Love You to Death (29 page)

“No, I’m fine. Just tired...” I patted her
arm reassuringly. She downshifted, turning off the road and onto
our lane.

“Gideon will have my head if I made you over
do it.” She frowned, narrowing her eyes at nothing through the
windshield.

“No worries. I’m going to go lay down. He’ll
never know.”

She pulled up to the front door, putting the
car in neutral and yanking on the emergency brake. She bolted from
the driver’s seat to grab my door. Little bits of guilt now hovered
over me like orbiting planets. I let her help me out of the car and
walk me to the door. I actually needed her to do this. Not because
I was sick, but because I felt weak and faint when I thought of
Cass being only a twenty minute drive from me.

How could I run now? I was six months
pregnant. I had no more money than when I’d gotten here. And then
there was Stewie. I’d have to leave him behind. JD and Aurora were
the only parents he ever really knew. I knew they’d take good care
of him. Cass wasn’t really looking for Stewie anyway. It was me he
wanted.

* * * *

My presence was required downstairs. I’d been
holed up in my room for days, coming out only to eat. My nerves
were shot. I was jumping at shadows, cringing every time the phone
rang.

The whole family was gathered in the sitting
room. I felt a trickle of dread run down my back. I stopped at the
threshold, looking from Gideon to Sissy then back to Gideon.

“Ah... Arden, Sheriff Packer is here. He
needs to speak with us.” Gideon came to me. Reaching out, he took
me by the hand, brushing his thumb over my palm. He led me to a
chair. I didn’t feel like sitting, but I did anyway, my hands
clasped over my stomach protectively. Bad news was coming. In what
form I didn’t know, but I knew when someone was about to shake my
world into pieces.

Sheriff Packer leaned back in his chair,
crossing his boots under the coffee table; he tipped his big
brimmed hat back off of his face. He looked comfortable enough, but
the way he angled his head and looked at me made me very aware of
his professional capacity.

“There was a man...he came in to the station
yesterday. Flashed me your picture and gave me some song and dance
about a missing persons report...” The Sheriff trailed off, but he
watched me with a look of great intensity, kind, but serious. I
knew Cass had told him the lie about Stewie kidnapping me. I also
knew that his longtime friendship with Sissy kept him from helping
Cass until he got the truth from me.

“Arden, someone’s been showing your picture
around town, asking questions,” Gideon said. I didn’t realize I was
trembling until he took my hand in his steady grip.

“I think it’s time you told us what happened
to you,” Sissy said.

I shook my head. “I have to leave,” I said.
Stewie was sitting in a chair next to Sissy. He looked scared.

“No,” Gideon forced the word from clenched
teeth.

“Where would you go?” Aurora asked. I gave my
head another shake. I didn’t have a clue. “You can’t keep running,”
she said.

“Why not?”

“Oh sugar...that’s no way to live, especially
with a baby.”

“Arden, tell us what happened to you. We can
help,” Maggie said.

They sat there, surrounding me. JD and Aurora
with Maggie and Cort sandwiched together on the sofa. Sissy,
Stewie, and Gideon in chairs like me, forming a tight circle around
the old antique coffee table. I could feel their concern like an
August heat wave off a concrete street.

I always knew it would come to this. In the
back of my mind I expected it every day from the moment we
arrived.

I stood up, crossing the room to stand in
front of the large picture window. I stared out, not really seeing
anything except the images in my head as I began to talk.

“When I was a little girl my dad used to read
me bedtime stories. He would tuck me in and lay there beside me.
He’d make up voices for all the different characters.” I paused,
remembering the only good times I had with my father. “One night, I
guess I was about five, he didn’t come home. My mom told me he was
working late. I went to bed disappointed, but didn’t really think
anything of it.

But something woke me up. I remember
tiptoeing out of my room. I wasn’t afraid. I don’t know why I
wasn’t. I should have been. I went down the hall to my parents’
room. The door was half open. My mother was crying. I’d never seen
her cry before... She was whispering something, something I
couldn’t hear, she spoke too low...but my father heard her because
he punched my mother in the face.

I was stunned. I must’ve cried out because he
swung the door open and started screaming at me to get back to my
room. So I did. I threw the covers up over my head and waited for
him to come get me. The next day my mom smiled and pretended
nothing happened, but the welt across her cheek told another story.
My mother explained that sometimes Daddy got sad and drank too
much. It wasn’t his fault. He was sick, and we had to love him
extra to help him get better.”

I drew a breath, rubbing the swell of my
unborn child.

“So, we did. We walked on broken glass around
him. But it didn’t matter how much we loved him. He kept drinking
more and more until he was always drunk. He picked a fight over
anything.

My mother was too thin; she was cheating. My
mother was too fat; she was letting herself go. Dinner was too
cold, dinner was too spicy, the beer was warm, or the house was
dirty. He always had something to use as an excuse to beat her. And
after each fight he would say he was sorry. He’d buy her flowers or
a little trinket. She’d forgive him, and the next day it would
start all over. Finally, he went too far. He pushed her down a
flight of stairs. She broke her leg.

She had the cops arrest him. When she came
home from the hospital she had the locks changed. He stayed away
for a few weeks. But eventually she forgave him and he moved back
in. It was a vicious cycle.” I smirked. “You get the drift.”

My feet were swelling from standing in one
spot too long. I circled back to the chair I’d abandoned and
settled myself into the plush cushion. I took a long sip from the
glass of tea Sissy poured for me.

“When I was sixteen my father decided I was
old enough to take a few hits. He said I dressed like a slut. I
wore too much makeup. I’d laughed at him. I told him mom only let
me wear lip gloss. That was my first black eye. My mother was
furious. She waited til he left for work then she packed up all his
stuff and changed the locks again—this time for good.

He called all hours of the day and night,
begging, pleading with her to take him back. But she stood her
ground. She said it was one thing for him to hit her, but it was an
entirely other ball of wax for him to hit me.

He finally gave up and only called when he
was rip-roaring drunk to tell my mother she was worthless and he
was going to kill her, because if he couldn’t have her, then no one
else would either.”

“What about the police?” Sissy asked.

“She went to the cops.” I laughed bitterly.
“She filled out the paperwork and filed complaints. It didn’t do
any good. After about a year we figured he was all talk anyway
because all he ever did was call. He never showed up. So we went on
with our lives.” I closed my eyes. I steeled myself against the
emotions that were struggling to stay buried inside of me.

“Arden...” Gideon said. I felt the warmth of
his hand covering mine. I opened my eyes to see him kneeling in
front of me, his warm whiskey brown eyes sending me love, giving me
courage. “You don’t have to do this now if you aren’t up for it...
maybe later...” he said, cupping my face with his other hand. I
pressed my cheek into the palm of his hand.

“You have a right to know. You
need
to
know,” I said, lifting my head to stare off into the past, my voice
dropping to a whisper. “So my mother and I moved on. I was planning
on going to culinary school. My mom and I were going over some of
the school brochures and making dinner when the doorbell rang.

I remember her laughing about it being the
Avon lady from across the hall. She was always trying to sell us
stuff. But when she opened the door it was my dad. He was drunk. He
pushed his way in and started throwing her around, yelling and
cursing. My mom shouted for me to call 911. But I was scared. I
just watched as he picked her up and threw her against the
wall.

She screamed for me to call 911. While I did
that, I heard her yelling at him to ‘Put it down!’ That he would go
to jail if he didn’t. She was crying, and in between trying to talk
to him and calm him down, she was screaming for me not to come into
the living room.

I was so scared. I wanted to help her, but I
knew I couldn’t. I’d tried before.” Absently, I fingered a faint
scar above my right eye from the stitches I’d gotten for my
effort.

“I thought I could sneak closer, find
something to throw at him, or at least create a diversion. I hid
behind the sofa. I prayed. I prayed so hard for the police to hurry
and get there. I heard the sirens. I knew they’d be there any
minute to haul his sorry butt to jail. So did he. That’s when I
noticed he was holding a gun.

He raised the gun and pointed it at my mom.
She was a mess. Her eye was already swelling shut, her lip was
bleeding. She crouched in a corner, crying and he...he just stared
at her like he’d never seen her before...” I trailed off. I was
lost in the memory.

“I don’t think I want to hear anymore,”
Maggie whispered brokenly.

I looked at her. Her kewpie doll lips were
trembling. Her big blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. I
watched as one escaped and trailed its way down her cheek. The rest
of them were hardly breathing. They were sitting still as stone,
staring at me with their faces pinched in various degrees of
horror, pity, and sorrow. Even Sissy was crying. My eyes were dry.
I’d cried over this memory countless times.

“You asked for my story.” I weakly lifted my
shoulders in a barely there movement. Taking a ragged breath, I
went on. “He stared at her with this...this lost look on his face.
Then he told her he loved her...and then...he shot her. I think I
blacked out or something because I don’t remember how I got to her
or the cops showing up. One minute I was behind the couch and the
next I was holding her, trying to stop the bleeding. The blood was
everywhere, all over me. Her eyes were wide open, just staring at
nothing.

My father was handcuffed and taken to jail.
They had to sedate me to get me to let go of her.
‘Don’t leave
me, Mommy. Please don’t go,’
I begged her. I screamed for her
to wake up. And then I just knew...I kissed her face...I told her I
loved her over and over again, but she was already gone.”

Aurora got up, crossed the room, leaned down,
and drew me up into her arms. She was sobbing uncontrollably. I let
her hold me. I even hugged her back. I was surprised to find myself
crying. I didn’t think I had anymore tears to cry.

Sissy and Maggie got up and joined us,
wrapping their arms around us, and crying. I couldn’t see Gideon or
Cort or JD or Stewie, but I knew they were there by their manly
sniffles.

“You poor baby,” Aurora cooed, rocking me
while running her hand over my head and down my hair.

Finally, they let go and took a few steps
back. Sissy ripped handfuls of tissue from a box and passed them
around.

“What happened to your father?” JD asked.

“He’s serving a life sentence without parole.
I had to testify against him. That’s the last I saw of him.” I took
one of the tissues Sissy was shoving into my hand and blew my
nose.

“Where did you live?” Cort asked. He was
white as a new piece of chalk.

“They tried to make me live with my aunt, but
she hated my mom and I couldn’t take her trash talk...I just
couldn’t. So, I decided to go on my own.”

“Yeah,” Stewie chimed in. He was rocking on
the balls of his feet, wringing his hands together. “That’s when
Cherry found me, right? Isn’t that when we met?” he said
anxiously.

“Yep, that’s when we met.” I smiled at him.
He slowed his rocking to a stop. “I ended up on the streets,
staying at the same shelter where Stewie happened to be.”

“Oh my Gawd,” Aurora gasped, “you lived on
the streets?”

“For almost a year,” I said, smiling at the
look of terror on their faces.

“Is that how you got shot? You try to rob a
store or somethin’ for food money?” Sissy reached out to smooth her
fingers over my brow.

I shook my head. Here was where I had to come
clean about the other half of my life. This seemed scarier to me
than telling them about my mom. I guess because that was the
past—dead and buried—but this was something that was alive and well
and could still hurt me. Cass was out there, living and
breathing.

I drew a couple deep breaths. “You might want
to kick me out after this part of the story.” I locked my eyes on
Gideon as I said this.

“Not a chance,” he replied, coming to stand
beside me and wrap me inside his warm embrace. He kissed the top of
my head. I gave him a squeeze before extricating myself to sink
back down into the chair. Then I told them the story of how I met
Cass and how he reeled me in, trapping me. JD was furious when I
told them about the beating Cass gave Stewie.

“Rotten son of a—” JD said, barely containing
his anger, “needs a few kicks himself.”

Then when I told them about the attack in the
park, JD and Cort let out a stream of curses and threats that
blistered my ears. Gideon remained deceptively calm. The only hint
of his anger was the swirling color in his darkening eyes. I
skipped over the part about me living with Cass and getting
married. I was saving that for later.