Trent (Season Two: The Ninth Inning #4) (13 page)

“Where are you going, Daddy?
Can I come?” Kaelyn interrupts any response Granny might make.

“No, you can’t come.” She
pouts, so I kiss her forehead. “I’ll bring you something sweet to
eat, okay?”

That seems to satisfy her. I
stand, say goodbye to them, and head out. The clouds are dark and
ominous. Hopefully, I can make it back before the bottom falls out.
It starts sprinkling on the drive to the cafe. I can see Scarlett
inside, sitting at one of the tables, appearing anxious as she
scans the room. She gives me a small smile when I walk inside.
There’s already an extra cup of coffee on the table, so I head
over.

“Hey, thanks,” I gesture to
the cup. “How are you?”

“I’m good. Thanks for coming.
I figure we need to talk. Well, I need to talk.”

“Okay. What about?”

“Me. My family. My life might
be a better explanation.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I come from a long line of
bad people. I watched my mother kill herself with drinking and
drugs. I knew a long time ago I didn’t want to be like her. I
wanted to be a good person. I wanted to be someone people liked and
relied on. When I look at the faces of the kids I help, I want to
be their role model.” She keeps talking, full steam ahead like if
she doesn’t say it now, she never will.

“My brother started out being
a great kid. A smart kid. I thought if I kept him under my wing, he
would be okay. Somewhere in his twenties, I lost him. I lost him to
drugs and I watched him wither away from me. I thought, after our
mother died, he would realize how bad he was, but instead, he got
worse and worse. I sent him to rehab and therapy, anything I could
think of, but nothing worked.” She pauses to take a breath and
swallows hard. “Almost eight months ago, a phone call informed me
my brother had been arrested. I work with Memphis Police a lot, so
they called me in and told me what happened. My brother is Dominic
Davis. He killed your wife.”

My brother is Dominic
Davis. He killed your wife.
Her words echo loudly in my head,
but I don’t think I’ve processed them yet. All I can do is stare at
her. “What? I...how…” I stammer, unable to form a sentence as it
hits me. Her brother is the person who killed my wife.

“The day I talked to you in
the gym, I just wanted to say how sorry I was for what happened. I
felt like I needed to say it to you. I feel like the worst person
in the world because you’re a great guy. I just wanted to
apologize. Everything snowballed and now...now I like you and this
is a mess. I don’t want you to think I’m like Dom because I’m
not.”

“But your last name is
Knowles,” I blurt out. God, I’m an idiot, but my mind keeps
tripping on what she’s told me.

“We don’t have the same
father. Neither one of us knew our fathers. It was always our mom
and us. Mainly, I was the adult and I took care of Dom.”

I cringe. “Please stop saying
his name.” I take a deep breath to try to wrap my head around it.
“All this time, it’s because you’ve felt sorry for me, for what he
did to my family. How could you not tell me sooner?” I’ve been
hanging out with the sister of my wife’s murderer, and I never knew
it.

“I tried to figure out how to
tell you, but the other night at the wine tasting, it felt like a
date, and you can’t date me because of who I am. I’m not a liar.
I’m not someone who tries to con people or hurt them intentionally.
I like you, Trent, but you need to know who I am to make a fair
judgement call.”

Something about what she says
triggers a memory. “You were considering speaking on his behalf.”
Everything about my words and my tone is an accusation.

“I was going to tell them the
truth though. He’s a drug addict who was strung out and was looking
for his next fix. I was never going to stand up and lie. Dom…I
mean…” She takes a steadying breath. “My brother put himself in
jail by doing a most heinous crime, and I’m not going to defend
him. I believe, no, I
know
he needs to spend the rest of his
life in prison. That’s what I was going to say.”

I shake my head in disbelief,
choking on my words as every emotion known to man overwhelms me.
“He killed my wife, Scarlett. He took my little girl’s mother away
from her. She didn’t deserve it.”

“She didn’t and neither did
you. He deserves everything that happens to him. He deserves to
hear your hurt and anger and every other emotion you’re feeling. He
needs to wake up every day and remember what a horrible thing he
did to you, to Kaelyn, and to your wife. He will wake up behind
bars every day because that’s what he deserves.”

I stand, in desperate need of
fresh air. “I need to go. I told my grandmother I wouldn’t be gone
long.” I don’t give her a chance to reply before I walk out.

The rain is pouring, but the
cold droplets feel good against my skin. My emotions are stuck in
my throat and I have no clue what I want to do. I feel pulled in
twenty different directions—from punching something, to feeling bad
for Scarlett because her brother is a murderer, to wanting to sit
in my car and cry over my loss.

Instead, I drive. I drive
aimlessly until my mood calms enough that I can go home. About
thirty minutes pass before I arrive home. I’m still in a daze,
trying to figure out what all of this means, aside from the
obvious.

“Daddy! Where’s my sweet
treat?” Kaelyn runs to me the moment I step inside.

“Sorry, Kaelyn. I forgot it.
I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, okay? Why don’t you go get ready
for bed?”

“But—” she begins to
object.

“Go get ready for bed,” I
repeat with a more direct tone. Her shoulders fall in
disappointment, but she shuffles her feet down the hallway. I walk
pass Granny and into the kitchen. Against what I was hoping, she
follows me.

“Want to explain to me why
you’re sending her to bed an hour early?” she asks as I grab a
bottle of water from the fridge, wishing it were something
alcoholic instead.

I turn to face her and lean
against the counter. “The girl, the friend from the gym, who went
with me to the winery?” Granny nods. “Her brother is Dominic
Davis.”

The words hang heavily in the
air between us.

“Excuse me?
That
Dominic Davis?”

“Do we know another one?” I
comment wryly.

“Oh, Trent. I don’t know what
to say. What did she say? Oh my Lord, did she hurt you? Did she
try?”

I shake my head. “We met at
the gym because she saw me and wanted to apologize for what he did.
Things went from there and she told me tonight because she felt
like I needed to know. She’s a social worker. She helps kids and
tries to keep them in line. She’s not like him, but I don’t know
what to do with this.”

“I’m not going to say I’m
happy with this, but what do you think? You seemed to be in a
different mood this past week. Is it because of her?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I
just don’t know about any of it.”

“I understand, but you know
I’m going to ask if you caused a scene with her. I mean, we don’t
need your name in the papers anymore.”

“No, it was basically a
regular conversation. I left a bit abruptly, but I didn’t do
anything to make someone pay attention to us. I feel bad for
leaving like I did, but I couldn’t keep sitting there either.”

“You feel bad? Why?”

“It’s not her fault she’s
related to him, or that he did what he did, or the fact that I
wanted to cringe every time she said his name. The impact of what
she said and having that day play in my head over and over was just
too much.”

“You’re being very mature
about this right now, Trent, but I can see the rage and hurt in
your face. I know deep down you want to explode, but there’s
something there. Do you...do you like her? It seems like you’re
almost defending her?” she frowns in her confusion.

“I don’t know, Granny. I
enjoyed being around her, sure, but...God, why did the one person
I’ve been able to talk to have to be her? What am I supposed to
do?”

“You do what you always do.
You listen to the little voice in your head. You’ve always made
good decisions. You wouldn’t have spent time with this girl if you
didn’t like her or trust her. Deny it all you want, I know it’s
true. You have been in a good mood for the last week or so.
However, she could be pulling your leg. Her brother is a murderer.
He murdered your wife and the mother of your child. It’s something
one can’t just gloss over.”

“I know what he did!” I
instantly regret raising my voice.

“Then answer this, would you
allow her to be around Kaelyn?”

“Daddy, are you coming to
tuck me in?” I glance over at my precious little girl in her
mismatched pajamas.

“Yeah.” I walk over to her
and pick her up. “What story do you want me to read tonight?”

“
Cinderella
. Can we
have a sleepover in your room?”

“What’s wrong with your
bed?”

She glances down, avoiding my
gaze once I take the book. “I
accidentally
broke my
nightlight. It was an accident, I swear, Daddy. I didn’t mean it,”
she tells me fiercely. “It’s scary without it, but if I stay in
your room, you can protect me.”

“Okay, you can sleep in my
room.” She hugs me tightly as I walk across the hallway. “How did
you accidentally break your nightlight, Kaelyn?” I ask, sitting her
down on the bed.

She lifts her shoulders and
drops them. “I don’t remember.”

I’m too tired to press her,
so I slip off my shoes and lay on the bed next to her. After
tucking her in, I open the book and begin to read. It’s the perfect
distraction.

For most of the week, I avoid
thinking about Scarlett or the question Granny left me with. I
don’t want to think about it, so I’ve been keeping myself busy. My
time is either focused on baseball or Kaelyn. We’ve been talking
about Deborah a lot this week because Mother’s Day is this weekend,
our first without her.

Kaelyn nearly killed me when
she came home from school, wanting to know how she was supposed to
give her mommy her Mother’s Day present if she wasn’t here. They
were making cards at school and she really wanted to give hers to
Deborah. Which is sort of what we’re doing today since I’m going to
be away at games this weekend.

“What are we doing here?”
Kaelyn asks, looking around at all the bouquets of flowers.

“We need to pick some for
Mommy,” I tell her.

“They have to be perfect,”
she says decisively. Kaelyn tugs on my hand, pulling me with her as
she sets out on a mission to find the perfect set of flowers. We
spend an hour in the florist’s shop. Kaelyn has found something
wrong with everything we look at.

“What about these?” I point
to a batch of yellow roses.

“What do they smell like? I
need to smell them, Daddy,” she says as if I should already know
this. I should too, considering she’s had to sniff all the other
ones. I grab it and hold them down for her. She makes a show of
inhaling the scent, pursing her lips, and then scrutinizing every
petal. “I like these the best.”

So, we buy the yellow
roses.

I don’t visit the cemetery
often because I don’t feel like she’s here. While I know Deborah
would understand that, when I see the wilted stems in front of her
gravestone, I feel guilty. I empty the container and place the
roses inside.

“How can Mommy be here and in
heaven at the same time?” Kaelyn asks as we sit down on the
grass.

“Well, once you’re an angel,
you can do things like that.” Hopefully, she’ll accept that answer.
“Do you want to read what your card says?”

“Mommy will be able to hear
me?”

“Yeah,” I nod.

“But she won’t be able to see
my pictures,” she frowns.

I take a deep breath to calm
myself. “She can. Remember how I told you that Mommy watches over
you even though you can’t see her?” Kaelyn nods. “So, since she’s
watching over you, she’ll be able to see what you drew.”

Kaelyn lays the card on the
ground in front of us, holding it down as if it might blow away
even though there’s not so much as a breeze. “I’ll put it here
while I read it, so we can all see it.”

“Tell us what it says,” I
encourage her.

“Happy Mother’s Day, and I
drew a heart because I love her. Mrs. Wells had to help me with my
‘e’ because I almost forgot it. I thought I was going to have to
start all over, but I didn’t.” She opens the card. “Then I drew
some more hearts and all of us. Mrs. Wells showed me some pictures
of angels when I asked. They had wings and a halo-thingy, but I
didn’t think Mommy would like that, so I didn’t draw them. I drew
her favorite scarf though.

“I forgot we were supposed to
write something on the inside until I drew all my pictures and then
I didn’t have any room. Mrs. Wells said I could write on the back
though. She helped me with it.” She turns to the backside and reads
what she wrote. “I wrote: I miss you Mommy and I wish you weren’t
in heaven so we could make cookies. I wanted to add that Granny
doesn’t let me have as much cookie dough as Mommy, but I ran out of
room again.” Kaelyn looks at me, worried. “Do you think Mommy likes
my card? Even though I didn’t have enough room and messed up on my
e?”