Tumble & Fall (26 page)

“Luisa,” Caden whispers, keeping watch over his shoulder. “Have you seen Sophie?”

Luisa looks up at him with damp, dark eyes. She’s been crying. She wipes her face quickly with a corner of her apron.

Caden looks at her, as if for the first time. Isn’t there somewhere else she’d rather be? What has Arthur said, or done, to get
her
to stay? She sniffs. “No,” she says. “But if Mr. Arthur has his way, she will be somewhere packing like the rest of us. He didn’t say today is the day, you know?”

Caden puts a hand on Luisa’s shoulder. “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Luisa stops wrapping and grabs Caden’s face in her hands. She kisses him on the cheek. “Caden,” she says his name sweetly. “You are still a good boy.”

Caden’s gaze falls, hopeless and sad, to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

He doesn’t know where to start. What’s wrong is that he needs to get out of here, and he needs to do it fast. What’s wrong is that he can’t leave Sophie behind.

“I understand,” she whispers conspiratorially.

“You do?” Caden asks.

Luisa nods, her face solemn, her eyes far away. “It is not right to take a boy from his mother this way,” she clucks disapprovingly. “I say to myself, when you first here, it is not right. I know Mr. Arthur has his reasons, and I remember your mother. I know she has problems. But everyone has problems, no? And she doesn’t deserve this. Nobody does.”

Luisa picks up a fragile plate and studies it, as if she’s looking for an inscription or some kind of hidden sign. She glances quickly up at the front door, and then out to the patio. “You go,” she leans in to whisper.

“What?” Caden balks.

“Don’t worry, I take care of everything.” There’s an almost happy twinkle in her eyes. Caden looks at her uncertainly and Luisa unwraps one of the plates. “I give him something else to worry about.” She smiles. “What is he going to do? Fire me?”

Caden feels a gentle warmth filling his chest. Before he can talk himself out of it, he leans in and hugs Luisa tight, pinning her plump arms to her sides. “Thank you.”

The front door opens and closes and there’s a shuffling in the hall. “Go!” Luisa orders, her eyes darting to the patio. Caden slips through a crack in the sliding door and pulls it quietly shut behind him.

As soon as he’s rounded the corner, he hears the first crash. He crouches between the rosebushes and lifts his head to the lip of the windowsill. Luisa has smashed the first delicate plate on the unforgiving tile floor. She brings her arms high above her head before shattering the next one, wailing in Portuguese, sudden bitter tears drenching her face.

Joe is there first, followed by Arthur and Uncle Tobias. They rush in shouting, but quickly stop short and stare. They are paralyzed by the spectacle, by so much raw emotion. It’s a truly convincing performance, and Caden is frozen for a moment himself. More than sad, or afraid, Luisa just looks angry. Every primal wail rings with a sense of injustice, the unfairness of everything that is happening, to all of them, and tearful frustration that there’s nowhere else to go and nothing left to be done.

Joe glances over Luisa’s head, in the direction of the wall of windows, and Caden quickly ducks. He tiptoes back through the bushes. A moving silhouette catches his eye from an upstairs corner. Sophie. He can make out the shape of her ponytail, the subtle curves of her hips. She walks back and forth from one side of the room to the other, moving slowly like a ghost.

His eyes scan the trellis over the pool, a wrought-iron arbor woven with thick green vines. He ducks below the windows and shuffles to a patio chair. He steadies it against the wall of the house and plants his feet on the wobbly chair arms. In one swift motion he’s able to spring up, gripping the trellis bars with two hands and hoisting himself up to the top.

His heart pounds in his ears as he considers the shimmering turquoise of the pool below. He closes his eyes and takes a breath. There’s a gap between the trellis and the second-floor balcony outside Sophie’s room. He straddles a section of vine and the grated arbor roof, bends his knees, and leaps with arms outstretched.

His hands grasp the wooden banisters of the balcony deck. They rattle in place, warning Caden to act fast. He swings his legs back and forth, once, twice, and on the third time finds enough momentum to kick up onto the deck. He pulls his body over the railing and flops on the porch.

Sophie turns to the window, her eyes wide and startled. Caden waves as she unlatches the balcony doors. “What the hell are you doing?” she asks with a disoriented smile.

Caden holds a hand to his lips. “Quiet,” he says, pointing at the kitchen below them. “We don’t have much time.”

Sophie lets him into her room. Caden assumed she’d be sharing a room with Arthur, but there’s no sign of his father anywhere. Along one wall, photographs are hung from clothespins on a line in front of a tall, ornate mirror. The bedding is covered in purple flowers, as are the curtains and a small, star-shaped rug by the door.

“Time for what?” Sophie asks. There’s a suitcase on her bed and she continues filling it with clothes from the open dresser drawers.

“We’re getting out of here,” Caden says. He glances over her shoulder to the balcony, and back at the door to the front hall, quickly wondering which is the safer way to the garage. “You have your keys?”

“My keys?” Sophie pauses with a handful of small tank tops. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m taking you home,” he says. “But we have to go now.”

Sophie laughs abruptly. “Now? Have you seen the morons he keeps around this place? Their only job is to make sure we stay put.”

Sophie looks at him, and he can tell she wants more than anything to believe that he can do it. He reaches for her hand. “I have a plan.”

“A plan?” she asks. “What about you? What about the bunker? Don’t you want to stay?”

Caden feels a quick drop in his gut. He knows there’s a part of him that wishes it were an option. It’s the same part that wishes he really did have a dad, a dad who was trying to get to know him, trying to protect him, because he cared. But that’s not Arthur. Arthur is exactly the person Caden thought he was, an egomaniacal control freak, determined to get everything he wants, whatever the risk, whatever the cost.

“I’m leaving, and I want you to come with me.” Caden shakes his hands impatiently, like he’s trying to dry them off. “Okay?” He grabs her hand and pulls her toward the door. Luisa’s cries are getting louder, and it sounds like more people have joined them in the kitchen.

Sophie wiggles her small wrist free as he opens the door. “Caden,” she whispers forcefully. “I can’t. Even if we make it out, he’ll know where I’m going. He’ll come after us…”

“Let him come.” Caden shrugs. “There’s nothing he’ll be able to do once we’re out of here. I won’t let him.”

Sophie searches his face, her big brown eyes simultaneously hopeful and already disappointed, as if she’s been here before and she knows how it ends. Caden takes her hand again. “Trust me,” he says, in somebody else’s voice. Somebody brave and experienced in the art of rescues and quick escapes. Somebody to be trusted. “Can you do that?”

Sophie looks back at her open suitcase. Tiny red splotches have spread across the tops of her cheekbones. She bites the cushiony corner of her pink bottom lip and turns back to Caden. “Okay,” she whispers. “Why not.”

He squeezes her fingers and leads her out into the hall.

They manage to slip through the front door without anybody noticing. The kitchen still buzzes with activity, and as they leave, Caden hears Luisa’s broken voice, calling out a prayer.

Sophie pulls her keys from her purse and unlocks her car, disabling the alarm and emitting a series of jarring beeps. Caden’s hand is on the passenger door when he hears a deep voice, behind them.

“Going somewhere?”

Arthur stands with his arms crossed at the open front door. Caden feels a tingling in the bottoms of his feet, like they’re begging him to run. He glances quickly to Sophie. “Get in the car,” he says.

Sophie eyes Arthur warily before climbing into the car, slamming the door shut behind her.

Caden paces the stone path back to the house. He stands a few feet in front of his father, watching as Arthur’s green eyes widen, then narrow into steely slivers. His lips purse until they’re invisible. Even his hat looks embarrassed, unevenly tilted at the very back of his lumpy, balding head.

“You weren’t even going to say goodbye?” Arthur asks, only he doesn’t sound hurt, or even angry. He sounds, Caden realizes, amused.

Caden stands with his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Sophie wanted to leave,” Caden says. “I promised I’d take her home.”

Arthur squints at the sun, as if it’s an eavesdropping nuisance. “She doesn’t need you to take her anywhere, Caden,” he says with a tight-lipped smile. “She has a car, see? She’s free to do whatever she likes.”

“You know that’s not true,” Caden says. His voice is getting louder and he’s suddenly afraid of Sophie hearing them. He plants one foot on the bottom step.

“It is true,” Arthur insists. “We had a deal, which I’m sure she’s told you all about. She could break it at any time. I wasn’t holding her hostage.”

“You were going to let her mom die,” Caden yells. “Of course she couldn’t break your
deal.
What is wrong with you? Can you possibly be this evil?”

Arthur looks at him. There’s something in his eyes that Caden at first reads as shame, or alarm. But after a while he realizes it’s neither. It’s pity.

Sick-tasting bile rises in the back of Caden’s throat. He feels his forearms thrumming with his pulse as he folds them tightly over his chest. “We’re leaving,” Caden says. “Together.”

Arthur smiles. “We’ll see about that,” he says, looking over Caden’s head toward Sophie in the car.

He moves to sidestep his son, but Caden turns, blocking him with the broadest part of one shoulder. “No,” Caden says. “You won’t. We’ve made up our minds. You have to let us go.”

Arthur takes a step back and smiles again. “I don’t think you’re quite understanding what’s happening here, son,” he spits. “I’m not interested in you anymore. I did what I set out to do. I’d hoped we could spend some time together, and we have. I’d hoped we’d get along, that you’d realize I’m not the bad guy you imagined me to be…”

“You’re right,” Caden interrupts him. “You’re not what I imagined. You’re way, way worse.”

Arthur rolls his eyes and tries to push past Caden again. Caden holds his ground in front of the car, this time shoving Arthur back with his chest.

“Caden, don’t be ridiculous,” Arthur says quietly. “What are you going to do? Take her home, and then what? Seduce her?” He laughs, bitter and dry. “After your little
performance
with Camille, I can assure you that Sophie won’t be impressed.”

Caden clenches his fists tighter, his heart drumming against the knobby gate of his ribs.

“Oh.” Arthur smirks. “You think I didn’t know?”

Caden steadies his breath. “I don’t care what you know,” he seethes.

Arthur shakes his head. “I guess this is what I get for trying to show you a good time,” he continues. “Not to mention trying to save your life.”

Caden unwraps his arms and lowers them slowly to his sides. He feels his lungs expanding with every cool breath he swallows.

“And here I thought your mother might have raised you to be a bit more grateful,” Arthur sneers.

“Grateful?” Caden balks. “You left her. You left me! I don’t care what your reasons were. If I really meant anything to you, you could have been around.
I
didn’t cheat on you.
I
didn’t do anything wrong. And every day you weren’t there, every day you didn’t call, you let me think that I did. You want me to be grateful for that?”

Arthur’s smile fades and his eyes grow smaller and dark. He pauses for a moment, then straightens, standing as tall as he can. “All right,” he mutters. “You’re a big boy, Caden. If the idea of being around me is too awful for you to stomach, that’s your business. But Sophie is my business, and she is staying with me.”

Arthur flattens one hand against Caden’s chest and presses him against the concrete railing. Caden tumbles backward into the garden, and Arthur takes two giant steps, crossing high over Caden’s tangled legs, and walks briskly toward the car. “Sophie!”

Caden looks at Sophie, her eyes wide with fear as she fumbles with the key in the ignition. Caden springs to his feet, grasping after Arthur’s legs. Arthur swipes him away, but Caden ducks. Arthur loses his balance and Caden slams into his father’s waist, heaving him back against a row of hedges.

Arthur struggles in the shrubs to catch his balance, lunging back at Caden. Again, Caden ducks. This time, Arthur stumbles forward, landing on his knees in the gravel.

All Caden can hear is the whistling of his breath in his nostrils. Arthur looks like he’s breathing heavy as he slowly stands. He’s facing the door, and for a moment Caden thinks he’s going to walk back inside, close the door behind him, and pretend that this—none of it—ever happened.

Then, in a flash, Arthur spins around, barreling toward the car. Caden pulls back his arm, balls up his fist, and swings it against Arthur’s jaw. There’s an awful clicking sound, all teeth and bones and loosened joints, and Arthur falls back once again. He grabs his face with one hand and crumples from his shoulders to his waist, leaning against the concrete steps.

Sophie has started the car and pulls it up beside him. Caden is breathing so hard that it hurts. He watches as Arthur checks his hand for blood, and snaps his jaw open and shut.

“You know,” Arthur says finally, catching his breath. “The funny thing about you, Caden—and I mean this as a compliment: we’re a lot more alike than you think.”

Arthur adjusts his hat on his head and turns toward the house.

“She’s all yours.” Arthur waves with one hand on the door. “Good luck.”

Caden climbs into the car and Sophie peels out, a cloud of dirt and gravel rising in their wake. Sophie doesn’t stop at the light at the end of the driveway, screeching around the sharp corner and speeding away.