I crept back down the ladder, I mustered a bit more courage and opened the drawer where I remembered Julep's Bible was hidden. At first, my only thought was to take it and leave it on Marta's pillow to screw with her, teach her a cruel lesson about not prying through my mother's things, but as I pulled out the book and flipped through the pages, I paused on the passage about hope being an anchor to the soul.

A soft voice reminded me that few things in life happen by coincidence.