by Nicci Harris
* * *
One for every day I can’t show you with my actions.
I swear I'll never say it again, little one.
M
Max
* * *
Four months later
* * *
Metal doors scrap through metal tracks, revealing the red dirt yard and hundreds of incarcerated bastards with no one to impress but each other. That's a sad and dangerous fucking reality. The stale heat is thick as I stride through it. Some men glance my way with stiff nods while others cast their eyes low.
Some of them laugh and mock and beat their chests because there is fuck all else to do and it feels good to be noticed. They would never admit it, but it's the lingering feeling of neglect they feel behind these walls that slowly dissolves their person. It's the world of free people so fucking close their presence can be heard - their cars, their horns, their music. It's fucking psychological warfare. These 'badarse' men are reminded every day that they have been left behind.
"Don’t let Butcher hear about him."
At the mention of my name, I stop in my tracks and narrow my eyes on the sack of shit who spoke. "Explain."
"New guy," Jones says, gesturing towards a slender rake-looking dickhead with his head hanging low. He's clearly weak as piss. I bet he's a snitch.
"Rat," Jones confirms, chewing on tobacco with his mouth open.
I crack my jaw, knowing that Jones just wants my permission to start a fight. "Anyone would think your last name is Butcher, Jonesy, with the way you fucking want vengeance for us. Do you wanna suck my dick? Is that what this is all about?"
The six men around him snigger. The belittling sounds make me smile. The lot of them sit casually around their table as though they are out for a drink with the lads after a hard day of making minimum wage. These guys call themselves The District Crew. They're all in here for crimes that took place under our management and orders, but that doesn't mean they matter to me anymore than the wife bashers, paedophiles, and snitches.
There are maybe four men in here that I would consider my friends, a handful that I have a use for, and the rest are lucky I want to get out on good behaviour.
All lucky, except one.
Jones's face falls, the cocky expression he usually throws around faltering. "Just don't like people ratting on us."
"Us?" I scoff with a shake of my head. There is no us, dickhead.
Scowling over at the new rat, I massage my fingers along my tense jaw. He's going to have a hard enough time guarding his virginity; he doesn't need a warning from me.
Catching sight of Lars from across the yard, I make my way over to him. He's near my age, but we don't share facts like that. If we talk at all, it's to say something important. We both have a healthy respect for silence; watching and listening are far more powerful skills to foster.
I suppose, most women would think Lars is a sharp looking man despite the jagged gash running the length of his left eye. The iris is cloudy-blue and redundant but that disability doesn't hold him back.
I stroll straight past him, and when he falls into step beside me, we navigate our way down the hall. The predictability of incarcerated life is treacherous for anyone who finds themselves with a target on their back. I can anticipate with great accuracy where half the pricks in here will be at any given time.
Which is how I know we have seven minutes to get the deed done from the moment we stride into the toilet block to the moment we leave.
My pulse quickens with the onset of adrenaline.
We pass one of the female guards, her cheeks pinkening when I grin at her. The door is in view, and like fucking clockwork, Mathews strolls out after his morning wank.
We step inside, ducking into a cubicle each. We wait. The pipes creak, the taps drip, the cleaning lady switches her vacuum on in the adjacent room, and I smile.
Reaching into my green scrubs, I draw out a plastic pen. It's red. I didn’t notice the colour when I snatched and stashed it three weeks ago. There was a crazy search squad trying to find this fucking pen. For nearly seven days we were in lockdown, but then they found it. They found a pen. A black pen.
This one is red.
I love you.
Ripping off the plastic plug, I draw the ink tube out with my teeth and thread it down the drain. I don't want it to be red. Now with only the clear plastic column, I squeeze it in my fist. The piece of shit we are stalking has one week left before his release, after servicing nearly thirteen years of hard time. Fuck, he was so excited when he told me. "Heading straight out to find my little girl," he said. "She's a knockout."
I grin to myself.
We wait.
The door opens and we both jump out like fucking animals. I clasp my palm over Donavon's open mouth, silencing the break of his imminent howl. Lars grabs his arms, pinning them to his sides as he helps me manoeuvre the heavy bastard. Donavon's feet shuffle, trying to stay balanced, in control, upright. We drag him into a cubicle.
Lars presses his back to the door as I force Donavon to his knees. Slamming his cheek onto the lip of the bowl, I press him into position. A good position to get drained by a Butcher. Tilting his head down, I brace his neck with my grip and stab the plastic column an inch below his ear.
The whites of his eyes scream at me.
Stab.
His body convulses violently.
Blood pisses out and into the bowl.
Stab.
My arm vibrates as he thrashes around beneath it.
Stab.
I bend to his level, making damn sure he can hear my voice as I snarl, "Konnor Butcher says congratulations on getting parole."
Stab. Stab. Stab.
Cassidy
* * *
803 I love yous later
* * *
I pad down the hallway towards Bronson's room, shaking my head through a sigh. This happens more often than I can count. I still when I see Clara with her front paws up on the windowsill. I wander to stand beside her, placing my hand on her fluffy brown shoulder as we peer through the glass together. When she rears up on her back paws like this, she is at my height. I had her DNA tested last year. She is part bernese mountain dog and part german shepherd - both big dogs. Clara is a lot of things. Playful. Loyal. Powerful.
Timid is not one of them.
She is just like Max.
I let him in. . .
I had to work hard to enjoy the thought of him, the memory. At the beginning it was impossible to love him from afar. With that affection came so much pain, so much loneliness. I was terrified for him and what he might have been reduced to. A magnificent lion in a cage, his natural instincts crushed, his every moment at the will of far less impressive beings. I was overwhelmed by sadness.
* * *
"While I'm in, I need you to be the bravest you have ever been. Don't disappear in here. Be you. Bubbly. A silly little girl. Soften my brothers' lives."
* * *
I'm trying, Max. I'm trying.
Looking back on that first five months, I suppose I had succumbed to a kind of depression. Every happy event was shadowed by his absence. Seeped into my bones, into marrow, it festered there. I was low. So low I could barely move.
* * *
"I had no idea how good it would feel to make you smile. Fuck me, I’d do just about anything to make you smile."
* * *
I worked hard at smiling for him; the sad smile that now accompanies his memories, but a smile, nonetheless.
When Clara acts like Max - broody and protective - I like to imagine him kneeling down and giving her a pep talk about what he expects of her while he is gone. Her floppy puppy ears flipping to the side as she tilts her head, listening intently to her master. I imagine him telling her to cuddle me every night. To lick all my tears away. To growl whenever a stranger approaches me. To bite any male who touches me.
I imagine this a lot.
With my sad smile.
Max is never to be disobeyed; he'd be very
proud of her.
Pulled from my thoughts by her wagging tail, I catch the taillights of a car as it pulls away from the house. I scruff her crown, tighten the drawstring around my waist, and finish making my way to Bronson's room. Without knocking, I push the door open.
"No mommies," I hear her say through a giggle, her voice coming at me from under a canopy of sheets - a blanket forte. The multicoloured fabric hangs like shade sails through the centre of the bedroom with one pegged at the front to create a wall. I press my lips together to stop my grin because I shouldn’t love this so much. I should be firm and consistent with her. I want us to keep to a routine - I really do. All the ladies in my mother's group say that it is all about a steady routine so that our children feel safe and understand what is expected.
Ugh!
Those ladies don't have a completely love-struck Nànnu and four Butcher boys constantly stealing their child away - they aren’t that lucky.
We could leave, begin a life of normality. Of structure. Our new house in Brussman is finished, has been for a month now, but I don't want to be there without him. So having the boys a few metres away, a constant interruption, a constant distraction, is a great comfort to me. Even if it means no rules, chaos, and a lack of schedules.
I run my fingers down my face, still waking up. "It's six. You should be in bed, Kelly. We spoke about this. We don't leave the room until the sun comes up. Remember the light? Bright out the window?"
Her high-pitched plea meets me again. "Uncle Bonson pay."
I let out a long sigh and try to address the other 'adult' in the room. "Bronson?"
"Tell her that I'm a troll," Bronson whispers.
She giggles. "I. A. Toll."
"No, I am a troll," he mutters with feigned secrecy. "Not you, Outlaw."
"Am. A. Toll." She tries again.
"Yeah, he's a troll alright. Trolling my schedule," I murmur through a chuckle. "Okay, I'm going to have a shower. Have you at least changed her nappy?"
"Tell her trolls eat nappies." I hear a nom nom nom sound and Kelly burst into a fit of laughter, her broken giggle contagious. He must be pretending to eat her belly or something; I'd recognise that overexcited sound anywhere. Shaking my head with a huge smile etched in my cheeks, I leave them to act like toddlers together.
I nod to myself; at least her nappy is clean.
Or ingested.
After a shower, I get dressed in a pair of black leggings and a dusty-blue shirt and begin my morning ritual. As I sit down on the mattress and pull the bedside drawer out, I can hear Kelly and Bronson wandering down the hallway. She screeches with excitement about something. I dig into the drawer in search of Max's letter, riffling around to no avail. My chest aches as if a fist has broken into the cavity and is squeezing my lungs. I yank the entire drawer out, dislodging it from its track. I slide onto the floor with it in front of me. Where is it? Why can’t I find it?
I need to cross it off.
Frick, what if Kelly took it? I jolt up and rush through the bedroom door as flashes of Max's letter in tiny pieces or covered in crayon nearly brings me to my knees. Clara follows me with meaning; she reads me and is on high alert. As I hurry down the staircase, I twist my wedding rings with my thumb, rotating the bands around my finger. A habit that has soothed me since-
"Daddy!"
I jerk to a stop, my feet and lungs motionless.
Warmth spreads through me and only one person has that effect on me. In my peripherals I can see him, but I don’t dare twist my head in case it's a lie. A mirage. His face in a shadow. In a crowd. I was so often crippled by hallucinations of him.
Gripping the railing for dear life, I try to stay upright, but my legs lose form and structure and buckle. I don't look down. Don't look at him. I hear Clara growl with uncertainty. Her response to the shift in energy, the quickening of my pulse, the gathering of my pieces, all the pieces that have been missing for so long.
Unable to walk or even stand, I just sink down onto the jarrah step. Staring straight ahead, I take a few moments to come to terms with what is happening.
Eight hundred and three?
Is that the last one?
Is he here?
Is it a trick of my eye? I can't let the fight go.
Slowly, I lower my uncertain gaze and see Max squatting at the bottom of the staircase. I clasp my hands over my mouth, sobbing relentlessly into them.
It's him; it's really him.
I know this because he's. . . different, beautifully so. A lion in the wild - the king of the fricking jungle. He's wearing jeans and a white shirt, the sleeves bunched up around his biceps 'cause that's his style. His physique is strong and defined, perhaps slightly leaner than when he left, and that cool smile, oh my God. With those deep-set grey eyes and expressive dark brows set into that masculine face. . . he's sheer perfection.
Watching him intently, I wonder if he feels my eyes on him like a tangible caress. I wonder if butterflies are dancing in his belly. They are pirouetting in mine.
Kelly has stopped just a few metres away from him. Her wispy golden-blonde hair is in a pile on top of her head. I show her pictures of him every night, saying "Goodnight, Daddy. We love you." I have told her stories and made him seem almost magical. He's Santa, The Easter Bunny, and The Tooth Fairy combined - he's legendary.
She blinks at him, awestruck by his presence. They stare at each other with matching grey-blue eyes. His mouth moves, saying something to her that isn’t audible from where I'm perched. Kelly shuffles slowly over to him, stopping within an arm's length. They are talking now. She swings her hips nervously from side to side, like she isn’t sure how to act or respond.
I shake my head into my palms, watching the exchange.
Please don’t be asleep.
Fearful I'm in an amazing dream again, I pinch the skin on my forearm, wincing as I do. But my baby girl and my man are still there. . . chatting. She is a talkative little thing when she gets started, reeling off words she learned that day, connecting them in nonsensical ways. He nods as if he understands. When she moves into him and wraps her chubby arms around his neck, he envelops her tightly against him, lovingly, dipping his head into the crook of her neck.
He squeezes his eyes shut, holding them like that for several long beats of my heart. His shoulders move as he tries to control his breaths in and out. The butterflies in my belly are getting dizzy; they really should slow the frick down.
When they release each other, Kelly bands Max's finger with her little hand, ready to show him the house or the yard or her new trampoline, ready to take him on an adventure. But Max. . . he looks emotionally exhausted by the moment. He grips his forehead before briefly dragging his hand down his face and then across his eyes.
No, wait. . .
Is he crying?
Clara moves to sit beside me and the staircase creaks, the sound steeling my spine, knowing it was loud enough for-
Max drops his hand to his side.
I suck a sharp breath in.
Turning towards the sound, he lifts his gaze up to meet me and I. . . I can't. His eyes mist over further when they connect with mine. I jump up and run away from him, back down the hall and into our room. I rush into the bathroom, move into the shower, and desperately turn the faucet on. Sitting down on the tiles in my yoga pants and shirt, I let the water create a kind of white noise, soothing me, buying me time.
I wasn't always brave, Max.
The door opens and I cuddle my knees in tight. Just like the unapologetic menace he is, he walks straight into the shower, clothes and all, and sits down opposite me. His gaze moves like a magnifying glass over me, scorching a trail that feels tangible - traceable. When I finally look up, finding his gaze too hot and distracting to ignore, he's staring at me with such intensity I am surprised that he hasn't scarred me.
Swallowing hard, I try to consider what to say. What to- "You're here." Well, that was stupid and obvious. . . Well done, Cassidy Butcher. . . "You have your clothes on."<
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