Yield

by Jenna Howard

  He grinned and looked away. “I hit a trigger with her and it was bad. It was really fucking bad, Claire.”

  She rubbed his back and rested her head against his shoulder. “You’re good with those. Be careful with this though.”

  “Do you really think Jace will give a fuck? Now? Caring isn’t one of his strengths.”

  “You’re being an asshole, Kolemann.”

  He was. Jace didn’t factor into this. “I’m going to hurt that girl, Claire. She’s…fragile.”

  “That’s part of the process sometimes. She’s survived Belinda and Jace. She’s tougher than you’re giving her credit for.”

  He looked at his ex. Her strawberry blonde hair was in a new pixie cut and her blue eyes filled with a joy and contentment that he had never been able to put there. He had tried. She had tried. His pretty girl. That joy and contentment came from the ring on her finger, from a man who didn’t have to try. “You subs are like that.”

  She grinned and her dimples appeared. “You know it.”

  “Brat.” Her eyebrows rose as she sipped her coffee, looking all innocent. “Have you talked to Daisy lately?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Daaaaaaad!”

  Doyle finished his coffee. “Call Daisy, Claire. It’s seven in the morning, keep it down,” he shouted at Dani. Even from his vantage point he could see her smile. She waved and returned to checking out the tide pools. Claire rubbed his back, then left him. He looked over his shoulder, staring at his cell and with a muttered curse, he opened up a text window. You good?

  Seven, came the response. Seven.

  I warned you about the bratting.

  Zzz.

  Are you good, Kate?

  Yes, Sir.

  Fuck. Even in text it got to him. He shoved his phone into his back pocket. He ditched his mug for a pair of worn sneakers, then went out to join his daughters. Willy grinned at him, flashing new metal over her teeth. “So, are you able to go through airport security with all that?”

  “Daaad.” She rolled her eyes even as she giggled. She grabbed his hand and swung their arms and he admitted that he liked that even at the wise age of twelve she still did that. “Are we still going to work on my song?”

  “Yep. Mind the dead jellyfish,” he said, deadpan. She shrieked, jumped and hit him as she saw there was nothing there. “Just testing.” She had been Dani’s age when she hadn’t minded his warning and stepped on a dead jellyfish. There was no coming back from that. It was, they had decided a year later, better than when she had slipped in the mud and landed on a rotting trout corpse that some bear had passed on. “I thought about what you asked, Will, and I’m going to pass.”

  “But—”

  “If I judge the contest, honey, you can’t enter. I’d rather you enter.” Last night she had pitched him to be a judge in a songwriting contest that had just opened up an under eighteen category. He watched her consider that, then she nodded.

  “I’d rather I entered too.”

  Hooking an arm around her neck, he kissed the top of her head. The German shepherd mix who had decided that both his and Claire’s homes were also his came out of the trees and raced toward them. He gave a happy bark as he discovered a beached log and decided that was his new stick.

  When his marriage had finally gasped its last breath before dying, and after the hot flash of anger had faded, they had sat down to decide what was best not just for the girls but for all four of them. He loved his three girls. They had, in that magic way love did, changed his life. It wasn’t just him being sober but that empty core inside him had been filled. First by Claire, then Willow and finally Danielle. Not being a part of their life had terrified him. Nightmares of pills and overdoses had haunted him.

  After the dust had settled, this was the solution. Claire had gotten the house and he had built on the land next door. There was a well-worn path marching from her place to his where the kids traveled whenever they wanted when he was home. No paperwork saying only weekends. If they wanted to be at his place, they were at his place. Sometimes one, sometimes both. His divorce was better than his marriage. Hell, he had walked Claire down the aisle when she had remarried. Claire would always be his family because of Willy and Dani. Somewhere along the way, his ex-wife had transformed into his best friend. Go fucking figure.

  Only one marriage out of the band had lasted and that was saying something. There were messed up kids everywhere who became secondary. The moment he had held a weird looking alien baby in his hands the job had become secondary. Ironic since he had been so hungry for fame and money, the music a catalyst for a lot of the shit in his life. Despite what he had said to Claire, if he had to pick, he’d ditch Cyanide faster than hell.

  “You’ll come over tonight?” Willow asked.

  He nodded and they both watched Scamp find a smaller stick, what looked like a sapling, carrying it along the beach all proud and shit. A second hand slid into his and he looked down at Dani. “Hey, baby.”

  A happy sigh came from her as she rested her head against his arm. It was an amazing thing to realize he wasn’t fucking up his kids. They weren’t overly spoiled, they weren’t in the eye of a camera, they weren’t putting shit up their nose because their old man did and they weren’t looking at the world with sad eyes. Not bad for an asshole like him. Not bad at all.

  ****

  Chin resting on her bent knee, Kate stared at the sketch pad that had nothing on it. Her finger flicked the drum stick back and forth. Yesterday’s shopping spree at her favorite flea market had landed her a violin case, an old acoustic guitar, and a bag of assorted scrap. The bag had been a gold mine. A collection of guitar picks that were broken, a piano key, a drum stick, a broken guitar string. Oh the beauties that had been bagged up for her, salvaged from things that wouldn’t normally sell. She was currently lusting over an old piano and was trying to justify the cost and adding it to her inventory. She already had two pianos in various states of disembowelment. Did she need a third?

  You betcha.

  But her loft was getting crowded, so denying herself the piano made her heart ache just a smidge. The loft was hers. The minute she had seen it, she had lusted. It had been the high ceilings because that meant high walls. High walls meant storage. One wall was made up of custom shelves that held small items from all kinds of strings to wind instruments to salvaged items off instruments. It had given her a total rush when she had begun to fill them. Instruments in various stages of dismemberment were on the walls like artwork. A gutted cello, her guitar collection. Her two pianos were equally gutted. Heck, she even had a drum kit she had found for cheap at a garage sale. Hanging between her massive track lighting system were all kinds of bows from stringed instruments. Her rolling safety ladder got a hard workout some days.

  Thanks to Cyanide’s manager, she had an endless supply of guitar picks, broken guitar and bass strings, and black drum sticks that had been broken or worn down. She had the broken guitar from when Jace had been drunk and smashed it. She had all the old, dead amplifiers and even a cymbal from Doyle’s drum kit because he hadn’t liked its sound. If the band was given free instruments or accessories they didn’t like, they were in her inventory.

  The majority of her jewelry contained some musical instrument. It had started all by chance, her jewelry designing. Her knotted bracelet had been her first and pretty much only thing that didn’t have music associated with it. She had found a guitar string lying around and she had begun to play with it. That guitar string had snowballed into her loft.

  The black ring on Doyle’s thumb? Hers. She had found herself staring at an ebony piano key a year ago. Since she couldn’t carve worth a damn and the key was narrow, she had found a carver to do the work for her. Two angled lines in a wide based vee so the skin showed and the inside had to be rounded to fit the thumb. That had been the hardest because when had she ever touched his thumb to make sure the wood would rest perfectly? She hadn’t.

  Luck and skill. Once the ring was put t
ogether, and it just looked right to her, she had tucked it into a small ring box and with his name on a blank card, she had left it at the club. Risky. Foolish. When she next saw him he had been wearing it.

  A piece of her was on him.

  She should tell him. Actually, she wanted to tell him.

  Pressing the tip of her finger against the drum stick, she set it rolling across her floor before she impulsively reached for her phone. I have a secret, she texted him.

  His response came a few minutes later. Only one?

  Many. But I’m only going to give one. She retrieved the drum stick and ran her thumb over the tip, studying the edge then down the narrow neck. Beside her the phone chirped a few times. Pressing her thumb against the pale wood, she shut one eye as she looked at a child’s ukulele on the wall. “Well, hi,” she said as she picked up her pencil, frowning at her phone when it nagged her again.

  Kate.

  Second. I gotta do this before it’s gone.

  What?

  Kate.

  Kate.

  She bent over the sketchbook and put the piece down before it was gone. Not that it would disappear, but yeah. Once it was in her head, it was there, but now…now it was tangible. “Fun,” she said as she looked at the drawing. The cherry red of the ukulele’s sound hole with the tip of the drum stick dangling in the middle. Fishing wire, she thought, so it looked invisible. She’d keep the chipped paint surrounding the sound hole because it had musical notes and she’d carve on onto the drum stick. The nylon strings braided to make up the chain for the oversized necklace. “Jamboree.” Not done. She drew a fine line at the bottom followed by a musical note that would sparkle there. Red? Oh yeah, red.

  Smiling she tapped the drum stick on the floor and picked up her phone. Sorry. That was rude.

  Hm.

  Do you still want the secret?

  If it’s that you brat, not really a secret.

  That made her grin. I don’t brat. Do I?

  My hand. Your ass. That’s what bratting gets you.

  A shiver moved down her spine and she flattened her hand on her stomach. You keep saying that and yet…

  My hand. Your ass. Tell me.

  Kate exhaled and realized she was nervous. Really nervous. You know that ring on your left thumb? I gave that to you.

  She shook out her hands and hunched over her phone. I made it.

  I know.

  What? How… You know?

  Now I have a secret.

  Kate stuck her tongue out at the phone and went to retrieve the ukulele. In the bedroom upstairs she had all her heavy-duty machinery. A band saw was against the wall, while a lathe was along the other, and a table saw sat in the middle of the room. Just your normal loft decor.

  Really, she probably should’ve found an industrial workspace, but here she had a view out the large windows of the harbor. The space didn’t feel like a shop class. It felt like a studio. And it was hers. While there were no pictures of her family and she was no longer hoarding images of Jace, this space had Kate Jace Jennings all over it. Her bedrooms at the apartment and the mansion were just for sleeping in. This was where she lived.

  She pulled on her work apron and grabbed her safety glasses. Her phone was set on the low wall that opened up the workshop to the loft, music playing from it. Not Cyanide. Sitting on her stool, she unstrung the ukulele and set the small tuning pegs in a little bucket to be added to the storage shelves. Next she took the ukulele to the table saw, adjusted everything and with a small prayer to the machine gods that she didn’t cut off anything that needed to stay attached, mostly to her, she neatly sliced off the front of child’s instrument.

  Next she dug out a compass, marked her cut line plus her destination line and slowly cut the circle out. Sitting on the floor, with music filling the space with happy beats, she began to sand. Forget meditation, this was her zen. When the light began to fade from the windows, she finally turned on her lights and returned to smoothing the wood. She loved it when the circle became a true circle, when the broken edges were gone. Finally no marker remained and she blew off the wood dust. She turned it around to see the hand painted musical notes frame the inner circle. In some places the gold notes were faded, perhaps where the heel of a small hand had rested. Resting her elbows on her bent knees, the smell of sawdust tickling her nose, Kate felt at one with the world.

  This was where she belonged. Here there were no doubts, no insecurities. No one judged her. No addict mother haunted the corners here, no uncaring father, no snotty half-sisters. It was just Kate and her dream. She picked up her phone and opened up the chat she had going with Doyle.

  Remember how I asked you to tell me what world I belonged in since you said I didn’t belong in Edge?

  It took a few minutes for him to respond. But his yes was blunt.

  And how I said I was tired of being me?

  Yes.

  Do you want to see my world?

  Yes.

  She snapped a picture of her workshop and sent it to him. Sometimes I forget not everything is shitty and that I do have a place in the world. Maybe it’s not the Cyanide world and it’s not Mom’s world. But this…this is Kate’s world. Do you want to see more?

  Yes.

  She cleared her throat as she stood up. Bracing her elbows on the wall she turned on the video function and scanned the camera over her wall of guitars, violins, cellos and everything else in between. Some were whole, some looked like her ukulele, some were just the sides, some just the front. There was her drafting table that let her see the water, the work table that was a disaster of all the things she had on the go. She leaned over the half wall where she had oh so meticulously painted her logo. Katey Jay Designs. The K and J entwined and a musical note was hooked over the curve of the J.

  No one. She had showed no one. Who would she show? Who would she possibly share this with? A man who didn’t care about her? A man who had pretty much ignored her existence for twenty-four years? The same man who had broken her heart year after year after year. She exhaled sharply, turned the phone around and stopped recording. She hit send and continued to look down at her dream.

  Her dream. The phone rang.

  “Katey.” His voice was soft and she dropped her head into her hand. Tears slid unchecked, plopping onto the wood.

  “I’m going to use him, Doyle. I’m going to use his celebrity and his name. I’m going to use the fact that I’m the daughter of Jace Jennings. When I’m done school, I’m going to open a store on one of the trendy streets and then I’m going to remind the world that thirteen years ago Kate Jace Jennings was the long lost daughter of Jace Jennings because if the only thing I have of his, is his name, then, by fucking God, I’m going to use it.”

  “Good. I want you to remember this moment, Katey Jay.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is the moment where you just owned yourself. Because this is the moment where you started to trust me. You know, this morning Claire said you’re tougher than I give you credit for. But pay attention, you’re even tougher than you give yourself credit for.”

  “Yeah?” In the background she heard a girl shout for Dad. “You gotta go.”

  “She’s twelve. She needs to learn patience at some time. Remember this moment, Katey Jay.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Jesus. I’m hanging with my kid, girl.”

  She smiled as she hung up. Wiping her cheeks, she looked out at the loft. “This moment. It’s a sunrise moment.”

  ****

  Kate - 2002

  Kate had never been to a school like her new one. She hadn’t liked her blue uniform with the school patch on the pocket of her blazer. Not until she had realized that everyone was wearing the same thing. Unlike her old school when she had shown up in used clothes, no one at her new school knew she had lived in a trailer starting to rot with a mother who was also rotting. She had looked like everyone else. The teacher had introduced her to her class, told her to sit in an empty desk and so
had begun her day.

  She had been terrified about her first day in a new school. Not that she had a lot of friends at her old school, but there had been comfort in the familiar. She had barely slept and instead had roamed the house, learning her way around. In the morning a man wearing a black suit had rung the doorbell and driven her to her new school. No one had wished her good luck or even saw her leave but that had been familiar.

  Lunch had been provided so she hadn’t been hungry. She had even made a few friends, which in itself was amazing. At her old school she had stuck out and not in a good way, so friends had been pretty rare for her. Plus, it wasn’t like she could invite anyone over since who knew if Mom was sober or alone? Even though she had craved the company of others, she hadn’t sought them out. But now…now she looked like she belonged. Her uniform was her new favorite thing.

  Shutting the door behind her, she winced at the echoing bang it made. Even now she expected Mom to yell at her to not make so much noise. No one yelled.

  She took off her shiny new shoes and set them in the closet and took her new bag up to her room. The new desk that Mrs. Dawson had magically made appear was ready for her to work on. It was a lot prettier than the battered table she had worked on before. No wobbling. No weird stains. She couldn’t wait to use it. She had resisted the call of the glossy white paint, patiently waiting to use it as it was meant to be used. She changed out of her uniform, setting it in the hamper Mrs. Dawson had told her to put it in. She had two uniforms, one to wear while the other was being dry cleaned. Dry cleaned!

  Kate changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, pulling out her books, determined to prove that she wasn’t as useless as Shaelynn said she was. Kate did her homework, swinging her feet as she hummed. No one was there to tell her not to.

  Sometimes she missed Mom, but mostly it was a relief to not be screwing up all the time. No bottles were thrown at her, there was always food, and she didn’t wake up scared.

  She lost track of time as she completed all her homework and even started to read a book for one of her classes, so when her stomach growled at her, she was a bit surprised. She left the quiet of her room and found herself standing there, listening to the quiet of the house.