Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 01 - Dark Bayou by Nancy K. Duplechain

leave.
     
    “Lyla, stop!” She obeyed, but didn’t look at me. I didn’t actually think she would stop, so I was a little lost, not knowing what to say next. “Can you please tell me what’s wrong? You haven’t spoken to me or even looked at me since I’ve been back.” She was silent. I walked around to look her in the eyes, but she turned away from me.
     
    “Lyla, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here these last few years.”
     
    “Sorry doesn’t feed the bulldog,” she murmured.
     
    I laughed a little at this. She glared at me. “Sorry,” I continued. “I just haven’t heard that expression in a long time. Paw-paw Octave used to say that.”
     
    “I know,” she murmured again.
     
    I sighed. “I know I can’t make up for all the time I was gone, and I know you’re still hurting from losing your mom and dad—”
     
    She started to storm off, but I stopped her, gently grasping her shoulders. She tried to break free, but I held her tighter. “Lyla, wait! Now, listen to me! I can’t make it up to you, and I don’t even know how I’d try to make it up. But I do love you. I’ve always—”
     
    “Bull shit!”
     
    I was temporarily stunned to hear her cursing already. I thought that kind of language would come when she was a teenager, but she had every right to say it. I don’t know if I’d believe me if I were in her shoes, either.
     
    “It’s true,” I said. “I know you don’t understand, and I’m not sure I even understand it myself, but I had my reasons for leaving. I’m not saying they were good reasons or that it was the right decision, but I did it and it’s done. I can’t take it back. Believe me. I’d love to take it back. You’re getting older now, and you’re going to start realizing that life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to. I think you already realize that.”
     
    I took my hands off her shoulders, and she stayed put. “You have every reason in the world to not like me and I don’t blame you. But part of getting older is learning to know when to let things go. As much as you think you want to stay mad at me forever and as much as you may try to, it’ll only wind up hurting you in the end. You have to know when to move forward and not stay stuck in the past.” As I was telling her this, it occurred to me that I needed to take my own advice. “I want to move forward. I miss you. We don’t have to be buddies, but we can still be family.”
     
    She stared down at the floor with her arms crossed.
     
    “Do you want to go to Carrie’s later?”
     
    She shook her head, no. But I saw that she was actually thinking it over. That, at least, was some progress.
     
    “Okay,” I said, defeated. She went upstairs, and I heard her close the door to mom’s old room.
     
    At 4:15, I pulled up to Carrie’s modest one-story house on Laurel Road, which is off of Hwy. 167, but still in the Lafayette city limits. The house had belonged to her great uncle, who willed it to her. The last time I saw it, she had only been living in it for seven months and the shutters were dark green. Now they were a bright, cheerful yellow, and where there was once a cracked, old walkway up to the door, there was now a path of whimsical stepping stones featuring dragonflies and butterflies.
     
    There were cars double parked in the driveway and quite a few more lining the side of the road. I parked on the other side of the road. It was a small neighborhood where no one reports anyone for parking on the wrong side. I got out, careful to avoid stepping in the ditch on this side, and shut the door behind me.
     
    I crossed the street and walked up the little path. I heard the party coming from the backyard. I could hear zydeco music coming from a stereo, the accordion player really going to town. Instead of going through the front door, I snuck in through the open carport. I peeked over the wooden fence that separated the backyard from the carport and saw two crawfish