Blue Letter Night

18. Mason is sorry

I was waiting for most of the night for Beth to get up so I could intercept her before she got a drink of water, or whatever she was doing out of bed.

My parents earlier that night weren't harsh on my punishment after I told them what Sebastian had said, still they told me I had to make it up to Beth— which was the plan anyways— and do some dishes for two days before the next time they came to visit. Simple enough, well the dishes part, the Beth part not so much. After she closed the door in my face, lying that She didn't want to wake Anne when everyone knows Anne doesn't wake up for anything, I texted Eddie. His only reply was yikes.

What do I do? I asked.

Uhhhh, I don't know, she can't be mad at you forever. NVM this is Beth we're talking about. Just explain, tell her what Sebastian said, she'll get it.

And with that simple advice I waited. I knew for a fact Beth got up at least once every night. With in a week of living in Stanmore I had memorized what everyone's foot steps sounded like when they walked up and down the stairs. Beth's were light and quiet only the creaking of the stairs could really be heard.

It was around three in the morning when I heard a string of creaks. I waited a minute or two before climbing out of bed and heading down stairs myself.

I was going through a lot of trouble to get Beth to forgive me, but it was eating at me a little and that constant gnawing on my conscience was annoying. I felt bad for her too. After my dad left for bed mom told me a story about Beth's mom. I had never really heard much about Beth's mom in all my seventeen years. I was eight when she died. I remembered little things about her funeral and who she was, but I think most of that was just stories I that became apart of my childhood memory.

"When Lucy— Beth's mom— was ah, seventeen, maybe eighteen, she was an artist too. And one day, when she was trying to sell some of her paintings for college, just in a street fair, a lady came up to her and asked if she could put some of Lucy's paintings in an exhibit. Well, Lucy was ecstatic, she never though she could've done anything with her art other than sell it for cheep in a street fair. Anyways the day came, we all got dressed up in our nicest clothes," mom was smiling happily and content for that moment living in her memory while staring off into space, "and taking pictures wasn't a huge thing in the 80' for regular people like us, but we managed to snag my moms disposable camera,"

She looked at me now as if she remembered I was in the room and there was a point to her telling me this story, "you've been in Beth's room right?" I nodded, "well on her desk, there's a picture of her mom, standing next to her art work, smiling wide, maybe you've seen it? I think it was really important for Beth to have that connection with her mom,"

"I never really considered that," I confessed.

"How could you have? You didn't know sweetie," she tried.

"I knew it was important to her anyways,"

"True, but it's not like you ruined everything," she offered. I gave her a look and she shook ahead, "well at least you didn't punch a hole through one of her paintings,"

I had seen the picture on Beth's desk, I just hadn't realized it was Beth's mom because if you weren't really looking closely, it just looked like a picture of Beth. Beth and her blonde waves, and inky black eyes, and her aura of maturity. She was the spitting image of her mom. When I saw Beth standing in the kitchen after I followed her down stairs, I felt like I was looking at the ghost of Lucy Rogers, if the ghost of Lucy Rogers was stirring a pot of boiling water and macaroni noodles.

"Why are you making Mac and cheese at three in the morning?" I asked her. She didn't seem startled when I spoke from the darkness behind her, interrupting the still silence. I wasn't sure if she had heard me follow her, or just knew I would come down to see her— maybe she just had nerves of steel.