Secret Maneuvers (19 page)

So I held out my hand, letting my boy place the frame in it, and when I tilted the picture up to see what it was, the breath choked in my throat. It was a picture of me as a senior in my high school football uniform, running off the field with my teammates. I was headed, not towards my coach or my parents, but directly towards the person snapping that picture of me on their camera. I was running straight for Belle. A huge smile on my face, my eyes lit up with something I hadn’t seen in the mirror for too many years to admit, and happier than I’d ever been.

We’d just won the championship game and, the moment Belle had taken that picture, I remember thinking it was the best day of my life. I knew I was running off that field towards my girl. We were headed to Trent Bazemore’s house to party, where we were going to drink beer out of the kegs that his older brother had scored for us, horse around on our four-wheelers in the unused fields behind his house, and I’d be ending the night loving Belle in the bed of my truck. At the time, I didn’t think life could get any better than that.

Now that day seemed like a pale comparison to sitting here with the man-child who was the spitting image of me because—although this moment was bittersweet and wrought with resentment—sitting here with Seth like this now was the best moment of my life. Moving my eyes from the picture back to my boy, I remembered to breathe again just as he said, “And you’re my dad.”

Annabelle

If there was ever a moment in my life that I thought Bobby Baker was in danger of passing out like one of those overpriced, tacky, prom queens from our hometown, it was right now with dots of sweat on his forehead and a slightly paler complexion. Far be it for me, though, to point out that he needed to take a big ass breath and get it together. With the way he was staring at our son, he’d somehow forgotten that I was in the room with them. Hell, he might have forgotten I was in the same galaxy. I certainly didn’t want to ruin their first father-son moment, either. So, I stayed perfectly still and watched my little boy, who wasn’t so damn little anymore, tell the man who I’d once loved with all of my heart, that he knew Bobby was his father. Then, I watched in a combination of half-fascination, half-trepidation as Bobby finally remembered that breathing was good and his chest slowly rose and fell in a deep, relieved breath. I also watched all of that while trying desperately not to burst into tears, or have a dag-gum heart attack, because at any second that proverbial shoe was going to drop and things were going to go to hell in a hand basket.

My relief lasted approximately seven seconds before it morphed right into confusion. “You know who I am.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“How long have you known who I am?”

“My whole life. That picture has been in my room for as long as I can remember.”

“I don’t understand. If you knew my name, who I was, then why didn’t you ever look for me? Didn’t you want to meet me? Get to know me?”

I closed my eyes to hide their watery state. The blow up was coming. Oh, boy. We’d just hit landmine territory. It was going to suck to pick up those metaphorical pieces after everyone had been blown to teeny, tiny, bloody bits.

“One day. Yes, sir.”

Oh, I couldn’t watch this. My lungs started to burn and I realized that I’d been holding my breath without even realizing it. All I could concentrate on now was what was about to happen. The fuse was stuck into the bomb.

“What do you mean, one day? Why would you not want to get to know your own father?”

No, no, no. This was going to be so, so bad. I gripped my hands even harder to hide my trembling. I felt the sharp edges of my nails bite further into my skin. Now, the match was lit.

“That’s hard to explain, sir. I do want to get to know you, I just wasn’t sure that you would want to get to know me.”

Here we go. I felt a sob starting to bubble up my throat, so I did what I’d done so many times before, growing up to stop the sound, and used my teeth to bite down on my bottom lip. The match had touched to the fuse and now it’s angry sparks were sizzling down to the finale.

“Why in the hell would you wonder that?

Two seconds till detonation.

No answer from Seth. My eyes squeezed tighter shut. One second to blast.

“Did your mother tell you that I wouldn’t want you?”

The question was asked so quietly that I barely heard it, but there it was. Confirmation that he would think the worst of me. Just another piece of evidence in the giant trial of my life that no one would ever think I was good enough for Bobby. Including Bobby himself.

Seth’s temper exploded. “You just hold on a second, mister! My mother’s never said an unkind word about you. Ever. Maybe you should tell me why I should be so hot to get to know the guy who’s managed to make my mom cry on and off for the last fifteen years after he left her?”

I couldn’t make myself open my eyes. I should be stronger than this. A son should not see his mother being this weak. He should not see my shame in knowing that he had heard all those nights I’d lost the fight to be strong, to close off my heart and had ended up losing my ever lovin’ mind while sobbing like a silly little girl into my pillow. How ridiculous was I to think I’d ever hidden that from him?

“Do you have any idea how many nights I’ve laid in my bed and listened to her cry all night long? To hear her cry so hard she could barely breathe? How when I was little and didn’t understand what was going on, I’d crawl out of my bed and into hers so that I could hug her and make it all better? I can tell you this, little boys do not like it when the only person in their life is that broken and they don’t know how to fix them! It’s not any easier when she finally stops crying, either, because, now that I’m older, I go into her room every time, knowing that I’ll find her clutching that stupid letter you sent her. Her face will be all puffy and red and she looks like someone just ripped her heart out; all because of you and that shitty letter.”

The second to last word brought me out of my self-induced shell. My voice was choked when I snapped out, “Don’t you start cussing, Seth Roberts Baker! What have I told you about that kind of shit?”

My visibly pissed off son swung his head around to look at me and project his unhappiness at the reprimand. “Really, Mom? Because ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ isn’t that one of the most ridiculous rules that parents have tried to push off on their kids since the dawn of time? I love you, but get over it already.”

“So, let me get this straight.” Bobby’s voice was vibrating with fury. “You know who I am. You even carry my last name, but you’re not sure if you want anything to do with me?”

My son turned back around to look his father straight in the eyes when he dead-panned back, “I don’t know, Dad. You tell me. Do you want to get to know me? Or are you going to just leave me behind, too?”

Bobby stood up and started stalking to the front door. What I wouldn’t give for this all to be some really bad dream instead of the jacked up reality I was currently living in. It had all gone so horribly wrong and it was all my fault, so I had to do something to fix it. “Wait, Bobby! Just wait!”

Rushing after him before he made it out of the door, I grabbed him by the arm to try and keep him from leaving. He jerked his arm out of my grasp and rounded on me like a pissed off lion. “How could you do this to me?” he roared, banging his fist against his chest, over his heart. “To the first person in your life besides fucking Teagan who cared for you! Who bent over backwards to show you that you deserved to love and be loved. First, you kept my son from me and now you’ve turned him against me! That’s how you repay me? Repay the kindness my parents showed you and the two years we had together? Did you get your goddamn revenge? Are you fucking happy with yourself?”

His face was an ugly sneer I’d never seen from him before. Something that looked very similar to the memories of what my father had looked like as he’d taken out his anger and frustration on me. The kind of face that would probably haunt my nightmares for years to come. His hand swung up in my direction so he could point a finger in my face and I flinched backwards as if he might hit me.

The logical part of me knew deep down that Bobby would never hit me, never hurt me that way. The damaged little girl stuck inside a grown woman’s body didn’t know that, though. She’d shoved logic out of the way in the name of self-preservation because all she could see was that, once again, someone we loved was furious with us. Someone who was bigger than us and could cause more damage—both mentally and physically—than we might be able to survive, which meant we should duck for cover. Do what we had to do to deflect the blows to our body and soul so that we could get up to face another day when it was done. How I hated the weakness in that damaged little girl. The weakness in me that I would feel the need to cower backwards instead of stand and fight. That flinch was something I hadn’t done in years because, once I’d left Georgia, I’d left behind anyone and everyone who could hurt me. Given myself the false security that I was stronger. Now, when glaring reality was in front of me, I knew there was still someone out there that could hurt me and those defenses I’d built for myself were crumbled before him.

Bobby saw the flinch. The finger he’d had held up, pointing at me, dropped to his side and reformed as a clenched fist, which only made my body involuntarily tense for the possibility of a strike. His mouth opened, he paused, and then his mouth closed again as he shook his head. “I need to leave. I need to go and calm the fuck down because all I can think about right now is that you’re the biggest bitch I’ve ever known and I wish I’d never met you.”

Slowly backing away from the enraged man in front of me, I stupidly couldn’t help but wonder. Had someone just hit the play button on Bon Jovi’s You Give Love A Bad Name? Because the pain radiating through my chest sure as shit felt like I’d been shot through the heart. It was such an acute agony that I briefly wondered if one really could die from a broken heart. A particular affliction I’d been so sure that I’d survived before seemed to mock me with the truth that my heartbreak had just been put on hold all of these years; it was finally back to finish me off. Would I ever stop being a fool when it came to Bobby Baker?

The next thing I knew, there was an equally pissed fourteen-year-old man-child standing in front of me. Acting as a barrier between me and the source of my pain.

“Don’t you take this out on her! Obviously you need to stick your fingers back in your ears and wiggle them around some more because you must not have heard me when I said this the first time. She’s never said a bad word about you to me. I can make up my own mind! It wasn’t so hard to make it when I read that letter of hers. Or when I heard Mom and Aunt Teagan talking late one night. Going on and on about how shitty their life was growing up and how they’re glad that they’re not living like that anymore. Who could blame them? Who would want to stay around a town that belittled them and did nothing to help them while they were getting beat on by their own fathers?

“How can you blame her for wanting to run as fast and as far as she could from that place after you left her? I’m close enough to the age Mom was when she ran away. If I was put in her shoes, I would have done the same thing. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing for her to do in the long run, but it was the right thing for her at the time.”

Through the haze of pain, I managed to grasp onto one thought. God, I loved my boy. Even if he was wrong and yelling at his father when he shouldn’t be, I couldn’t help thinking that I seriously loved my son right now. Defending me when I was the one who was at fault here. He wasn’t done, though, because he just kept on going.

“You know what else Mom talked to Aunt Teagan about that night? How she wasn’t surprised that you ended up not wanting her because she wasn’t good enough for you and the whole town made sure to remind her of that often. Aunt Teagan tried to tell her she was wrong, but she wouldn’t hear it. Well, you wanna know what I think? I think Aunt Teagan was right and you’re not good enough for my mom!”

Losing the fight to hold myself up on my own, I slumped forward to lean my forehead on the back of my son’s shoulder. Tears that were streaming down my face were now caught by the soft cotton from Seth’s shirt and there was a giant ass wet spot from where I was silently bawling like a baby. The magnitude of my mistakes were battering at me like a ten ton hammer. Beating me down until I couldn’t help being amazed that I wasn’t a broken heap on the floor, but it wasn’t over, because my son had one more nail to put in my proverbial coffin.

“And until you realize that you’re just as much to blame for all of this as she is, then no, I don’t want to get to know you. I don’t want anything to do with you. And if you ever call MY MOTHER a bitch again, I’ll show you just how much of a man my mother raised me to be all on her own because I will knock you
the hell out!”

The door slammed behind Bobby as he left.

Oh, God, what had I done?

Chapter Twelve

Bobby

“Baker in position.”

Sometimes, going to work was a blessing. Keeping the mind occupied could be a very good thing. A soldier was taught, from the time he tied on his boots in basic training, that he had to be able to clear his mind of all distractions and concentrate on the mission. It didn’t matter if that mission was cleaning the latrine or going in to enemy territory to neutralize a high value target. A distracted man was a dead man.