by Voss, Deja
Right now, I’d rather not, though. This is good enough for me.
My glory days are over. I’m too fucked-up to do the whole American dream, settle down with a nice woman and have some babies. I’m perfectly fine being a washed-up old bartender slinging beers at the local dive.
“Hey, hot stuff,” Kendall whistles as I walk through the back door and hang up my coat on the wall. She slaps my ass in a way that I’m sure I’d get fired if I reciprocated, and I roll my eyes at her. Her bright red lipstick has migrated from her lips to her teeth and she looks like she’s halfway in the bag.
“What’s it been like today?” I ask. The place is smoky, the lights are low, and an old racist country song blares from the jukebox. I’m glad she gets to deal with the daytime crowd, cuz these old dudes and I don’t really see eye to eye on a lot of things. Maybe it’s because they all remind me of my father. Women-hating, racist, more than eager to tell me all about how my generation is ruining the economy. When you’re a Marine, you don’t get to pick and choose who you take a bullet for, but protecting their right to be assholes wasn’t really my game plan.
“The usual,” she shrugs. “Thank God for Captain Morgan, or I’d probably be in jail right now for assaulting the elderly.”
She’s got me cornered in the hallway, and she’s pressing her body up against mine, staring up at me, batting her eyes. It’s not that she’s an ugly girl by any means, but I’ve already hit that. More times than I’d like to admit. Kendall is desperation, pity, and a warm body on a night when you’re too loaded or lonely to know any better.
“What are you doing after work tonight?” she whispers. “We haven’t hung out in a long time.”
“I’m sorry. I’m busy.” I grab her by the shoulders as gently as possible and move her out of the way. “And who’s even watching the bar right now?” I know I’m a good-looking guy, and I have no problem picking up women. I keep myself fit, and even though my hair is starting to get a little silver, it only seems to enhance my sex appeal. Unfortunately, I’m also kind of a crazy magnet. The kind of chicks who are into me are the kind of chicks that are good for a fuck and chuck, but they always want more from me.
Gary thinks it’s a blessing, but to me, it’s this curse that I just can’t shake. It’s karma for what happened to Ava. The only good chick that ever happened to me, and I was too big of a pussy to protect her from my old man. The only chick I didn’t want to throw out of my bed. Gary doesn’t care, he just scoops up my leftovers and they commiserate over what a huge asshole I am, and then bang.
The bar is pretty quiet, just a few old dudes lingering and my boss, Pat, drowning his sorrows in a tall glass of something brown.
“Sergeant Boden,” he says, tipping me a quick salute.
“What’s up, Pat? You alright?”
I know that most of our clientele here are not “alright.” We’re a bunch of veterans with nowhere better to go, trying to figure out where we belong in this world. I’m lucky in that I don’t have a family anymore, so I don’t have to worry about trying to fall back in with them, but I know his relationship with his wife and his kids is frequently strained.
I pour myself a beer and bullshit with him for a while, waiting for the day crew to turn into the night crowd. I flip through the channels on the TV, turning it to the basketball game that’s about to start. The local news is on, and everyone turns their eyes to the weather report like it’s the most interest thing we’ve got going on in our lives.
Kendall is cleaning off tables, dropping glasses and staggering around, and I get out my phone to call her a cab.
“Holy shit,” Pat says, staring up at the TV. “That’s some sick shit right there.”
The newscaster is standing outside a dark house, interviewing a police officer. I cringe when I see the familiar county name run across the bottom of the screen. It’s not every day my shitty little hometown makes national news, but when it does…
“It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” the police officer says. You can tell he’s visibly shaken by the way he keeps slapping his hand over his mouth like he’s about to throw up. “You know, I love dogs. Got four of my own, but something went really bad here.”
I look up at the TV screen and the camera zooms out, showing the outside of the house.
“Holy shit,” I accidentally stammer out loud. Pat looks up at me, and I pretend like I’m texting someone. That’s Grandpa’s camp.
I only listen to bits and pieces of what she’s saying, words keep popping up like ‘house of horrors’ and brutal dog attack and ‘murder-suicide.’ I’ve done a pretty good job of covering up my past and running away from it, but knowing that my father is likely up to his old tricks is enough to take me right back to that day all those years ago, and everything is starting to go black, my ears ringing and my head pounding. My PTSD started long before Iraq. Picturing myself there is more pleasant than thinking about my father.
“The victims have been identified as twenty-two-year-old Delaney Hoffman of Canton Ohio, thirty-year-old Tim Phoenix of Pikeville Kentucky, and town local sixty-three-year-old Moses Boden. Their families have been contacted and local police and FBI are currently investigating this case. If you have any leads or information, you’re asked to contact the local police department.”
“What a bunch of sick fucks,” Pat stammers. “Who the hell feeds people to dogs? That’s some next-level shit right there, and I’ve seen a lot of shit in my day.”
I am paralyzed; my feet feel like they’re cemented to the floor. I know exactly what kind of sick fucks feed people to dogs. Hell, they’re my blood. But if what they’re saying is true, it means my father is dead.
“Moses Boden, huh?” Pat asks. “Is he like your long-lost uncle or something? Aren’t you from Pennsylvania? You know these weirdos?”
“I don’t think so,” I say, lying through gritted teeth. I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life actively avoiding my family, abandoning my brothers and sister, staying far far away from that mountain I was raised on, the motorcycle club I would’ve laid my life down for, all because of this one man. The day I left, I pledged I was never coming back until the day he died.
Now that he’s gone, though, I still don’t want to. That’s not my home anymore. I haven’t so much as talked to my family since two Christmases ago, and it was because I was so hammered and lonely that I thought the sound of my sister’s voice was a good idea.
It was not.
I spent the next two weeks holed up in my bedroom with the blinds pulled, wishing that Gary didn’t have all our guns locked up in the living room with an alarm on the case. It’s pretty bad that we both know each other well enough that we need to be on twenty-four seven suicide watch.
I chug my beer and toss the empty glass in the sink. I’m gonna need something a little harder to get through the night. I grab Kendall’s wrist as she sets some empty bottles on the bar top and whisper in her ear, “What do you got in your purse?”
She smiles from ear to ear, those lipstick stained teeth of hers looking like fangs covered in blood, fresh off a kill. “You name it. You know I never mind hooking you up, but you gotta promise you’re coming home with me tonight.”
There’s a tightness in my chest that’s telling me that’s a bad idea, but maybe if I get high enough, I’ll have no problem forgetting what I just saw. Maybe it’ll be enough to stifle the temptation and curiosity that’s taking over my brain, making me want to go back to where I came from. Maybe it’ll be enough to fill the void that’s never left my heart from missing my family but being too ashamed to face them.
Or maybe I’ll just end up dead, too, stuck in hell for all eternity with the man I’ve spent the last fifteen years running away from.
Chapter 4
Amber:
“Go get the box, Tony,” Aunt June says. The look he’s giving her is fear mixed with dread, a look I’ve never seen him give her before. “She deserves to know. She’s not a little kid we can prote
ct from the truth anymore.”
“I know that,” he says. “I just… you ladies are going through a hard time, and you’ve been drinking… I just don’t think right now is the appropriate time. Maybe we should do this in the morning?”
“Go get the box, Tony,” I slur. I’ve found that vodka is much more palatable if you mix it with chocolate milk. I’ve also found that Aunt June is much more fun to be around when she’s a few martinis deep. She’s a lot more open. The life of Ava is something we didn’t discuss ever, especially not when my mother was around. Everyone always tried to pretend like she never existed. There were no pictures of her in our house. Her old bedroom was just a room where my mom kept her treadmill, not even a single trace of her to be found. Still, to me, she always took up space in my head. I was always looking around for signs.
“I want to show you something,” I whisper when Tony leaves the room. I pull my wallet out of my purse and slip out the folded sheet of paper I tore out of that dirty magazine all those years ago. It’s a little yellowed now, and a giant crease runs right down the middle of her forehead, but I cherish this picture like it’s the most valuable thing I own. I slide it across the island and June chuckles when she realizes what it is.
“That’s Ava alright. Where in the world did you get this?”
I tell her about the incident over fifteen years ago, and she shakes her head.
“Caroline would’ve shit a brick if she knew you had this. God, she looks gorgeous though. Much better than the last time I saw her.”
“I miss her a lot, Aunt June. I know I was only five when Mamma kicked her out, but for some reason, she always stayed with me. The worse Mamma’s disease got, the more I wished she was around. I always prayed she would just show up at the house one day and we could just pretend like nothing happened. We could just start all over again.”
“Your eyes are leaking,” she says through a thin smile.
“So are yours,” I tease.
Tony returns to the kitchen with a big brown cardboard box and sets it on the island. June holds up the picture of Ava and shows him my prized possession.
“That’s our Ava,” he laughs. “That girl definitely didn’t care what anyone thought about her.”
I don’t know why, but when Aunt June takes the lid off the box, I feel like all the wind is being sucked out of me. She’s always kept track of my important documents for me because, even though I’m pretty good at taking care of Mom, making sure I have every single paper I’ll ever need for the rest of my life isn’t my strong suit. I know she has stuff like my birth certificate, social security card, and records of my vaccinations and stuff in there. What else, I’m really not certain.
I smile at the little plastic ponies that sit on top of all the paperwork. I sure loved those things, and it’s obvious by the way their plastic painted eyeballs are worn off. I pick one up and smell its nappy mane. It makes me homesick for the house I grew up in.
“I just want you to know that I understand if you’re upset with us, Amber, but we were just trying to protect you. I want you to know how much Caroline and I love you and want the very best for you. We never wanted you to feel like you were anyone other than who you thought you were, a little girl with a mother who loved her more than anything in the world.”
“Okay…” I say, completely confused.
She takes a deep breath and starts thumbing through papers in the box. “This is a terrible idea.”
“You opened that box, love. There’s no turning back now,” Tony says. “Besides, the longer you wait, the harder this is going to be.”
She’s clasping my birth certificate in her hand. She slides it across the counter to me, and even though my vision is a little blurry, I can read it perfectly fine.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask. “Is this some kind of sick joke?” That’s me, that’s my name, but on the line where Mama’s name is supposed to be, it reads Ava Conrad.
I slide it back across the kitchen counter to her and jump up from my stool, heading for the door, too stunned to cry, too stunned to yell, my mind reeling in a million different directions.
“Amber, please, we need to talk about this. You need to hear me out.”
“Uncle Tony, will you please drive me to my apartment?” I ask. “Or do I need to call a cab?”
While this voice in my heart is telling me that I need to stick around and get answers, that I have to face this head on because it’s not going to just miraculously go away, my brain is filled with rage.
Why would everyone in my family spend all these years lying to me? I have done nothing but dedicate my life to being a good daughter, a good niece, and they couldn’t even give me the decency to tell me who my real mother was?
And furthermore… what kind of shitty mother just dumps her child on her grandmother? I am infuriated that I wasted so many years putting my ‘big sister’ on a pedestal, praying for the day she would come back, being infuriated at my ‘mother’ for sending her away.
“Burn that shit,” I growl, watching as she pulls out photo albums, framed pictures, and thick folders full of papers. “Burn it all.”
“Please, Amber. I know this is nuts. I have been dreading this day your entire life. It keeps me awake every night. I just need you to hear me out.”
“My life is a lie, June!” I reach for the doorknob, and Uncle Tony wedges himself in between me and the door.
“Listen, Amber,” he says softly. “Give us five minutes. Your life is not a lie. I mean, I’m still your uncle. June is still your aunt.”
“Great Aunt,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Sit down and listen to us, and I promise if you still want to go home, I will happily drive you. Please?”
As angry as I am that I put my trust in these people all these years for them to lie to my face every single day, I can’t deny the fact that they have always been nothing but kind to me. I can’t deny the fact that they are the only people I really have in this world. I can’t deny the fact that no matter what, at the end of the day, I do love them, even if they’re not who they say they are.
I leave my shoes on and stomp across the white tile, just to show her that I mean business. Maybe it’s childish, but I don’t know how else to get my point across.
“I want you to know, first of all, that Ava loved you very much. There was never any question about that. She wanted you very much, too. She was so happy when she found out she was pregnant with you, she totally turned her life around. No more partying. She moved back in with your mother and started taking classes at community college. She was going to be a nurse.”
I try to picture that woman I barely remember, that woman I only really know from the picture ripped out of a porn magazine, going to nursing school.
“Why did she leave me then? Why did she let Grandma pretend to be my mother all those years?”
I can tell she’s wracking her brain for a delicate way to put things.
“I love my sister, I really do, but she can be a very difficult woman. In one way, you were lucky that, by the time you were a teenager, she had already started losing her mind, as bad as that sounds. When Ava was a teenager, she was very mean. She was very controlling. I don’t blame her for some of the choices that Ava made, but she definitely could’ve handled the way she dealt with them a little better.”
“I don’t get it,” I say. “If Mama was that mean to her, why would she leave me with her? Why wouldn’t she want better for me?”
“I can only speculate,” she sighs. “But I think, in her heart, she thought she made the best choice for you. I imagine that if I had someone telling me every day that I was a horrible useless person and that I was not fit to be a mother, maybe I would start to believe it, too.”
I don’t know what to think. If Ava really loved me that much, I don’t understand why she would abandon me. I don’t know why she would just run off and leave me here to live a lie without even so much as a phone call every once in a while.
“She
just ran off when I was five and never came back? Never called? Never sent a letter? And you don’t worry about her? What if she’s hurt? What if she died? What if she has the same disease Mama has and doesn’t have anyone to take care of her? It’s genetic, you know.”
“You have such a kind heart, Amber,” Uncle Tony says, wrapping me in a hug. “You’re always putting other people before yourself.”
I feel like there is so much more to this story than any of us know. I feel like there’s no way that Ava abandoned me by choice. My ‘mother’ is too far gone to tell me what actually happened, and in a way, I’m kind of sad that I never really knew who she was. My real mother, though, she’s gotta be out there somewhere, and if I still have a chance to know her, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get to her.
“Where is she?” I ask. “Where did she go?”
“It’s hard to say. She was always kind of a gypsy; she was always looking for an adventure in the seediest places. The last time she called me, she was hanging around with some biker gang. That probably explains this picture.”
“That’s all she said?”
“She told me to tell you that she loved you and missed you. And I did.”
“You think she ever reached out to Mama?”
She smiles sadly and shrugs. “I guess we’ll never know.”
“I’m gonna find her,” I say point-blank. “It’s been so long. She has to know by now that she’s welcome here. If not, I’m going to be the one who tells her she is.”
“I don’t know, Amber. Don’t you think you’re opening yourself up to a pain you might not want to have to deal with?”
I slug down the last of my vodka and chocolate milk and go to stand up, but my legs feel like noodles. “I think I’m pretty good at pain at this point in the game,” I say. “What’s the worst that could happen?”