Until the Stars Fall From the Sky (22 page)

Heather snorts after a second of complete befuddlement as she replies, “Honey, maybe you need glasses, but even on the days I can fit in my skinny jeans, I don’t qualify as a little bit of anything. My name is Heather, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you Heather, I’m Ty,” he responds as he takes three giant steps forward crowding her space until her nose is touching his chest. “See what I mean? Compared to me, you’re just a small fry.”

Heather gasps and blushes bright red. She slowly backs up and begins fanning herself with the hot pad that she is holding. She looks up at him after a beat and quips, “Oh there were plenty of fries involved. How do you think I got all this extra padding?”

I haven’t had much of an opportunity to hang out with Heather yet, but Kiera has told me
so much about their friendship that I feel like I am her friend by proxy. I know that she has been criticized by others for her size since childhood. So, she tends to be self conscious about her curves and deflect a lot of pain with humor.

Ty takes off his hat, runs his hand through his short-cropped hair, and replaces his hat as he walks around Heather in a slow circle. He sighs heavily as he half mutters to himself. “What is it with naturally beautiful woman? Do you’all go to some sort of secret class that teaches girls that boys like toothpicks that eat like rabbits and talk like asthmatic eight year olds? I happen to like my women with real curves, eatin’ real food and speakin’ in their real speakin’ voice
— not some little girl falsetto. You look right pretty to me Gidget.”

I discretely cough
since they’ve completely forgotten that I’m in the room. I hold up my paint covered hands and look up at Ty with a playful grin on my face as I ask, “Can I interrupt your flirting session long enough for you to open the door for me? You do realize you’re trying to hit on my girl’s best friend, right? So, you better treat her right.”

“I was just trying to give the woman a compliment,” Ty replies, shrugging
. “I’m finding it remarkably tricky to do.”

I turn to Heather and qui
rk my eyebrow as I inquire, “Why you giving him a hard time?”

Heather cast
s her eyes down to the ground as she answers, “I wasn’t really trying to be rude. I just thought he was kidding. Your friend can be a bit overwhelming.”

“Heather, if I choose to joke with you, I can promise you that you’ll know al
l about it, Darlin’”, Ty remarks brushing one of Heather’s blond corkscrew curls that had escaped from her Rosie the Riveter bandana out of her eyes.

“I guess I’ll consider myself forewarned, Cowboy,” replies Heather tartly.

Kiera whips around the corner, her braids flying behind her. I grin when I take in her appearance. “I knew you were helping Tara with the mural, I just didn’t realize you were doing it with your nose and pigtails.” I tease as I grab a clean shop rag and get it wet with warm water and gently start wiping the paint off her face.

“Jeff, I can do that!” she exclaims with exasperation, grabbing the cloth. “I’m not a baby. I just lost my balance trying to paint dragonflies in Mindy’s room.”

“I know you’re not,” I retort. “It just gives me the perfect excuse to touch you and kiss you right here.” I kiss her nose, “and here,” as I kiss her cheek, “and here — ."

“I see your point and concede, my PC,” replies Kiera with a laugh as she kisses me. The green paint on the tips of her pigtails adds to the design on my paint-splattered shirt.

As I’m kissing Kiera, I hear the door open and I hear my mom’s voice drift in, “Jeffery, I hope you don’t mind, I substituted pasta salad for potato because I thought it’d keep better in the heat. I brought a new grape salad that got good rankings on Pinterest too. Oh, hi dear. You must be Kiera. Well, no wonder my son fell in love with you. Look at that gorgeous hair.”

“Geez-o-Pete,” Kiera mutters under her breath, “you could have given me some warning that I was going to meet your parents today. I would have dressed much differently and put on some makeup.” She grabs the wet rag from the counter and attempts to clean her hands. After she dries her hands, she holds her right hand out for a handshake.

My mom grabs her hand and shakes it without hesitation as she reassures Kiera, “I’m Gwendolyn Buckhold, Don’t be silly Kiera. We barged in on your remodeling project. You’re supposed to be in work clothes when you paint. That’s the best part of decorating. I’m excited to help. I can’t wait to meet the girls.”

I put my arm around Kiera’s shoulders as I say, “Mom, this is Kiera Ashley and she is very, very important to me. It’s like Grandpa used to say, she’s my everything. The girls are an amazing bonus. You’re going to lov
— ”

Just then, my stepfather lets loose with a string of profanities. After he stops to take a breath, he shouts, “Shit, I don’t even know what to call you. The ‘dream team of diversity’? Nightmare is more like it. It’s bad enough that I had to take in Gwen’s mutt’s and raise them as my own when everyone could tell they weren’t mine. Your stupid sister went and had a bastard of her own. I thought I was in the clear with you. I thought you were smarter than that,” he paces as he continues his rant. Obviously, you’re as dumb as the rest. You had to do her craziness one better. You’re going to marry a fuckin’ retarded cripple. She probably can’t even put out which is why you have to go and steal someone else’s kids.”

For a second, it is so quiet that I can hear the sound of each person breathing. I hear my mom quietly gasp.

“Kevin Delbert Buckhold, turn around and get your pompous, no good ass out of this house and out of my
life and don’t come back. Ever!” my mom demands firmly. “You can have your precious name and influence. I’m tired of taking your abuse. I will not have you insulting my children or the people they love anymore.”

“Well, you are just an ungrateful bitch,” my stepfather pouts sulkily as he spits in my mother’s face, “I should have just killed your bastard kids when I took their wisdom teeth out. I almost did, but I wanted you to see them suffer.”

I start to step forward, but Kiera puts her hand on my elbow to stop me. She nods at Ty who takes his badge from his back pocket and clips it to his front belt loop. She catches her dad’s eye. Denny walks over to his gun safe, removes a handgun, and hands it to Ty.

“Mr. Buckhold, you’ve already been asked to leave once and as the property owner
, I’m going to ask you again, more politely than I’d like to, given the circumstances. I will spell it out. You are not welcome in my home.  Please leave immediately.” Kiera declares calmly but firmly. “Make one move to hurt any of us or the kids now or in the future and things will not go well for you. If you think you can intimidate me by calling me a few names and throwing a few cuss words in my direction, you’ve got another thing coming. In my job, this is just another day at the office. The good news for Gwendolyn is that I like her and I love her son, so she’s going to have allies she never dreamed of. So, given the fact that my Dad served in Operation Desert Shield, Tara kick boxes, I trained with Olympic swimmers, Jeff’s a lifeguard and Ty’s a law enforcement officer, I’d cut my losses and just leave if I were you.”

“I’ve taken self defense classes at the senior center,” offers Gwendolyn, helpfully.

“I’ve taken it too. Well, not at the senior center; I took mine at the Y,” adds Heather as she quietly hands my mom a napkin to wipe her face.

Kevin snickers as he sneers, “They must not have taught you much, since I beat the shit out of you a couple of weeks ago.”

“Well, there you have it. We all have something to contribute. If you don’t cooperate, Mr. Buckhold, things could be awkward. See, the really interesting thing is that because I have a life-threatening condition, my home is video monitored and everything is recorded off site. The best thing for you to do would be to turn yourself in to the officers standing outside the door. If you’d feel more comfortable, Ty can escort you,” Kiera responds, cool as a cucumber.

Even I’m not sure if she’s bluffing. Given some of the stuff we’ve done in all of the rooms of this house, I’m not sure which outcome I’m rooting for.

“Shit, there’s nothing I hate more than a smart bitch,” he whines. “Fine, I’ll leave, but you won’t win. I can always find her. I’ll never let her go. I’ll kill her before she gets away.”

Sure enough, as Kevin walks out the door, there are police officers waiting for him. He can’t seem to resist the urge to make a lewd gesture with his hand at his crotch and flip the women off.

Denny smiles and taps a small sign from a security firm on Kiera’s front door that I’ve walked by many times. It says “Smile! You may be recorded by home surveillance.”

I raise my eyebrow and glance over at Kiera as I murmur, “Seriously Pip? A heads up would have been cool.”

Kiera blushes fire engine red and snorts as she answers my unspoken question, “Relax PC, It’s only activated if I push my panic button.”

“Okay, that makes me feel slightly better given how we’ve been known to wander around the house. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but that doesn’t mean that I want to share you with some horny security guys. By the way, it would have been helpful to know you have a panic button when you were having your health crisis.” I state emphatically.

“I know,” she acknowledges. ”To be honest, I forgot Dad bought me the system because I wasn’t allowed to use it in the dorms in college. So, after you brought up your concerns and with the girls coming, I had him dig it out just to be safe. Besides, I wasn’t really having a health crisis, I was having spasms. It’s different.”

“I still think pain is dangerous for you. So, we’re going to avoid it if we can, okay?” I argue.

Kiera smiles at the absurdity of the conversation as she says, “I think I can agree to that goal.”

“I hate to ruin this little Kodak moment, but are you guys saying we have video proof that my husband has been hurting me?” my mom asks, her voice trembling.

I walk over to my mom and as I hug her, I lay my cheek along the top of her head. I pull back and look into her eyes as I reply, “Barring any technical difficulties, I think that’s exactly what we’re saying, Mom. You now have the leverage you need to be free.”

My mom sinks down onto the arm of the couch and starts to tremble. Denny walks over to her with a glass of sweet tea and a plate of Heather’s appetizers. “Honey, take a sip and have a bite to eat. The adrenaline is gonna hit you in a bit and this will help settle you. For the record, what you did was incredibly brave. That scumbag was a flaming idiot to harm you or your kids in any way and obviously too stupid to realize it,” he says as he walks over to the sideboard and picks up a cell phone that was casually propped against some books. He slowly pans it around the room, then clicks it off as he adds, “One thing you don’t ever have to worry about again is whether we have your back. I pushed the record
button on this baby as soon as I heard him raise his voice. I see too many weird situations on the road to let this stuff fly.”

A tear slides down my mom’s face as she tentatively takes a sip of tea and eats a small bit of pita bread with grilled tomato and cheese. “I know you must think I’m awful too,” she whispers in a tortured voice, “I tried to leave when Jeffery was six, but then he threatened to rape Donda. I had to stay for my baby
— she was only eleven. Then, she got so sick with the anorexia and the drugs. After that, I had to stay so we could afford treatment.” Her shoulders sag in defeat.

I look at my mom in complete shock as bile rises up in the back of my throat. I scrub my hand over my face and take a long drink of root beer before I take several deep breaths and ask, “You mean, all of those years I begged you in tears as a child to rescue us--that’s what he was using to keep us hostage? Why didn’t you say something? Mom, I worked for the prosecutor’s office, for Pete’s sake. We could have buried him under the jail.” I shake my head in frustration.

Kiera slips her arm around my waist and gives my hip a light squeeze as she responds to my mom, “I’m sure Gwendolyn wishes she could have done things very differently, but life doesn’t have a rewind button. Gwendolyn, I know a lady is never supposed to ask these things, but are you over 21?”

“Yes, I would say so! I turned 66 in March. Jeffery was my surprise ba
by,” she retorts, “why?”

Kiera reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone as she replies, “This call has been going to the on-call person at my work in case we needed assistance. As a mandatory reporter,
I’m required to report your abuse to the police because you are being subjected to elder abuse.”

“So, it’s not just going to be my word against his this time?” my mom asks, her eyes starting to brighten with hope.

Denny steps up and starts to lay his hand on her shoulder then drew it back and stuffed it back in his pocket. “No, ma’am. As near as I can tell, everyone in this room is willing to step up and testify on your behalf, not to mention that you have a surveillance tape and two cell phone recordings. I’d say his goose is pretty well cooked,” Denny advises with a tight smile.

“Don’t forget that the dumbass fully confessed to a truckload of stuff even after I identified myself as a LEO,” adds Ty with a smirk. “I hope he likes prison food.”

Donda comes out of the nursery and pulls the headphones out of her ears as she announces. “I was jammin’ to my iTunes up on a ladder while I was painting dandelion seeds and butterflies and you’ll never guess what I saw.”