by Hamel, B. B.
“I was going to tell you.”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to tell me anything.”
“I do. I’m living in your house and you barely know me at all.”
I hesitate. The girl’s got a point there. “Okay. I see what you’re saying.”
“I want you to know about me. I really do.” She looks back and I can see how haunted her gaze is. “I’m just afraid that if you know it all, now how my life was there, you won’t want me around anymore.”
“That won’t happen.” I walk over and sit down across from her. “I promise, Kim. What that man did to you—”
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t, okay?”
“You were fifteen.”
She closes her eyes. “I know.”
“You were fifteen and living in a cult. That guy told you to do something, so you did it. You can’t hold yourself responsible for any of that.”
“I am though.” She opens them again, almost pleading. “I am responsible. I said the words. I married him.”
“Was it legal?”
She hesitates. “I don’t know,” she admits.
“Might not be. Hell, probably isn’t.”
“So what?”
“So, it means you’re not really married.”
She laughs. “On a technicality.”
“Right, exactly. The best way.”
She shakes her head, the smile slipping from her lips. “I know you’re trying to help. I’m just not ready.”
“Okay.” I stand up and look at her for a long moment. “You’re right about not knowing each other. How about we fix that.”
She looks up again. “Yeah?”
“Let’s go to dinner. We can go to the diner. Annie likes it there, she won’t be too much trouble. We can talk about things.”
“Really?”
“Sure, if you don’t mind eating where you work.”
“I don’t mind at all. Luanne will give us the best table.”
I laugh. “They’re all good.”
“True.” She smiles. “Okay then. Tonight?”
“Tonight.” I walk to the coffee machine and pour myself the dregs. “I’ll leave you alone for now. Come find me if you want to talk.”
I walk to the door.
“Erik.”
I look back.
She smiles. She’s so dazzling and gorgeous. “Thanks. Really. I don’t deserve this.”
“You deserve a lot more than you realize, Kim.”
I leave the kitchen, trying not to let her see the rage that’s still seeping through me.
That fucker. She was fifteen fucking years old. That motherfucker.
But at least we’ll have dinner tonight. We’ll talk, get to know each other. I’ll tell her about my past and she’ll tell me about hers.
And we’ll both try to forget that fucking bastard and what he did to her.
Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid. I’ll hunt him down, pull the gun like she did, but mine might be loaded.
I put my arm around my daughter. I pull her close.
Fifteen years old.
Fuck that piece of shit.
* * *
We get a booth toward the back of Luanne’s. A waitress named Cindy is working tonight and she smiles at Kim as she puts down the menus. “Y’all need anything to drink?” she asks.
“Just water for me,” Kim says.
“I need juice.” Annie stares up at me and I laugh.
“Apple juice if you have it, for the girl,” I say. “And I’ll have a Coke.”
“All right then.” She smiles and heads off. Annie squirms so I pull out a coloring book and some crayons for her. She dumps them out and goes to town, scribbling away happily.
“You know, I think she keeps confusing ‘need’ with ‘want.’”
“Yep,” I say, grinning. “She’s a toddler. Doesn’t know the difference. To her, it’s all the same thing.”
“Lucky girl.” Kim sighs. “I wish I could just need things.”
“Don’t we all.” I ruffle Annie’s hair and she glares at me before coloring some more.
“I don’t think I thanked you recently for getting me a job here,” Kim says.
“You don’t need to. It wasn’t exactly selfless.”
“Still, it’s a big deal for me. Everyone’s really nice here, you know.”
“I know. Luanne’s a good person. One of the first people I made friends with when I moved into town.”
“I like her.” Kim smiles as the drinks come back. I give Annie her apple juice and she sips it delicately before going back to coloring.
I tell her more about the town, about moving in for the first time. “The place was a dump,” I say. “Seriously, way worse than it is now. I had to fix holes in the roof, get rid of mold. It was terrible.”
“Oh, god. That must’ve been a nightmare.”
“It was, but I got it for a great price. I mean, I didn’t have to put down any money on a mortgage. Just bought it outright. And it’s great now, but man, it was a nightmare for a few months.”
“The guest house is pretty nice.”
“I worked on that as soon as I got the main house in decent shape.”
“What about Annie? Did she mind?”
I shrug a little. “I’m not sure she even noticed. She was so young when we first moved in. It was all I could do to keep my head above water.” I stare down at the table for a second. “Those were hard days.”
“I can’t even guess,” she says.
“I had just lost my wife. Quit the only job I ever knew and loved. Moved to a town I barely knew with a little six-month-old girl who was hardly sleeping through the night anymore. I had to find a pediatrician, get her sleep schedule down… my whole life was this girl and that house.”
I don’t mention the mourning, the horrible nights of not sleeping. Or, worse, the nights where I’d wake up sweating and looking around for Stacey, convinced she was still alive.
“Sounds a lot like how it was when I first left the commune. There was no time for… I don’t know, for being a normal person. It was just survival.”
“You were on the run for a long time. Did you ever settle anywhere?”
“A few places. Never for long though. This is the longest I’ve ever been in one place since leaving the commune.”
“Honestly, I can’t imagine. The strength it must’ve taken… really, it’s amazing.”
“I don’t know. It was mostly fear, you know?”
I want to ask more but Cindy comes back. We order food and I ask for fries and chicken fingers for Annie, who barely seems to notice anything around her. Give that girl a shark coloring book and some crayons and she’s good for at least forty minutes.
“That’s the thing about being brave,” I say. “I saw it a lot on the force. I saw a lot of crazy things, a lot of brave people. And every single one I ever talked to said that they were scared out of their minds.”
“Really?” she asked. “Like what?”
“This guy had a four-year-old son with him and they were out driving home after peewee soccer practice. It was late, he got a flat, and some guys robbed him. The thieves wanted to take the car, but his son was still in there, and anyway, the tire was half off. He tried to argue and things got bad, they got into a fight. But the guy didn’t back down and eventually the thieves ran off.
“I remember asking him, what the hell were you thinking, fighting like that? They could’ve killed him. But he just shook his head and said his son was in the car, he couldn’t let them take his son. He said it wasn’t about being brave, it was just about doing what he had to do despite being afraid.”
She chews on that for a long moment and takes a sip of water. “I guess I get that,” she says.
“Brave people aren’t fearless. They’re just acting despite the fear. I think that makes you pretty damn brave.”
She laughs. “Okay then. I guess I’m the bravest person you’ve ever met, because I’ve been acting d
espite the fear ever since I ran away. I don’t think I’ve spent a single night without fear… well, until I moved in with you.”
I smile at her and reach out without thinking. I take her hand in mine and hold it for a second. “Good,” I say.
Eventually, we talk about simpler things. I ask her what pop culture she’s familiar with, what shows she’s seen, movies and books and all that stuff. Her background is eclectic. Apparently, old time cowboy films were popular on the commune, probably because that weird shit Mark is into them. She likes jazz and female vocalists, and I’m more into rock and the blues.
Our food comes and we laugh as Annie goes to town on her fries. She laughs back and things feel good. We talk more about the town, about people I’ve met, about my job.
“It’s not a great gig, but it’s flexible and it pays. I still have money from when I left Chicago and I have a good amount in savings, so we’re pretty good.”
“Ever think about going back into law enforcement? I bet you could, if you wanted.”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Sometimes. But I don’t know what I’d do with Annie.”
“Daycare. Or I could watch her.” She laughs a little. “You’d have to pay me though.”
“You agree to watch Annie all day every day, I’ll pay you handsomely.”
“Deal.” She grins at me. “But you gotta tell Luanne that I quit.”
I laugh and shake my head. Annie demands our attention before I can tell Kim that I’m more afraid of Luanne than I am anyone else though, and so we end up watching her play with her chicken fingers instead of eating them.
Dinner finishes up, I pay the bill, and we head home. We’re smiling and laughing and I have an arm around Kim’s shoulders. I know I should be thinking more about what her mom said, about Kim being married, but I’m not letting myself.
That’ll come. We’ll have to talk about it eventually. But for now, I’m not worrying. I refuse to worry.
We get back home and I put Annie to bed. When I’m done, I call Kim upstairs and bring her into my bedroom.
“If you wanted to get me alone, you could’ve just said it,” she says.
I laugh and gesture for her to join me. “This isn’t about that. I mean, maybe in a little bit, if you’re good.”
She rolls her eyes. “What’s up?”
I open a box and dump it out. Inside are all the little things I saved from my life in Chicago.
I show her my old badge. “Cool, huh?”
She takes it and weighs it. “Very cool. I didn’t think they’d let you keep it.”
“There are a million of these all over the place. And anyway, cops take the whole impersonating thing pretty seriously.”
“It’s heavier than I thought.”
“Yep, it’s no joke.”
I show her pictures of my friends from the force, a commendation from my superiors, even a map of the route I used to work before I became a detective.
“This was my life,” I say. “But now it’s just in a box.”
“You should go back.” She sits on the bed, tossing the badge up and down. I snatch it from the air and slip it into the box. “Seriously, you should.” She leans back on her hands and tilts her head back, her hair spilling down her shoulders.
I put the box back into the closet. “How do you know I even want to do that?”
“You keep talking about it like you miss it. I think it’s pretty obvious you want to go back.”
I glance away. “Yeah. I guess I do miss it, okay?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s just, as much as I love Annie, I miss having a purpose. I love being her dad, it makes me happy, but I miss helping other people, too.”
“I get it. You were doing a good thing when you were a detective. You want to do that again.”
“Exactly. I feel like it makes me a bad person, though.”
“You’re not.”
I sit next to her on the bed. Our shoulders are touching and she tilts her head at me.
“Listen,” I say softly. “I want to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“It’s about your time back there on the commune.”
“Yeah?”
I hesitate. I want to find the words, but it’s hard. I don’t want to ask, I know I probably shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.
“Do you miss it?”
She bites her lip. “I miss parts of it.”
“Which parts?”
“The purpose. Sort of like you miss your purpose as a cop, I miss waking up and knowing what my job is every single day.”
“I get that.”
“We all worked together, you know? We cooperated with each other. When I had a shitty day, someone would be there for me, and I’d be there for the others when they needed me. It worked, you know?”
“I hear you. I can see why you’d miss it.”
She leans her head on my shoulder. “But I don’t want to go back. I won’t ever go back, honestly. It’s true that I married Mark, but we never… you know.”
I go tense. “Consummated?”
“Yeah,” she says. “He wanted to but I was just fifteen. I was scared. So we didn’t and he didn’t press for a little while. But then I got older and started to feel disillusioned… and he started wanting to sleep with me more. He’d beg me, push me, and although he never physically forced me, he tried every single trick possible to try to wear me down.”
I’m quiet as she talks. I didn’t want to know this, and yet I’m morbidly curious. I can’t help myself.
“I never gave in,” she says and laughs. “I bet that sounds like a lie, but it’s the truth.”
“I believe you. The kind of person that can pick up their life and run away from a bad situation like you did has to be incredibly strong.”
“Or just stubborn.” She sighs and picks up her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I really am.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I feel like I owe you a lot.”
I put my hand on her thigh. “Honestly, Kim. You’re allowed to have secrets. I want you to have them.”
“I’m sick of secrets.” She puts her hand on mine. “I really, really am. My whole life was secrets. I want to be done with that.”
She leans forward and I kiss her. It’s a simple kiss, not intense, nothing more than just the perfect taste of each other. She breaks off and smiles at me a little bit, her head cocked to the side.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go watch The Wire. I want you to tell me how they get it wrong.”
I snort. “You’d be surprised. It’s actually pretty accurate.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I take her hand and stand up. “Come on. You’ve got a lot of learning to do.”
She laughs as I lead her downstairs.
We sit on the couch. We turn on the TV. And we forget about the world for a little while.
Tonight was about being normal. And I think it worked.
21
Kim
It’s weird how just trying to be normal can make me feel so good.
On the commune, the message was sort of mixed. We talked about how everyone was in this thing together, how we all needed to work as one if we were going to make it through.
But we were also constantly told that we were special. That we were the chosen ones, picked from the herd to work with Mark, to spread his word about Balancogen. I went through life thinking that I was special, that I was better than everyone else. I was a part of something bigger than myself, but that also made me lucky and blessed.
Now though, I’m starting to see how that was all just a lie.
Nobody’s heard of Balancogen outside of the commune. Mark was always going on about how it was a growing religion, how people were beginning to see the light. We were spreading our word, he said, just by working so hard on the commune, by allowing him to preach.
That wasn’t true. Nobody knows about Balanc
ogen. I’ve been on the internet and there’s almost nothing about it. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve spent my entire life believing I was the center of the universe, but really I was just hiding away in a tiny little corner of a huge place.
It should make me feel small and terrified. And in a lot of ways, it does.
But being with Erik helps that. Hanging around the house with Annie, laughing and doing chores and cleaning the dishes, it all helps. Going to work at the diner, meeting new people, smiling and laughing… it makes me feel normal.
I think I’d give up feeling special and blessed if I get to feel normal instead. Especially if that special feeling is all just another bullshit lie.
“Good night tonight,” Luanne says to me one evening about two weeks after my mother stopped over. She hadn’t come back since and I’m starting to think she never will.
Hoping, at least.
“Not bad.” I count my tips out and grin. “Looks like I’m rich.”
Luanne whistles. “Girl, don’t spend it all in one place. Or do, I don’t care what you do with your own damn money.”
I laugh at her and fan myself with the mostly fives and singles.
“I gotta ask,” Luanne says before I go. “You’ve been living with Erik, right?”
“Right,” I say.
“What’s going on there?”
I hesitate. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, a young, pretty girl like you living with a good-looking man like him…” Luanne shrugs. “Folks are talking.”
“Nothing’s going on.” I frown at her. “People are talking?”
“Of course they are, this is damn Summersville. There’s nothing else to do but talk about things that don’t matter, especially about other people’s business.”
“It’s really not a big deal. I just… live in the house. I help out.”
“You pay rent?” she asks.
“Yeah, I still pay rent.”
She laughs a little. “Good for him. That’s a damn good deal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he gets a pretty girl around the house to help out with chores and watching the little one, plus he gets rent. Damn good deal, if you ask me.”
I narrow my eyes. “I still have my own place out back.”