Brothers South of the Mason Dixon

by Abbi Glines

  My feet moved me forward. I had no control over my body. It was as if it knew what needed to happen. I had come here without thinking about it. The fact I was in a tee shirt and nothing else proved that. I had needed to be here with this book facing this demon. This hell had been all I’d known until Dixie. Until her parents let me come to their house. Not once having a clue they were giving me the only joy I had ever experienced. The family dinners I was a part of with them taught me that life wasn’t a twisted place. That drug addict mothers and sexual abuse wasn’t the norm. There were real families.

  I stood on the porch. It was in need of a new paint job. The white cheery outside was peeling and things seemed worn. Forgotten. My father had given up appearances it seemed. My mother had never truly cared. She just needed her next fix. If she had a supply of narcotics she was good.

  I held the pink diary in my hands. It was slightly damp where I’d gripped it tight as I walked from the car to the house. This tiny book held the secrets of this house. The memories I wanted to erase. The past I wished hadn’t been mine. Or anyone’s. Not even my worst enemy would I wish this life on.

  My fingertip pressed the doorbell. The familiar chime played loudly. She was here. Her car was parked out front. I didn’t even know what time it was. I left my phone back at the trailer. I had nothing but my strength. I wasn’t that little girl anymore.

  The door opened after several minutes. Before I pressed the bell again. Hungover, aged and worn out, my mother opened the door. She squinted as if I had woken her up at six in the morning. It had to be after twelve.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she slurred her words. The woman who had birthed me had never wanted me. She wanted a life she would never lead.

  “This,” I said holding up the pink diary in my left hand. “I am here because of the words in this diary. A child’s diary, Mother. Words written by a little girl who had no one. Not one goddamn soul on this planet to care for her. Protect her. Not one!” My voice had grown hysterical. I could hear the hysteria. I didn’t care if I was yelling. I didn’t care if neighbors heard me. Where had they been? When men were coming and going from this house with a child inside. Where were they?

  “What are you talking about?” she snapped at me, still squinting against the afternoon sun. Her wrinkles were showing her age too soon. The tone of her skin was closer to yellow than tan. The drugs were aging her faster than fate would.

  “The secrets of my childhood. The fear. The terror that my world consisted of. That’s what I am talking about. The moments you used me for your addiction. When I should have been playing with my dolls without tears in my eyes.” I stopped and inhaled deeply. My throat felt tight.

  “Are you here to bitch to me about that? Jesus fucking Christ, Scarlet. You lived. You liked it,” she spat. “Just look at the whore you turned into. Chasing boys like Bray Sutton. You’re no better than me. Go ahead and judge me, girl. But you weren’t planned. I didn’t need or want a child. You came anyway. I had to find a way to deal with this shit life.”

  Her words should have hurt me. They should have damaged me. But those times were long past. I had survived this woman. I wasn’t lost. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t unlovable.

  Saying more seemed pointless. I hadn’t come here to listen to her talk. I had started to hate the sound of her voice years ago. Instead, I slid the book under my arm and pulled a match out of the pack in my hand. Then I struck it. The flame burned orange and I took the diary of my past and held the flame to it until the pages caught fire. The orange glow grew and I was mesmerized by the way it felt. Seeing those horror stories slowly burn bright.

  “What the hell are you doing?” my mother screamed.

  I lit another match and dropped it on the dry rotting rug under my feet then stepped back as the flame took hold of the aged straw. I could hear my mother screaming at me but I ignored it. Much the way she ignored my cries as a child. When men I didn’t know touched me in places that hurt. In places no adult should touch a child.

  Match after match I lit then dropped at my feet, then moved back waiting for it to catch fire to the wooden porch. Finally, it did. The rugs flame was strong enough to catch the wooden porch in its heat. Stepping off the porch, I began to light the bushes on fire. Thankful for my good fortune they had very little rain this spring.

  In the distance, I heard sirens. I heard my mother screaming at me to stop as she ran out to the road for safety. I heard it all. I just didn’t give a fuck.

  Seeing this part of my life burning like the hell it was, cleansed me. Was it revenge? I don’t know. But it felt freeing. With each flame, each flicker, every crackle from the wood that had housed my nightmares, I was freed.

  Bray

  “YOU HEAR FROM Scarlet’s boss?” Brent asked me.

  I shook my head as I stood with my hands buried in the front pockets of my jeans. Dallas had been in surgery for over six hours now. All we knew was there had been no internal bleeding. Ethel hadn’t responded about Scarlet and when I called again, the woman that answered hung up on me before I could get a complete sentence out. She’d simply said “We’re busy.”

  “Lunch hour just ended. She was probably busy. Must not have been an emergency. Give it a few. I’m sure she’ll call.” Brent’s attempt at trying to comfort me would have been nice if I wasn’t a fucking ball of nerves.

  Scarlet wasn’t answering her phone. My brother was in surgery fighting for his life because of a fucking wild mustang I told him to stay off of and I couldn’t be at two places at once. How did I leave here until I knew how Dallas was? I didn’t know if anything was wrong with Scarlet. She hadn’t replied or called. Hell, she could be angry I ran off. None of those things warranted me leaving the hospital when my family stood waiting for word on Dallas.

  “Yeah,” I finally muttered. I didn’t believe that. Ethel should have called by now. There was something going on. Something no one was fucking telling me.

  We stood in silence. I watched as Steel paced over by the window I had stood at earlier. Momma sat in her seat with her head down and lips moving in silent prayer. Asher stood off in a corner talking to Dixie in a whisper. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, but in front of us she tried to appear strong.

  I took my phone out to check it one more time. Nothing. Not a text. Not a call. Nothing.

  I bit back the curse I wanted to yell in frustration. I needed to know Scarlet was safe. I should have fucking calmed down and thought things through this morning. That note wasn’t enough. I’d been so damn worked up and terrified that I had ran. My one thought being I had to see him. I didn’t want to lose my brother and I sure didn’t want to lose him without seeing him one more time. To say the shit, I should have said to him when I had the chance.

  The doctor walked into the waiting room as I fought to control my train wreck of emotions and nothing else mattered at the moment. We all stilled. No one spoke. Afraid to say anything, we waited. Prayed. Stopped breathing. Anything to save Dallas. The next words spoken we knew would be the most powerful we had heard since our father was killed.

  “He came through,” the doctor said. But that wasn’t enough. We all remained in our spots. Waiting for more. Did that mean he was going to live? Did that mean he was still in critical condition? We needed more details.

  “Dallas has suffered a fractured skull. It’s not the worst I’ve seen but it’s not anything to brush off either. He is in a medically-induced coma and will be for a few hours up to a couple of days. The brain is adjusting. Healing. He won’t, however, stay like this.”

  My chest eased. Oxygen began to flow easier. We still waited for the full picture.

  “Dallas will suffer from monoplegia. Not because of a spine injury, but because of the brain injury. Although he will be sore and he is bruised it wasn’t a spine issue.”

  “So he won’t be paralyzed?” Asher asked with the hope we all held but were too frightened to ask.

  “Monoplegia is paralysis.”

  Th
ose three words took the wind from us all. Not a sound. Silence. Dallas would never accept a life where he was paralyzed. Bending at the waist I put my hands on my thighs and breathed deep. He was alive. I had to focus on that.

  “Monoplegia is a paralysis of a limb. From what we saw before surgery Dallas couldn’t move is legs. This may be temporary. It is very common with a brain injury and with physical therapy many people regain the use of the limbs or at least a great deal of use. If not all.”

  No one said a word. We stood there taking it in. Trying to imagine a world where our charismatic, pretty boy baby brother was paralyzed. It seemed impossible. Like a bad dream.

  “Is he going to live?” Momma asked.

  The doctor nodded. “Dallas is no longer in danger. He will recover, and yes, Mrs. Sutton. Your son will live.”

  At those words Momma let out a cry and clung to Asher who was standing beside her. The doctor looked to Asher who nodded. “Thank you. For saving Dallas,” he said. We all wanted to say it but only Asher had the strength.

  The doctor smiled. “That kid is a fighter. I don’t think he ever considered dying. I’ve never seen someone fight that hard to live.”

  Momma cried harder and Steel came up on the other side of her and held her there. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. Her two eldest sons held her up. Supported her. Brent and I looked at each other.

  Once the doctor was gone the room was quiet except for the soft cries coming from Momma. I didn’t know the right thing to say. I wasn’t good at this kind of thing.

  “He’s going to live. And with his determination he’ll be walking by Christmas,” Brent said.

  The ring from my phone interrupted anything more and I jerked it out of my pocket.

  “Hello,” I said, needing good news. Needing to know Scarlet was okay.

  “We had a busy lunch crowd come in. Without Scarlet being here we are short staffed. I had to stay. I figured she was sleeping. She’d be fine. After lunch cleared out, I went on over to her trailer. Drove up and her car was gone but the front door was standing wide open. For just anyone to walk inside. I carry a gun and I grabbed it. My heart was pounding as I made my way to the door. I got there and I saw her purse sitting right there on the table with her phone. When I called for her she didn’t answer. I looked all over that tiny place and she wasn’t in there.”

  Ethel was rattling on about calling the police and asking the neighbors who I figured were too stoned to be helpful. I saw Asher step away from Momma and take a phone call before I finally stopped Ethel’s never-ending run-on sentence. “You can’t find her and her car is gone?” I asked needing to know if this was the basis of what she knew.

  “Yes, and the cops don’t think it’s foul play because her purse and money and all is right here. Not touched. But why would she leave all that? Take off and leave her door open? Something ain’t right.”

  I agreed. I was about to ask to speak to an officer when Asher stepped in front of me. I pulled the phone from my ear in case Ethel tried to start talking again about inane shit.

  “The Moulton Police station has Scarlet,” he said.

  I dropped the hand holding the phone and waited for more. How had the cops here gotten Scarlet if she was in Robertsdale?

  “Why?” was all I could think to ask while my brain was scrambling to figure it out.

  “Arson,” he said simply. “Her parent’s house.”

  Those were only four words. But Asher had no idea just what they meant to me. They explained it all.

  “She’s refusing to put on the clothing they are providing. All she was wearing when they got there was a black tee shirt several sizes too big. That’s it,” he finished raising his eyebrows.

  I didn’t need details. I just needed to get to her. It was time she was protected. I’d be damned if I let the fucking bastards who raised her pin this shit on her. She wouldn’t suffer any jail time. I’d go to fucking prison for her if I had to. Fuck the goddamn system. They didn’t know what she’d lived through.

  “Her car was found just inside the city limits on the side of the road out of gas. They said she walked to her parents’ house, then used matches and” he frowned before continuing—“a diary to start the fire. Or something like that. It’s ashes now but her mother told them she started the fire with a diary.”

  My heart slammed against my chest at those words. I began to run. There was no time to explain. Words couldn’t adequately get through to them exactly what the significance of his words meant. Not unless I told them her secrets and I wouldn’t do that. Ever.

  “Bray!” Brent called out. I didn’t stop or turn around. “Do you need me?” he added.

  Not “She’s not worth it” or “You can’t leave Dallas,” but “Do you need me?”

  If I was a sensitive man I might have teared up at that, but I wasn’t. I stopped running, turned to the man that was not only my brother but my twin. “They deserved it. Whatever she did, they deserved it. Now she needs protecting. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  Brent didn’t hesitate. He nodded. “Call me. If you need backup. Just call.”

  I stood there for the second it took to let that sink in. It wasn’t just words. It was forgiveness. The only way a Sutton boy knows how to deliver it.

  “I will,” I said. Without another moment to spare, I continued running to my truck, then I broke every speed limit in the town until I parked my truck in the police station parking lot.

  Scarlet

  “WHATEVER THE BAIL is I will pay it. But she’s leaving with me.” At the sound of that voice, my head snapped up and I looked through the bars of the holding cell I was in. Thankfully they hadn’t taken me to the actual jail area with the other criminals they had back there.

  Bray was here. I’d found out Dallas had taken a life-threatening fall from a horse. He was in surgery and could be dying from what one of the officers we had gone to school with had told me.

  Why was he here?

  “Bray?” I said his name as I stood up still wearing his shirt. I’d refused to wear the ugly uniform they put on prisoners. I wasn’t a prisoner. I was an arsonist, but they couldn’t hold me if the owner of the property I’d burned down didn’t press charges. And the man I called father a good portion of my life had called about ten minutes ago from Utah and told them to release me.

  Bray took three long strides to get to me. His expression fierce. “I’m getting you out. Don’t worry. We can fight this.”

  His hand reached through the bars to touch my face.

  I started to tell him there was nothing to fight. But the look of love and protectiveness in his eyes stole my words. It was new and I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it. This feeling. Knowing I wasn’t alone in the world. Not anymore. The anger I’d had when I saw he had my diary had dissipated as I watched the pages of it turn to ashes at my feet. He knew my pain. He knew my monsters. But if he was going to love me then he needed to know who it was he loved. It was time I accepted that and stopped pretending.

  “No need for bail. Her father said no charges and to let her go. It was an accident,” Shane Lowry said as he unlocked the bars in front of me.

  “You locked her in a cell? Are you fucking kidding me, Shane? Did she look dangerous to you?” Bray’s tone went from incredulous to angry so quickly I almost missed it.

  Shane shrugged. “Dude, it’s my job. She’s just in a holding cell. I picked her up wearing . . .” He pointed at me. “That! She had matches in her hands and the porch to her parent’s house was burning in front of her.”

  In other words, he was sure I was insane. At the moment, I thought he might be correct. Who runs out of their house without clothing, their purse or phone drives until they run out of gas, walks the rest of the way, just to burn a house down?

  I sounded mental.

  But the sight of that house burning. The smoke. My mother’s hysterical screams. All of it. Every second was worth it. Somehow it had allowed me to let go. Free all the ugly I had kept
buried inside. Toss it into the flames and watch the ashes float into the air.

  Shane let me out, and Bray was grabbing me and pulling me into his arms faster than I could move toward him.

  “Dallas,” I blurt out, worried that Bray was here and not there.

  “Stable. He’s going to live.”

  I sank into his arms pressing my head against his chest. Relieved that the youngest Sutton boy had another chance at life. He was my only alibi. Until Bray.

  “As much as I like you wearing my shirt I am going to need you to wear clothes before I take you to the hospital.” His eyes were smiling, but he was pretending to be serious.

  I lifted a shoulder. “So my dirty feet and messy hair are okay?”

  He scanned me with his gaze. “Every inch of you is fucking perfect, Scarlet. But if I have to threaten one more man with my glare for taking in those legs and bouncing tits of yours under this shirt it’s going to be me in that cell.”

  It wasn’t time to smile. We had to get to Dallas. I’d just committed a crime that my father . . . was letting me get away with. Was that his last parting gift? His peace offering?

  Whatever it was didn’t matter. What did matter was that for the first time in my life I felt normal. I felt loved. I was enough. The dirty was gone. Burned with the ashes and memories.

  “WHERE ARE WE?” I asked as Bray pulled into a driveway I don’t know in Moulton. We were supposed to come back here today and help Brent move his stuff out of the house and into his new place. I knew his apartment wasn’t a house. And this was most certainly a house.

  “Moulton,” Bray said with a smile.

  “I know that! But this isn’t your momma’s and this isn’t Brent’s apartment in town,” I pointed out.

  Bray opened his car door and stepped out, then walked around and opened my car door. I sat there staring up at him. Waiting on some reasonable explanation for this. Where were we?

  Finally, Bray sighed and reached in his pocket to pull out a key. One single key. “This should open the door.”