Finding Serenity (24 page)

Mollie knows that tone, she knows enough about her father’s mannerisms to know when he was trying to gauge her reactions.
Slick old thing.
“What about him?”

“I want you to listen to him. He’s a jarhead, but Viv says he’s seen action. He’ll know what to do in a tight spot.”

“I guess he does, Daddy.”

“Good. Now, that don’t mean—” Mojo goes silent when the door opens behind them and two guards, and Vaughn, slip into the room. Immediately, her father moves from his seat and by the way he stands, feet apart and fists rolled at his side, Mollie knows that he’s preparing himself. For what, Mollie isn’t sure, but she’d seen him take on that stance more than a dozen times as a kid. It never led to anything good.

“Daddy,” she warns, but then the guards walk forward, one of them pulling out his handcuffs.

Ignoring the two men in the gray uniforms, Mojo extends his wrists, all the while looking Vaughn over, inspecting, analyzing. “You my baby’s fella?” he asks and Vaughn hesitates, then smirks when Mojo’s eyes dart to the guards. Mollie knows her father wants Vaughn to play along and that small question is spoken to measure just how quick Vaughn is.

“Yes, sir.” He stands next to her, pulling her against his chest.

“Good.” Again Mojo’s eyes work over Vaughn.
Daddy doesn’t like him,
Mollie thinks. Her father’s neck is held too rigid, his now handcuff hands carry white knuckles. “You gonna take care of her?”

“I’m gonna do my best.” Tension has now formed on Vaughn’s face, as though there is something else shifting through his mind.

“You better,
soldier
,” her father says and Mollie winces at the insult. She knew enough about military folk to know you just didn’t call a Marine a soldier. The Army had soldiers. Marines were just Marines.

But Vaughn lets the offense pass, doesn’t do more than allow his left eye to twitch before the guards take Mojo by the elbow and toward the door.

“Wait!” she says, stopping them. “Can I give him a kiss goodbye?”

The two men exchange a look, hesitate, but then step aside so Mollie can wrap her arms around her father’s neck. His mouth instantly curls by her ear and what he says makes tears she thought she could no longer produce stream down her still wet face.

“It’ll be over soon, baby doll. One way or another.” He kisses her cheek and gives her an easy smirk. “Remember, no one loves you like your daddy.”

“I know it.”

And then, her father is rushed from the room and with a quiet click, Mollie is left with Vaughn. But he is soundless, waiting for her to move, waiting, she guesses, to see what the next seconds and the visit with her father will have Mollie doing.

She swallows thick, clears away the congestion in her chest and looks at Vaughn with her chin dipped low. “Get me out of here.
Please.
”

Vaughn didn’t realize how tiny Mollie was until he saw her against her father’s chest. He knew she was small, he’d felt enough of her body, watched her moving enough times, to know that she wasn’t a big thing. But, he thinks, that she always seemed taller, broader; it was her attitude, the fierce way she held herself, the hard lash of her mouth when she was pissed off and the determined set of her shoulders when anyone challenged her.

Today though, leaning against Mojo, eyes swollen and red from her tears, Vaughn thought she looked so small. He’d been surprised, shocked when the Warden greeted him in the lobby. He hadn’t seen the old man in years, but after a small welcome, Warden Jefferies had the guards slip Vaughn into the private room where Mollie and her father were visiting. “Mojo’s giving her some bad news, I’m afraid,” he told Vaughn and Jefferies knew that the girl might need a shoulder. “It’s against the rules,” he’d said, “but I think you being there will help her father feel a bit better about leaving her.”

The man himself wasn’t the looming, massive superhero Mollie had made him out to be. But then, Vaughn knew something was off. Mojo looked like someone who’d moved through time and his body hadn’t quite kept up the pace. He was sickly thin, not quite as menacing as he imagined. When Mojo spoke to Vaughn, however, he saw the flicker of the scary SEAL that peeked out behind the old man. He wanted Vaughn to look after his daughter. He wanted her safe, same as Vaughn, but he knew by the piercing glare Mojo leveled at him just before he was escorted from the room that he did not want Vaughn touching her.

By the time they left the prison, dark had fallen and Mollie seemed still too upset to do more than stare blindly out the window trying to pretend she wasn’t crying. Vaughn couldn’t stomach her tears and he thought what would help her most was a hot shower and a long night’s sleep. They pulled into a hotel by six and by seven, Mollie disappeared into the steam of the shower.

This room didn’t have the separation their last hotel had. There were two double beds, Vaughn made sure of that, but only a small table separated them. He tried distracting himself while Mollie took a long shower. He unpacked his bag, set his sneakers near the door and his .45 under his pillow before he picked up some food from the dining room. Dinner is waiting for her when she leaves the bathroom with her hair pulled up in a thick towel, wearing short shorts that has Vaughn forcing his eyes onto the TV and a thin, Lynrd Skynrd t-shirt.

“I got you a burger.” He nods at the covered plate and tray resting on the foot of her bed, but frowns when she doesn’t even glance at it. Instead, she tugs her suitcase open and digs into the compartment on the top, finally pulling out a full bottle of Jack Daniels. “Um, you think that’s a good idea?”

She shrugs. “It’s tradition.”

“You’re gonna have to explain.”

Mollie flops onto the bed and pushes aside the food tray with her foot. “First drink I ever had was Jack.” The paper ring around the unsealed top tears and Mollie takes a swig. “I don’t have cups like your sister did.” She offers him the bottle and Vaughn hesitates before he tips the top to his lips for a quick sip. “Anyway, I was sixteen and Layla’s mom brought us to Jackson so I could see Daddy. They have cousins up here and so they dropped me off while they visited.” She scoots back against the headboard and takes the bottle from Vaughn’s hand. “I was so depressed by the time we left that Layla snuck into her mom’s purse, lifted two twenties from her wallet and paid a skinny bellhop to get us a bottle.” She takes another sip, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “We got so drunk I stopped thinking about my dad alone in that tiny cell or what waited for me when I got back to Cavanagh.” She looks off, staring at nothing. “Things got worse for me, with my mom, I mean.” Vaughn doesn’t like the sound of that; he doesn’t like that far-away stare in Mollie’s eyes, distant, cold. So he tilts his head and Mollie catches the curiosity in his expression. Another shrug, as though whatever happened to her at sixteen wasn’t a big deal. “Husband number three was a little handsy. I cracked his rib when he tried grabbing my tit.”

“Shit.” This time, when Mollie offers him the bottle, he drinks deeper. “Did you tell Mojo?”

“You’re kidding, right? The guy is still alive, that should tell you something.”

Vaughn moves next to her and rests the bottle between their thighs. Mollie lifts it, cradles it to her chest before she drinks. “So, a visit to Daddy means Jack and forgetting for a little while that he’s stuck there.” She sighs. “For now.”

“Did you get your answers?”

“I got more than that.” He watches her swallow, wondering how long it will take her to completely forget; how long she’ll drink before her emotions break free. “He’s sick. Cancer.”

Vaughn closes his eyes; an image of his mother sick and thin against the scratchy hospital bed running through his mind. “Damn. I’m sorry, Mollie.”

“Yeah. Me too.” She shakes her head, eyes again taking on the distracted stare. “When Evelyn died, Autumn complained about condolences.”

“How do you mean?” Vaughn tugs the bottle from Mollie’s fingers.

“She was too messed up to go to the funeral. Her Godmother, Ava, and Sayo had to plan it all. And so for weeks Autumn didn’t see anyone. She wasn’t there when people came by to bring food or flowers or all the other pointless shit people do when folks die.” Mollie pulls her knees against her chest and doesn’t look at Vaughn, doesn’t see how hard he stares at her, as though her little monologue is meant for her alone. “So for a while, she didn’t have to deal with it. But then she got out of the hospital, started going to physical therapy or to the store with Sayo and people who knew her mom would catch her. They’d start with the condolences. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Autumn’ and ‘Oh, honey, Evelyn was such a good woman, I’m so sorry for your loss.’ It was all the ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ shit that she hated.”

Vaughn remembers that well. It was especially hard when those well-wishers would linger, staying for hours after his mother’s funeral to make sure his father would be fine, when all the old man wanted was to be alone in his grief, to get shitty in the privacy of his bedroom. “People tend not to know what to say when someone dies.”

“Of course they do.” She glances at him, head still shaking as though Vaughn is simple. “Autumn said she just wanted one person to say ‘Oh shit, this sucks balls.’” Vaughn laughs, chokes on the liquor as he takes a sip. “Not, ‘Oh, they were this and that,’ because let’s be honest, it isn’t just good people who die. Assholes die every single day and even if they’d been assholes their whole damn life, people will tell his family ‘Oh, he was such a good man.’ No he wasn’t, dude was an asshole. Just say that. Autumn wanted honesty. She wanted one person to say ‘Holy shit how are you even still sane?’” Mollie’s voice has grown loud and Vaughn can’t tell if it’s from her anger at hearing her father is sick or the lack of decorum that liquor always injects. “Because that’s the thing about death. It cripples you. You feel numb and helpless. We don’t cry and carry own because it’s such a tragedy that this person you loved lost their life.” She slides down against the headboard, ignoring the bottle when Vaughn offers it to her. When she speaks again, her voice has leveled out, become just higher than a whisper. “We do it because we are selfish assholes that don’t want that person missing from our lives.”

“He’s not gone yet, Mollie.” Vaughn knows it’s a lie, he saw the man himself today and the sight was a small recollection of his parents—his mother’s long, excruciating battle and the shock and bewilderment at seeing his own father in a coffin. She was right. Vaughn hadn’t mourned his parents’ loss, not for them. He mourned their absence from his life, something he still did every day.

“No, not yet.” They stare at each other and Vaughn notices how Mollie deflects the welling tears by taking another sip from the bottle. “Fucking cancer.”

Feeling relaxed, a bit sated from the burn working down his throat, Vaughn joins Mollie in a lazy slouch against the headboard. “That’s what got my mom.” He looks at her frown, sees the pity on her face. “Breast cancer. She had it twelve years.”

“That sucks, Semper Fi.” She isn’t being flippant or trying to diminish his loss. Vaughn likes her honesty, likes how Mollie always says exactly what she’s thinking and, for the most part, the things she is thinking mirror whatever is in his own mind. He tries to tell her that, tries to tell her how much he agrees with her, but one glance at her face stuns him silence. Thick, leaking tears run alongside her nose and despite his promise to Viv, Vaughn can’t help reaching for her.

He slips his arm around her shoulder and Mollie stiffens. “You don’t have to…”

“Shut up and come here.”

“I know Viv said something to you.”

Vaughn exhales, frustrated by this entire situation and pulls more forcefully on Mollie’s shoulder. “Viv wouldn’t want me being a heartless bastard either. Besides, she’s not here. Put the bottle down and come here.”

Mollie takes a long, lingering sip from the bottle before she deposits it on the table next to the bed and crawls onto his lap, letting him rub her back, letting herself nestle against his chest.

“It feels like I can’t breathe. He’s not even dead yet and I feel like I can’t breathe.” Vaughn smiles when he feels Mollie rub her face against his t-shirt. “He told me, he told me he was dying and all the way back from the prison, my heart is telling me ‘he’s gonna be fine. He’s strong,’ but my brain…” she shakes her head. “My fucking brain is too logical.”

“Listen to your heart, Mollie.” Vaughn likes the way her hair feels against his fingers when he moves his hand to her neck. “Your brain will force you into thoughts that will just give you ulcers.”

“You know about that, huh?” She sits up, watches his face.

“I do.” There are secrets he hasn’t told Mollie; the same secrets that haunt him, that cripple him on any given night. He wonders what she would think of him if she knew. He wonders if she would ever look at him the way she is now, as though he has answers, as though he has any idea how to muddle through the loss that has begun to fester in her heart. But he can’t bear it, couldn’t stomach how she would never want him again, if she knew the truth. He never wants to disappoint her. For some reason, this small woman has taken root in his heart, furrowing beneath all the darkness, all the regret to chip away the dimness of who he has become. But Vaughn knows that if she knew everything, that light would leave him. Still, she’s looking for someone to relate to; someone who will tell her that she will survive the loss that is coming. So, Vaughn blinks once, lets a quick breath move through his chest and then he smiles at Mollie. “You asked me about Caroline.” Except for the slow nod of her head, Mollie doesn’t move. “I was nineteen. On leave. Came home because my mom was getting worse. Caroline worked at a diner a block from the hospital and I kept going back there almost every day. One night I left the hospital and she was closing. She served me pie and let me cry about my dying mom. I married her six months later. Right after Mom’s funeral.”