Ovenshine

24.

Antoinette Helaire's face is bright with a shock that takes a second too long to fade into glee when she opens her front door and finds Indy standing there.

"Indy!" she says, adorning her daughter's face with kisses so wet they make Indy grimace. "Did Sterling tell you to come by? How did you get here, anyway?"

Indy cannot imagine why her brother would ever suggest that. Especially since he is in Nepal. "Sterling?"

A face peeks out around one of the support beams leading down the hallway. Granted, it takes Indy a moment to recognize it as her brother's; he's grown out a scruffy, somewhat tangled beard, and he's traded his contacts for wire rim glasses. Lumberjack professor are the first words that come to Indy's mind.

"Hey, Indy," he says. "I was planning to call you."

Antoinette lays out cheese and crackers and olives on their kitchen island: dark granite, brown cabinets. An apple pie scented candle smolders on the dusty windowsill, and a breeze blows in from the screened-in back porch. The faded green walls and beige linoleum are as outdated as Indy remembers them. She rolls a cheese slice and stuffs it into an olive. She so badly wants to be alone.

"I was going to be at the auction, but your father had a function," Antoinette says with a dreamy sigh, as if she's missed some red carpet event. "He partied a little too hard, I think. He's upstairs sleeping it off right now."

"There's no point," says Indy around her olive. "The auction didn't really happen, anyway. There was a mass blackout, and some of the pieces up for auction have gone missing."

Antoinette gasps, jogging around the counter, taking Indy's face in her hands. "Oh, Indy. Were you attacked? Were you hurt anywhere?"

"Mom, no. It wasn't really that big a deal."

"It seems like it was," Sterling says, more into his glass of sparkling water than to her.

"What?"

"You showed up here without saying anything, which you don't really do—"

"You're one to talk, Sterling—"

"—and you're clearly upset." Sterling sets his glass down. His voice is slightly gentler, which for Sterling, is worlds gentler. "Is something wrong?"

Pinned beneath the too-curious eyes of her family members, Indy writhes for a moment, unsure what to say to get out of this situation she has placed herself in.

When the moment passes and she still can't figure it out, she flees instead. "I'm going upstairs," she announces, easing off the barstool. "I'm grabbing some extra clothes from my room. Sterling, can you drive me back after that?"

She stays only long enough to see him nod before she disappears.

There was a time when walking into her bedroom would feel like tossing on a favorite sweater, when the scent and the very feel of its familiar air against her skin brought her instant comfort, a feeling of safety. Now it is all too foreign. The lavender air freshener hanging thickly in the air startles her. The shadows cast by her bookshelves, the ceiling fan, are all strange and grotesque. She doesn't remember most of the awards gathering dust on the top of her bookshelf.

The walls are a gentle lilac hue, the same color they've been since she was a little girl since she never cared enough to change it. Her bed, lumpy but inviting, faces the half-open window, through which the calls of birds and the whir of insects echo. The desk beside it is clear except for a stack of magazines, and a notebook from a high school math class.