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Heather wasn't sure if she wanted to change her name.
It wasn't 'Miller' she was attached to. There was no love lost between her and her adoptive parents - least of all after she'd discovered what they'd done. She'd been comfortable calling herself 'a Sawyer' ever since she set foot in the town to lay claim to the estate, after all.
She wasn't married to the name 'Heather', either, but it was... familiar.
It was the name her friends had called her by.
So she wasn't ready to part with it just yet. With how quickly she was coming to terms with so many other losses - her relationship with her parents, her old life, her old friends - it struck her as strange that she should be reluctant to part with something else.
Maybe discomfort with loss was hereditary, she thought with a soft, wry smile. Through the window she could see the family cemetery, and the freshly-packed earth where Jedidiah had reburied their grandmother earlier that evening. When Darryl had ransacked the house and unlocked Jed's door, Jed would have emerged to find the house empty - after dispatching the intruder, that is.
He must have preferred the company of their grandmother's corpse to the cavernous loneliness of the empty estate.
But with Heather taking up residence there, Jedidiah hadn't needed much convincing to return their grandmother to her final resting place. Once they arrived home together, Heather had lead Jedidiah up the stairs. She'd stood over the lounge chair where her grandmother's body lain. Heather wondered if that's where she penned the letter that she still hadn't read. She looked up at Jed, who shuffled and dug his feet into the rug, as if contrite.
Her lip quirked up in fond bewilderment. "I'm not mad," she assured him. Her voice was hoarse from the harrowing events of the day. "But grandma needs to go back where you found her, okay?"
Jedidiah made a mournful but quiescent sound, and he stepped forward to lift Verna Sawyer gently from the chair. Seeing her cousin cradling her late grandmother in his arms, it struck Heather all at once that all the family that truly mattered to her was right there in that room. Her eyes grew misty.
Jedidiah made an inquisitive sound: asking after her. Heather marveled at how easily she understood him. Surely that couldn't be hereditary too, she thought with a watery laugh. Heather wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I'm... I'll be okay." She took a deep breath. "When you're done, meet me in the kitchen? We'll clean up a little."
Jed nodded and made his way out to the yard. Heather walked with him as far as the main entrance, where she saw Verna's letter sitting on the table and excused herself to finally read it.
It explained everything, of course, and Heather found herself staring at the place where her grandmother had written her birth name: Edith Rose Sawyer. It sounded stately, gentle, and poised. Like she'd been loved when she was born. Like she'd been named for someone, family she'd never met and who she'd likely never know.
It sounded nothing like 'Heather Miller', a name that fell flat when you said it, no consideration given to whether it was pleasant to the ear. The trite way it rhymed like a children's poem only made Heather feel even more strongly that her 'adoptive' family was trying to subsume her: to smother her identity by making her first name indistinguishable from their family name.
Heather regretted not reading the letter before the awful events of the last few days. She didn't know what she would have done with the knowledge of foresight; it's possible her new responsibilities would have led her to send her friends back home, but at least they'd still be alive.
She didn't blame Jedidiah for what he'd done. How could she? He was 'family-bound', Verna had written. Given the way the townsfolk had treated the Sawyers, and how the only other person in the house had been trying to ransack the place, what other conclusion could he have come to?
Heather was thankful the sheriff seemed to be willing to turn a blind eye to the deaths of the officers who had targeted her and Jed, and to her cousin's continued presence in the house.
Heather resolved not to fail Sheriff Hooper's expectations; nor would she fail Jedidiah as grievously as she had when she first arrived, when she neglected to read Verna's letter. She wondered why the daunting responsibility now placed on her shoulders didn't frighten her more.
Maybe it was because, for the first time, the place she lived actually felt like a home.
Heather imagined it had been a while since Jedidiah had eaten. The discarded plate she'd taken from his room had been days old, and after their trying experience yesterday evening they'd both simply gone to bed.
Or rather, Heather had gone to bed. She realized she didn't know if Jed had slept, and when she woke the next day she felt guilty for not considering that he might have been more hungry than tired. Her first thought was to rush down to the basement and apologize, and let him know she was making breakfast - but if he had slept, she didn't want to wake him.
Remembering the discarded plate outside his room made the decision easier. She could make him breakfast and bring it to him without disrupting his sleep.
Heather stood frowning in front of the fridge. They had plenty of food, since she'd gone shopping with her friends the day they arrived - that wasn't the problem. The problem was that she only had the last meal her cousin had eaten to indicate what else he might be willing to eat. Verna's letter had clarified a lot of things, but had said nothing of the minutiae of how to care for Jed: his favorite foods and activities, how he spent his time, what might upset him or make him happy...
Heather wasn't sure how exaggerated the rumors of her family's cannibalism were, but either way, that was definitely off the menu.
"I'm overthinking this," she muttered, and dug through the cabinets until she'd found a cast-iron pan. She made scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. She'd mostly settled for cereal back in the Miller household, but there had been times in her childhood when her adoptive mother or father had been feeling energetic enough to prepare something special for breakfast. The smells that filled the kitchen as she cooked for her cousin were reminiscent of those rare mornings.
Her relationship with her 'adoptive' parents - she'd call them kidnappers, if that didn't feel so dramatic - had been withering since Heather's adolescence, so the memory wasn't exactly soured by the knowledge of how deeply they'd wronged her. Recollections of happy times in the Miller household had turned from bittersweet to bitter years ago, so there wasn't much distance to travel to reach the feeling it instilled in her now.
Anyway, she was still young - younger than usual to be living completely independently. Heather reasoned that she'd make plenty of happy memories in the home of her real family.
Cooking in her own kitchen was satisfying. She didn't know where everything was yet, but it was hers, and she could arrange it however she wanted once she figured that out. There were no discarded beer cans or dirty dishes - okay, there were a couple, but she was determined not to let her home fall into the hoarder-like disarray of the Miller household. She'd take pride in her home, she thought as she picked up the bottles and dropped them with a clatter into the trash.
She opened a window to let the summer breeze snatch up the smells of her freshly-cooked breakfast. She put together a plate for herself, and Jedidiah's she arranged on the silver platter she'd brought up and washed last night. She left her plate at the dining table and made her way down to the basement.
She knocked gently and waited, but no sound was forthcoming beyond the wooden door. After a moment's hesitation, she unlocked it, leaving the key ring dangling like a windchime from the lock as she shouldered the door open.
Mixed emotions accompanied the sight of Jedidiah's room. She had rushed from it in fear when he'd first taken her there, and she'd visited it again the previous night to see him to bed, still shaky in the wake of adrenaline. In the clarity of well-rested wakefulness, though, it looked almost... cozy. The dim red light seemed warm and welcoming, rather than foreboding like it might have been before. And it was tidy. It was obvious Jedidiah took good care of it.
The dim light was a departure from the bright sunlit kitchen, and so it took her eyes a minute to adjust. When they did, she saw a bed pushed up against the far wall, and an enormous shape curled up on it.
"Morning, cuz," Heather whispered. "You up?" By his long, slow breathing, Heather figured he was still asleep. Her guilt from earlier was assuaged somewhat, knowing he'd managed to get to sleep last night after all.
She found a wooden footstool in a darkened corner and picked it up, setting it as quietly as she could beside the bed and placing the silver platter atop it.
There. Heather looked at her cousin's sleeping form. He was facing her, but the eyeholes of his cured leather mask cast his eyes in shadow. Was he still asleep? She couldn't tell, but she wasn't sure how he'd appreciate her looming over him when he woke, so she decided not to wait around.
Just as she'd placed her hand on the doorknob, however, she heard the mattress creak. Heather looked back to see Jedidiah sitting upright in bed. She offered him a smile. "Hey, sleepy-head. Made you breakfast."
Jedidiah turned his head to the plate, then back to her.
Heather wondered if the food was somehow lacking, and she grew self-conscious. "I left my plate in the dining room. Do you want to... join me upstairs? Or do you want to eat down here?"
Jedidiah picked up the platter and balanced it on his knees. Down here it was, she thought, until she noticed he was staring at the plate - she wondered if he was about to eat it, and then she realized -
"Oh my god, I'm sorry - I didn't bring you a fork or anything. I'll be right back," she said, and she took the stairs two at a time.
She'd spent all morning familiarizing herself with the kitchen, so while the pantry between the kitchen and the basement probably had silverware somewhere, Heather didn't know where it was. She went into the kitchen and found the silverware drawer on her second try.
Heather took a moment to catch her breath after running up the stairs, then spun around to bring Jedidiah his silverware -
Only to nearly run into the man standing in the doorway to the pantry. She gasped and gathered her wits. "Jedidiah," she breathed. "You scared me."
Jedidiah bowed his head, his shoulders hunching.
"No, no, it's okay," Heather said. Now that Jedidiah was here, her manic energy from a moment ago bled off. She found herself moving slowly in his presence, knowing now how sensitive he was. She wondered if he was naturally nervous, or if his family had been cruel to him when he was younger.
If they were, that'd be another thing the two of them had in common.
Heather slowly stepped forward and deposited the silverware on the side of Jedidiah's plate. "Did you... come up to join me for breakfast?" she asked. Jedidiah nodded, and Heather found herself smiling. "I'm glad."
They sat across from each other at the table and ate breakfast in a strangely comfortable silence. Heather marveled at that: the Miller household breakfast had always been noisy with arguing and complaining, except when her parents had been really angry about something. At those times the silence had felt oppressive, like a pane of frosted glass that encased them and kept them separate. The slighest sound would have been enough to shatter that precarious silence, turn it sharp and loud and hurtful.
But this silence was calm. Or at least, Heather thought it was – she reminded herself not to presume upon Jed's state of mind. Though his quiet presence seemed to convey a stolid reliability, she wouldn't want Jed to feel like she had in the Miller household.
"Grandma didn't mention what kind of food you like, but... I hope it's okay?"
Jed blinked slowly, then nodded emphatically with his whole head and shoulders.
"Oh, good," Heather said, lip quirking up in amusement at his enthusiasm. "In the future, if you don't like something I make, you don't have to eat it."
Jed shook his head. Did that mean he'd eat what she made no matter what? Or was he just saying he wasn't picky?
"I'm serious," she said laughingly. "I promise I'll make you something different, if..." Jed shook his head even more insistently then, grunting softly and skewering a sausage with his fork and shoving it in his mouth. Heather laughed, taking the hint. "Alright, I get it. Well... if you have a favorite, I want to know that too. Okay?" She would have to put together a recipe book, but that wouldn't be difficult. She wasn't sure if Jed could read... but if it had pictures, then he should be able to point at what he wanted, right?
And Jed seemed amenable to the idea, nodding enthusiastically again. Heather suspected he just didn't want to insult her cooking by stating a preference. That was kind of sweet, honestly.
It occurred to her that there might be cook books around the house, and the odds of them having recipes that Jed was familiar with were high. It would easily be a better bet than finding things off the internet. Internet access was another thing she'd have to take into consideration... She doubted the infrastructure for something like that was already extant in the house, so if she wanted to get it, she'd have to block out a few hours for Jed to be in the basement... She supposed she could worry about that later, though. It was far from her most pressing concern.
Heather looked out the kitchen window onto the grounds she had inherited. The sun was out and shining. It was a nice day. "You know, I don't think anyone will bother us out here any more," Heather said. Jed moaned doubtfully and, well. She couldn't exactly blame him. "You don't have to stay locked up in the basement all the time."
Jed pushed his food around with his fork and glanced up at Heather, before returning his gaze to his plate.
"... Unless you want to," she amended, interpreting his apparent discomfort as perhaps a reluctance to leave his comfort zone. "But it's a nice day out. Will you... sit with me outside for a while, after breakfast?"
Jed raises his eyes again and Heather held his gaze, undeterred in the morning light by the face she had found so frightening the evening prior. That's my cousin, she reminded herself. It was kind of a silly thought, but she a necessary one to reinforce the fact that her current circumstances weren't just a strange dream. And it comforted her every time, the thought that she had a family worth caring for. Worth staying for. A warm smile unfurled on her face, and that seemed to be the thing to convince Jedidiah: he nodded, a bit stiffly, and Heather's smile widened.
"Great," she said, picking up her plate and standing. She'd prepared herself a smaller portion, of course, so she'd finished first. She brought her dishes to the sink and started washing them – and it was the first time she'd felt so happy to be doing something as mundane as dishes. Well, she's taking pride in her home, after all. Maybe she shouldn't be so surprised.
Heather was drying off her plate when she heard Jed's chair scrape across the tile floor, and she looked over her shoulder. He made his way to her side, standing close enough for her to feel the warmth radiating from his body, and turned the tap back on to rinse his own dishes. Jed's size and mien led Heather to believe he would be clumsy, but that wasn't the case at all. Uncertainty might leave his hands fluttering helplessly in front of him, but when given a task, Jed's movements were measured and meticulous – and slow. Something about that soothed Heather inexplicably, like the ebb and flow of the ocean's tide flowed in her cousin's veins.
He turned slightly toward her, and Heather chided herself for staring. He pointed at the dish towel still in her hand. "I'll dry it," she offered softly, accepting the plate and toweling it off as Jed picked and scrubbed at his cutlery under the running water.
She wanted to care for her cousin like Grandma Verna asked her. She wanted to learn more about him, and grow to be worthy of the trust he had placed in her. More than that, though, she wanted him to be happy, not locked up and hidden away like some kind of burdensome eyesore.
Heather wanted to step out into her new life in the sunlight – and she wanted to bring Jedidiah with her.