by Fawkes, Sara
When she left, I took a seat on the couch, leaning over until I was laying my head on the arm. Light still streamed through the threadbare curtains, giving the trailer a faint glow. The furniture was outdated and mismatched, probably all thrift-store finds. My grandmother’s trailer was sparsely decorated, containing only the basic furniture, nothing personal or homey. This one had an abundance of, well, everything, but looked comfortable and lived-in. It was a better home than anything I’d been in for a while, although nowhere near as grand as Everett’s family home.
Everett.
I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat as his anguished face flashed through my mind. I replayed our conversation in my head, trying desperately to find something redeemable in the exchange. He hadn’t tried to defend himself, hadn’t denied any of it, and I’d seen the defeat in his eyes almost from the beginning. It killed me how much I wanted to forgive him, but I couldn’t. I just … couldn’t.
Dragging myself through the trailer on unsteady legs, I moved to the bedroom and climbed into the bed. Pulling the covers over my head, I pressed my face into the pillows and cried and cried.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Sissy!”
I had been looking at gardening tools, but my head snapped around at the familiar child’s voice. Abandoning my cart, I looked wildly around. “Davy?”
A small body rushed around the corner of potted plants and then slammed into me full speed. “I knew it was you!”
Oh my God. It felt so good to hold my little brother. Tears pricked my eyes as I knelt down and wrapped him in my arms.
“Mama said you had to go,” he babbled, still hugging me tight, “and Granny is mad at you. I’m not supposed to ask where you went, why not?”
I pressed my lips together and just hugged him tight. I would have sworn he’d grown since I’d last seen him; his arms and legs certainly looked longer. I’d been watching him grow up his whole life, taking care of him myself for much of it, and that I missed anything at all made my heart hurt. “Where’s Mama, Davy?”
“She’s working. I’m here with Gramma.”
I scanned the aisles, looking for my grandmother, but she was nowhere in sight. “You shouldn’t have run off from her,” I said, smoothing back the hair from his face.
His face fell. “But I wanted to see you.”
Pulling him into a hug, I tried to think about what to do. My grandmother was here, so whatever I did would still make the entire situation my fault. “Baby, you can’t just…” I cut off, running my finger over his brow. There was a red bruise there, and as I pushed him away I noticed a purple mark on his neck. “What happened?” I said sharply. “Did someone hit you?”
Almost immediately, he shut down. “Nothing,” he mumbled, looking down at the floor.
I bit my lip. “Honey, if someone’s hurting you, you need to tell me.”
He grew suddenly shy, twisting around uncertainly. “Gramma said …”
“Davy!”
The screeching cry echoed from somewhere inside the store. I recognized the voice immediately, and instinctively pulled my brother into my arms, standing to my feet. He laid his head on my shoulder, arms wrapping around my neck. A second after the shout, my grandmother rounded the corner, followed by a security guard, and zeroed in on me and my brother. Even from this distance, I saw the anger on her face as she recognized me, and she ran down the aisle. “Davy!”
I took a step back, but there was nowhere for me to go. I turned wide eyes to a nearby clerk who was watching us curiously, and then my grandmother was there, trying to pull my brother from my arms. “Give him to me.”
“Sissy, no!”
His cry made me hold harder, and I twisted him away from my grandmother. “Let go of him,” I cried, lashing out with my arm and pushing my grandmother a few steps back.
“I want to stay with you,” Davy said in my ear, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Please, Sissy.”
The older woman’s face twisted in anger and she marched toward us, hands outstretched. “Why you little …”
“What’s going on here?”
The security guard following my grandmother had finally caught up, and he stared at both of us in equal turn. My grandmother stopped her charge, but leveled a finger in my direction. “She’s trying to kidnap my grandson!”
“No, I’m not!” I stared at her, openmouthed in shock, and then turned to the security guard. “I’m his sister, he followed me over here.”
Diana threw herself at me, only to be blocked by the guard. “Give him to me,” she hissed.
I just hugged him close, too shocked to move, as the guard looked back at me. “Is she his legal guardian?” he asked, pointing toward my grandmother.
I had no answer to that. Right then, my grandmother darted forward and snagged Davy’s arm, ripping him from my grasp. “You little shit,” she snarled, setting him on his feet. I thought she was talking about me until her hand cracked across Davy’s cheek. I lunged forward, intent only on ripping her face off, but was stopped by the security guard.
“I’m afraid I have to ask you both to leave now,” the security guard said, and even though his eyes looked troubled he didn’t seem willing to step in.
“Come on,” my grandmother said, dragging Davy away, her long nails digging into the tender skin of my brother’s arm.
“Sissy,” he called, eyes wide with fear and confusion, and I let out a sobbing breath. The guard remained in my way, as if knowing I’d try to go after him, but I was helplessly rooted to the spot. Davy kept calling after me even after he’d disappeared around the corner leading to the parking lot, but I heard his pleas in my mind long after his voice was gone. All I wanted to do was curl up and cry. I hated feeling this powerless; there was nothing I could do to save my brother.
“Ma’am?”
I looked up to see the security guard watching me. He pulled a card out of his pocket. “This is my contact information. If you need anything to help that boy, I’ll do all I can.”
“And my name’s Alfie,” the thin clerk behind the register said. “Alfie Ray. I saw it all, and think you should have decked that old lady.”
The imagery made a corner of my mouth tip up briefly, but it felt wrong to find any humor in the situation. I took the card and thanked both men, then hurried out toward my truck. A few others had seen the debacle, and I felt their eyes as I walked outside. I didn’t care at all what they said, however; I’d done absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, and none of them had offered to help.
I pulled myself up into the Bronco and just sat there, staring out over the other cars. There was no sign of my grandmother and baby brother, but I wasn’t expecting to see them anyway. I wanted to beat on something, preferably my grandmother, but that would be useless. I had no real way of helping my brother, especially since my mother seemed to have convinced so many people that I was the one abusing my little brother. There was nothing I could do.
Unless …
Pulling out my phone, I quickly keyed in the Oregon phone number I still remembered, but it took me a long moment before I pressed the Send key. It only rang twice before someone answered. “Hello? Who’s this?”
The almost belligerent tone of voice stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t breathe, but I also couldn’t hang up. Stuck at an impasse, I struggled to get the words out, even just a greeting. Unfortunately, the person at the other end didn’t seem to have any trouble with her words.
“I know this number, you called here before. Are you going to hang up again like last time? If you ever had any decency, why can’t you come out of hiding and fucking talk to us face-to-face?”
My aunt’s familiar voice was darker than I’d ever heard before. All the air whooshed out of my lungs as if I’d been kicked in the chest, but she wasn’t finished. “You stole everything we had left of my brother and I will not let you ruin our lives again.”
My jaw trembled as despair threatened to overwhelm me. “A-Aunt Jeanine?”
T
he tirade stopped instantly, and there was a stunned pause on the phone. “Who is this?”
Some of the belligerence was gone from her voice, but I couldn’t stop shaking. “L-L-Lacey,” I stammered, wanting only to curl up into a ball and cry.
“Lacey? Oh shit, honey, I thought you were your mother!”
The trembling through my body wouldn’t stop, and a tear spilled over one cheek. “Can I please talk…” To Grandma Jean? I couldn’t even finish the simple sentence, too overwhelmed by pain. It would be so easy to hang up, try to forget the words that made my heart ache, but I couldn’t. My brother needed them, and that thought was the only thing that kept me on the line.
“God, Lacey, I’m so sorry, I …”
There was a shuffle on the phone and the murmur of voices as I struggled to pull myself together. Her apology soothed something deep inside me, but I was still a ball of nerves. Thankfully, nobody was around to see me. I was a hair away from becoming a total wreck, and I wouldn’t be able to be coherent with strangers.
“Lacey? Oh honey, is that really you?”
I really did almost lose it then. Clutching the phone hard, I gulped back my tears. “Hi, Grandma.”
“Oh my God, it is you.” More muffled voices, then my grandmother’s tinny voice away from the phone “You can apologize in a minute. Oh … Oh, honey!”
I could tell from her voice she was just as overwhelmed as me. She sounded more frail than I remembered, but I knew that voice well. I could almost see the big smile lighting her wrinkled face, and a tiny flame of hope lit in my heart. “Hi, Grandma,” I managed, and the happy laugh I heard across the phone made me bite my lip.
“Oh baby, how are you? How is everything? We’ve missed you so much.”
“Really, we have,” my aunt’s voice came over the line. “Ignore what I said before, I was just angry, and so not at you. Your cousins are going to be over the moon when they hear from you!”
My face crumpled, happiness bringing out a fresh set of tears. I covered my mouth, unable to speak for a moment. “I’m good,” I said finally, biting my lip to keep it from trembling. “How about you?”
“I’m still alive and kicking, but tell me about you. Oh baby, it’s so good to finally hear from you!”
I started crying again, this time out of regret over my own stupidity. For nearly five years, I’d listened to my grandmother telling me over and over that I was unwanted. She had planted the idea in my head that my Oregon family wanted nothing to do with me, that I wasn’t really their family because I wasn’t blood. Never mind that I’d known them from the time I was two, that I didn’t remember a life without them. She drilled it into me that my stepdad was my only connection to them, and with him gone, I was nothing to them.
In that moment, I hated my grandmother with every fiber of my being.
My grandma Jean babbled in my ear but I barely understood the words, just took pleasure in hearing her familiar, beloved voice. Apparently my aunt and cousins were all there and wanted to talk to me, too, but I had to get out what I needed.
“Grandma, I think I need your help with Davy.”
She listened intently as I haltingly told her what I’d discovered, my fears and uncertainties. It felt wonderful to have someone else to confide in, and while this was the most mature conversation I’d had with my grandma Jean, she didn’t treat me like a child. The fact that she believed me and took me seriously surprised me, although it really shouldn’t have. For so long I’d lived around people who belittled or scoffed at my opinions and observations—I hadn’t realized until then how much it had beaten me down.
My aunt got on the phone at one point to listen in, then my grandma spoke. “We’ll set this right, Lacey,” she said, that old familiar note of steel in her voice. “Keep us updated if you find anything else, but I’ll figure out what to do if I have to come down there myself.”
Relief flowed through me, and I sagged in the truck seat. “Let me know if you need anything,” I said, letting my head fall back over the bench seat.
“Now, your aunt and your cousins want to talk to you, but don’t sign off without saying good-bye to me.”
An hour later, I finally got off the phone with my family. My eyes were puffy but dry, and I couldn’t help but think I’d finally done something right. The conversation with my grandmother and aunt had been long but, I hoped, worthwhile. I’d told them everything I knew, even gave them the contact info from the security guard and Davy’s teacher, and they’d said they would take care of everything.
I prayed that was the case.
I had a family again, people who cared about me. I’d always had them, and it killed me to think about how much time I’d lost buying into my grandmother’s lies. They’d even asked me if I wanted to move home with them, and I couldn’t deny the offer was tempting.
It puzzled me why I didn’t take them up on the offer then and there, but that was something to contemplate another day. I was alternately thrilled and beat by the whole ordeal, and starting my truck, I left the lot and headed home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was almost dark when I finally arrived back at Cherise’s property. The bartender’s truck was there but I didn’t see any lights on inside. I needed to change clothes before I went and knocked on any doors, so I headed toward the pale yellow trailer that was my new home.
“Gotcha.”
I barely got the beginnings of a scream out when a thick hand clamped over my mouth. Arms dragged me backward into the darkness as I struggled to free myself, pulse racing. The hand over my face covered both my mouth and nose, whether by design or accident, making breathing difficult.
“I’ve been wondering where you got off to,” Macon murmured, laughing as I tried to butt his head with mine. “You can fight all you want, but you’re coming with me.”
Maneuvering my head around, I bit down around flesh and heard him howl. He hit me in the temple with the heel of his hand before I could get any sound out, and then he continued dragging me back.
“You got away last time, but there’s nobody to help you out tonight.” He kissed my neck, sending chills up my body. “You need to be taught a lesson, Lacey, and I’m more than up for the challenge.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, asshole.”
A shot went off from somewhere nearby me, the unexpected clap almost deafening. Macon fumbled his grip on me and I snatched myself away, landing heavily on my back. In the low light I saw Macon’s head dart frantically all around, trying to figure out who was shooting.
Another shot rang out, and there was the pop and hiss of a tire. Macon seemed to forget momentarily that someone was trying to kill him when he saw the damage to his truck. Two more booms sounded, hitting another large tire on his beloved truck and taking out the front lights.
“Who’s out there?” he shouted, circling around. “Who the fuck is shooting at my truck?!”
I stayed on the ground, figuring it was safer here than standing upright. Scooting backward on the red clay, I put distance between myself and Macon, who didn’t seem to notice my presence anymore. “Show yourself!” he screamed into the air when nobody answered, sounding more like a child throwing a tantrum than anyone formidable.
“Gladly.”
I’d recognized Cherise’s voice when first she spoke, but the woman looked somehow different, holding the long shotgun on a suddenly terrified Macon. She had on long pants and boots, as if she’d been out hunting in the wiry forest behind her property. The darkness wrapped around her like a cape, lending shadows to her expression that made it downright sinister. She looked as comfortable with that shotgun in her hands as she would be wearing a hat. Her eyes were fixed on Macon, lip curled ever so slightly in distaste.
“I wasn’t … She…” Macon moaned, and then gave a small, “Oh shit,” as Cherise levered the weapon up under his chin. I sat frozen on the ground, as shocked by the sudden turn as Macon.
“Boys like you think you’re so sneaky, don’t you? Thought
you could come onto my property with that big truck and nobody’d notice.” Cherise’s eyes flickered to me. “He hurt you any, babe?”
I shook my head, scrambling to my feet. “Honest,” Macon said in a pleading voice, “I just wanted to talk to her. I wouldn’t have hurt her, I swear.”
“You know, I once believed the same story from a boy like you. Handsome boy, talked real sweet. He was my first kiss, but decided he wanted to go a little further than I did. “ Cherise gave a tight smile, her voice almost conversational. “Want to know what happened to him?”
Macon shook his head, eyes wide, but Cherise didn’t seem interested in listening. “Come on, let’s go for a walk and I’ll show you myself.”
“Cherise.” The other woman turned to look at me, and I shook my head. I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or bluffing, but either way I wanted him gone. “Let him go.”
She squinted at me, frowning. “You sure?”
I shrugged. “No, but you’ve already scared the piss out of him.” I gestured toward his crotch. “Literally.”
Macon hunched over as a smile spread over Cherise’s face. “Well, look at that!”
“I’m going to bring the law down on your heads so hard,” Macon promised, his voice high and shrill. “You’ll rot in prison, I swear to you.”
“You realize you’re trespassing on someone else’s property in rural Mississippi, don’t you?” She cocked the shotgun again, and then looked at me. “What did you say his name was again?”
“Macon Gautier.”
Her mouth twisted. “Meh. Never liked that name.” She swung the gun down a little until it pointed toward the ground. It went off, spraying the clay at Macon’s feet, and he squealed.
I had to admit, it was a satisfying sound.
“If I ever find you on this property again, you’ll disappear. I know places to dump a body where you’ll never be found. If I hear that one hair on this girl’s head’s been touched, you’ll be the first person I’ll come after. Now, you got five seconds before I start aiming a little higher. One.”