“What’s up?”
“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to spend all your money, but I honestly can’t stand the idea of going back to that house tonight. I don’t know who’s out there, why they did it... that scares me.”
“Good. Because we’re staying in a motel tonight and I won’t hear any arguments about it.”
I nodded gratefully. This had been the longest day of my entire life, and I had no intention of arguing with him. The time difference had only given us extra time to be dragged through the coals by the day’s drama and I was tired of it all.
We got into the truck when Clay’s phone rang.
“No more phone!” I grumbled, too tired to put a proper sentence together.
“It’s Law,” Clay replied. “Hey, bro.” He turned his attention to the phone and I felt bad for complaining, because this was the first time he’d dealt with his family stuff while we’d been wading through mine. “Let Barrett know. We’re gonna be in Alabama a little while longer. I’m glad she’s sleeping.”
He put the phone down.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“Alana’s out of surgery and sleeping. The baby’s out and healthy. Clay’s keeping all the details to himself but Alana’s recovering in hospital awhile.”
“I’m glad the baby’s okay.” I wasn’t really sure what else to say.
“C’mon, let’s go get some sleep.”
It was the best idea I’d heard all day.
* * *
Kinsley
I slept in the same bed as Clay, and I should have felt warmed and comforted by that, but instead we might have been on different planets. I lay on my side, almost falling off the edge, and waited for sleep that never came. I was exhausted and lost, but my mind wouldn’t let me sink into the oblivion of slumber.
Clay’s breathing became slow and heavy, and I just lay there while my thoughts plagued me.
Mom had been playing a dangerous game for years, and it seemed like it had finally caught up with her. I couldn’t immediately believe a random accident had killed her. Not my mom. She was stronger than that. This had to be some sort of revenge.
I tried to think through the list of regulars I’d seen visiting the house over the years. A fireman. A pastor. My third-grade teacher. A lot of the men had seemed so normal and respectable, yet they’d all lived this double life.
Then there were the outright dangerous ones. A man who called himself an “entrepreneur” but I saw him sitting in his car around my high school at the end of the day, taking cash for whatever drugs he was selling.
There was the one who always brought Mom a gift. She never asked him where he got them from, but he filled our house with pirated DVDs of films that weren’t out yet. It made me feel dirty to watch any of them, so I just left them on a shelf, gathering dust.
My mom hadn’t led them astray, and I’d never thought it for a moment. There was no doubt in my mind that each and every one of those men had chosen to look outside their homes for sex, and my mom had just been nearby and offering what they sought. She hadn’t been a good person, and nothing would ever convince me her actions were right, but men went looking for her. No emotions passed between her and her clients. She was too dead inside. Had been for years.
I doubted any scorned wife would believe me about that. Had one of them found out where their husband went at three in the afternoon every Wednesday? When they saw my mom, did they mourn the loss of trust in their husbands, or blame the woman? It was easier, when all was said and done, to decide the betrayal was some sort of emotional act.
I’d watched enough movies to know how women responded to cheating husbands. And even if my mom had no feelings toward anything but money, I knew she was still helping men cheat. Letting it happen. Asking no questions. Was someone’s wife out there, now, feeling really good about herself for running my mom off the road? Had she explained away the damage to her vehicle, or quietly driven out of town for repairs?
Wait. Why was I going here? This was ridiculous. Nobody did this on purpose. People didn’t really kill each other in real life. I tried to tell myself that, but the theory took root, in the back of my mind, and before I knew it, I was having a nightmare about an angry mob of wronged women planning vengeance against my mom.
Chapter 9
“Eventually stardom is going to go away from me. It goes away from everybody and all you have in the end is to be able to look back and like the choices you made.” — Matt Damon
Kinsley
We were in Alabama for a week, in total. The cops wouldn’t release Mom’s body for the funeral, yet, which was infuriating but at the same time it sort of made sense.
The hardest part was moving my dad. He never spoke, never moved, like always. But I was sure he understood that Mom had died, and that he was leaving the house. I was scared I might be doing the wrong thing, but when the nurses came to take him to Poppy Sands Residential Home, they were so reassuring.
The very next day, I went to visit. Clay had also called a company who emptied houses and sold anything of value to cover the cost. Everything I wanted to keep fitted in one cardboard box, so I was more than willing to let everything else go.
A realtor had the house on the market by the end of the week. After the mortgage was paid off, there wouldn’t be a lot left. Mostly, I just wanted it gone.
We were on our way to the airport when I got a phone call. We had to go back to Birmingham police department where Officer MacGuire sat in another dingy room and updated us in his usual disaffected tone. I didn’t know what his issue was with just calling to update me, but here we were face-to-face again. I stared so long at the mole on his chin that I started to wonder if it was moving.
“Ms. Bergman? We’ve arrested a suspect and are questioning them. Could you tell us if a Mrs. Helen Greave knew your mom?”
Helen? Helen? “Yeah, she lived down the street. She has a drinking problem.”
“And a driver’s license. We linked her car to the scene.”
“No...” I’d thought it would just be some random driver, or one of Mom’s clients, or maybe the angry wife of one of Mom’s clients. Helen didn’t mean to harm anyone, she was always so friendly to talk to. It didn’t seem fair that she was involved.
I was just taking this in when there was a knock on the door and Officer MacGuire left us alone for a moment.
“I used to feel sorry for her. Everyone knew her. She was always trying to borrow money from anyone who talked to her, but she never paid it back,” I explained to Clay.
“Sounds like she went out in her car when she shouldn’t.”
“I just can’t believe it.” Especially after I’d had those crazy thoughts of people running my mom off the road for being a hooker.
The officer returned.
“We’ve just had a confession. She was drunk and talking on the phone to someone. She says she was driving at sixty but we think it was more like eighty-five. Anyway, all that’s a matter for her trial to decide. We can release the body tonight.”
I nodded. It was strange, but I felt worse for knowing poor Helen Greave was going to jail. It soon gave way to anger, but I couldn’t stay mad at her. She’d been sick for a long time, and no one had been able to get her to quit drinking.
“That’s everything; we’ll release her personal effects to you once the investigation is completed.”
Everything was happening so quickly I started to feel dizzy.
“What happens now?” I asked Clay.
“We stay for the funeral. Then we go back to Arizona and you decide what you want to do next.”
“Funeral.” Just like that, the surreal and fast-moving events caught up with me and my chest got tight. We were actually going to put her in the ground. My mom.
I felt unexpectedly guilty for the way her entire life turned out.
“What are you thinking?” Clay asked.
“If my mom hadn’t had me; if she hadn’t had to take care of me and keep a roof over m
y head...” I finally began to cry properly, slumping down in the cheap, uncomfortable seat and not caring that we had been about to leave the room.
“Then what?” Clay asked, as if he couldn’t guess what I was about to say.
“She could have had a better life.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that her untimely death was my fault, just for being born.
“You can’t know that, sweet one. You just can’t. She might have taken this path anyway.”
I shook my head, and confessed my darkest secret.
“My dad’s accident, the one that paralyzed him and meant she had to find money for his care... he’d been driving to my elementary school to pick me up.”
There. It was out in the open. Now Clay could hate me for just walking out on my parents when their entire miserable circumstances were all my fault. He could go and find someone that deserved him, instead of a shallow, selfish child who had thought going to Hollywood would solve all my problems. I had only wanted to get away from a mess I’d caused.
I hated myself. I was the worst human being imaginable. And I’d been so wrapped up in following my own dreams that I’d never once even stopped to call my parents from a gas station.
Instead of leaving, Clay sat back down opposite me and took my hand in both of his. The warmth from his palms made me feel special.
“You can’t blame yourself for any of this. It’s not your fault.”
I looked up at him with wet eyes that wouldn’t focus properly. “Don’t pity me.”
“This isn’t pity, missy, it’s clear-headed common sense. Your parents’ lives aren’t your responsibility, even if they did everything for you, which I doubt.”
“What would you know?”
“Haven’t you ever wondered why Lawson and me have slightly southern accents, but we live in Arizona?”
Now he mentioned it, I hadn’t even noticed. Oh, God, was there any end to how self-centered I’d been?
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell.”
“My folks moved to Arizona right before I was born. Bought the ranch where they homeschooled us and planted the lemon tree. You know why?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Our grandpappy, my mom’s father, had a very strict idea about who he wanted his daughter to marry. He’d promised a house deposit to a certain young man if only he would wed my mom.”
“He bought your ranch?” I wasn’t following.
“No. This young man was from a good family, and Grandpappy thought he was setting my mom up with a good life, but she’d already found who she was looking for, and it wasn’t Michael Proctor from the big house down the lane. When Grandpappy caught her out walking with Steve Dale, he was furious. He tried to make her stay in her room, in the hope of changing her mind.”
“I’m guessing, since your last name’s Dale, that he didn’t succeed.”
“You guessed right. Mom and Dad ran away and started a life as far from Grandpappy as they could get. And when Grandpappy died, I remember how sore Mom felt, about how ungrateful she thought she’d been.”
“But she didn’t ask for her father to do those things. She didn’t want any of that.” I was failing to see the point.
“And you didn’t ask your dad to drive a certain route to your school. You didn’t ask for your mom to become a hooker.”
“But your grandpappy forced things on your mom that stifled her. This isn’t the same.”
“You’re missing the point because you’re getting all tangled up on details.” He shook his head. “You had no control over your parents’ actions, and you can’t feel bad about the choices they made, when they were the adults and you were the child. You’re still a child, in a lot of ways.”
That annoyed me. I glared up at him. “And you’re an old man who thinks he knows everything about everyone.”
He leaned close, and I caught his scent, immediately defusing the anger that had risen from nowhere in my chest.
“Tell me I’m wrong, little miss,” he challenged, gazing deep into my eyes.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“Exactly. Now c’mon, we’ve inconvenienced these folks enough, I saw a Chick-Fil-A near here and I’m just craving some of their soup.”
Just like that, he had me on my feet and moving. The heaviness in my chest didn’t immediately subside, of course, but I’d listened to him and now I needed time to put my billions of thoughts together.
* * *
Clay
What with all the funeral costs and the huge mortgage her mom hadn’t been able to repay, it turned out Kinsley wasn’t going to have much inheritance at all. Just a few thousand dollars.
“I don’t even know what comes next,” she murmured, as she handed the keys over to a realtor. She was adrift, and while I’d promised myself I was going to let her go and experience life instead of being tied down to my settled life, I didn’t see a lot of options for her right now.
I walked her back to the rental car and held the door open for her.
“Come back to the ranch,” I said, making it sound like an instruction although of course I wouldn’t force her. She sat down and I got in, too, then started the engine.
“I can’t. I have to try to become an actress.”
I sighed and my heart was heavy. I’d known, deep down, she wasn’t just going to let go of this, but at the same time I’d hoped for different.
All the way back to the airport, I told myself this was the right thing to do. Part of being a man was taking rejection with my shoulders square and my head held high. I knew she had to go out there and try to do something with her life. I didn’t want to be her savior, or her second choice. I wanted to be her man. But I knew that wasn’t realistic. While it felt like we’d known one another forever, in reality, we’d only known each other a little while. No time at all, in fact.
Sometimes, the best thing to do to convince someone they were wrong was to step back and let them make their own mistakes and find their own way. I knew that. And if we were meant to be together, she would find her way back to me.
I knew all that in my head, but it didn’t stop my heart aching.
The plane ride was hard. Sitting side-by-side for hours, wanting to ask her a thousand questions, I took to drinking every plastic cup of coke I was offered. For her part, she spent the whole time staring out of the window. We were subtly distancing ourselves even more than before.
The thing that bit hardest was the knowledge that we’d been sleeping in the same motel room all week, and she’d never once let me hold her.
* * *
Kinsley
After the flight touched down in Phoenix and we disembarked, Clay turned to me and put his hands on his hips.
“This is the last time I’m gonna ask. Do you want to come back to the ranch or should I drive you to Los Angeles?”
I shook my head. He’d already done so much, I didn’t want to burden him with any more responsibility for me.
“If you can get me to the bus station in Phoenix, I can make my own way, now,” I told him, trying to be reassuring. He shook his head.
“That ain’t an option. The cash you found in your mom’s room isn’t for wasting when someone’s offerin’ to take care of things. Either you’re coming back to the ranch or I’m driving you to L.A., so choose.”
I sighed, feeling like both those choices resulted in more nuisance for Clay.
“I don’t want to waste your time when I’m not gonna change my mind,” I told him eventually. “I’m going to California. I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t like you. I do. A lot. But I need to do this. I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Then wear your safety belt and let me choose the radio station. C’mon. I’m pretty sure airport parking charges by the minute so we need to skedaddle.”
I laughed at the funny word.
An eight-hour car ride loomed ahead of us. I didn’t know how we were going to act around one another. Everything was over, between us. I’d known it since tha
t first night in the motel, when I hadn’t wanted him to comfort me.
I was still drowning in grief but I was too scared to stay still. I didn’t want to end up like my mom. Men weren’t always providers, even when they had the best of intentions. My dad hadn’t planned on being paralyzed. It wasn’t his fault. But he’d left my mom in a worse situation than if he’d died. She couldn’t move on. Couldn’t let him go.
Had she still loved him at the end?
Thinking about it all made me cry again, but I didn’t want Clay to decide I needed to rest at the ranch, so I kept wiping away the tears and spent a lot of time looking out of the window. He mustn’t know how hard it was, to let him go, or he’d do something thoughtful again and then it would be even harder.
* * *
Clay
I drove Kinsley to Los Angeles and set her up in a motel for a week, because for all I knew she might try and sleep in a dumpster if I didn’t prepay some accommodation. She was used to having absolutely nothing, and she’d made it clear she would rather put herself through hardship than accept help from a stranger, because she just hated inconveniencing people. If she was my submissive, we’d work on that. I’d teach her to ask for help and accept gifts from people.
I walked her to her room. I couldn’t spend months on teaching her about self-worth, but I could ensure I’d done my best to keep in touch.
“Give me your phone.” My tone was slightly abrupt.
She frowned. “Why?”
“Do you trust me?”
She sighed and handed it over. In that moment, I knew this couldn’t be the end for us. I put my number and the ranch’s landline into her contacts then handed it back.
“You get into any trouble, you call. You wake up from a bad dream at two in the morning, you call. The ice machine runs out of ice... probably don’t call me for that. But I want you to call me if you need anything at all. I don’t care how silly it is, I want to know. You don’t have parents to call if you need to talk about things, so you call me, instead. Got it?”
Take Me Hard: Arizona Heat 3 Page 10