by Lacey Silks
“Ready?” asked Andrew, one of the firefighters.
Was he kidding me? I didn’t have time to wonder about the covered surprise because the amount of force the pairs of anticipating eyes staring at me were exerting was enough to knock me down.
“I guess as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Each man took a corner and pulled back the cover. There it was, my old car, which my father had gifted me to fix, shiny with a fresh coat of wax, nearly sparkling. The car that I thought had turned into charcoal with my house when, along with all my belongings, it all went up in flames.
“How? I thought it burned.”
“We were able to salvage it. The house caved in away from the car. There was some damage, but all the boys from the firehouse chipped in.”
This time, the Chief, aka my father, went in for the big one. He was known to give out free hugs in the past, but this was way more than a hug. Here, in the presence of our closest friends, who would each give a life for one another, he let his guard down and allowed his emotions to seep from his eyes onto my shirt, embraced me tightly, and held me. I returned the gesture, holding onto him. The welcome back he had just given me was more like I’m so happy you’re alive.
That’s when it hit me. This was my home. This was the only place in the world I ever wanted to be, and I wanted it to be with Molly. Yes, I got engaged pretty fast the last time, but heck, I was happy. And I could be happy again.
There was only one little problem, in the form of a venomous snake who had fucking raped my girlfriend. Molly would never move back if he were alive. But I couldn’t kill him. That would only send me to prison. And even if I did manage it, I couldn’t live with my conscience after taking a life. I’d leave that to the professionals in prison who’d eventually find out what Fowler was arrested for.
Something grasped at my leg, followed by a shriek of happiness.
“Congratulations, Uncle Carter!”
I looked at my niece and crouched to pick her up into my arms. She straddled my hip the way she always did when she was in my arms. “You know, being pulled out of that fire by your father is the second best thing that happened to me.”
“What’s the first one?” she asked naively.
“It was the day I got to deliver you.” I smiled, gently tapping her nose with my finger.
“Eww, Uncle Carter. Don’t talk about mommy’s vagina,” she screamed through the hall, and everyone’s attention rested on me, especially Nick’s, Mackenzie’s father. Maybe I could have used that look to kill Fowler?
“Now, now, let’s not twist my words.”
I was beginning to think this girl would one day make a great politician. I set her down, took her tiny hand, and led her toward the car, away from the crowd of firefighters eating vanilla cupcakes sprinkled with colorful sparkles that Mackenzie had brought. A scene totally calendar-worthy.
“Doesn’t it look glam?” I nodded to the car in the back and looked down to Mac. She crossed her arms over her chest the way I did, and spat to the side — the way I used to do when Mac still lived with me and I worked on the car.
“Yeah, totally glam,” Mackenzie said, like an old soul. “I helped with the wheels, Uncle Carter.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I twisted and turned those little screws there.”
I wondered whether I should double-check them.
“Don’t worry.” Mac frowned. “They were double-checked.”
I chuckled. Either politician or a spy. “And how in the world did you manage to keep this secret from me, Mac?” I pointed to the car.
“I dunno.” She shrugged. “But I’m good at keeping secrets, and I have a lot of them.”
She looked back to her father who approached us from behind. Something passed between them, and he nodded to Mac.
“I can tell you a very important secret, but you have to pinkie swear not to repeat it to anyone. And I mean anyone.” She stuck out her tiny finger at me, waiting for mine.
“All right, I pinkie swear.”
I remembered making such promises with Mackenzie’s mother in the past. So much had happened since we were that young.
“Daddy’s going to oppose to Mommy, and they’re gonna get married at Pebble Beach.”
“You mean propose?”
“That’s what I said. Oppose.”
“When is this happening?”
“Two weeks. That’s fourteen days if you want to cross them off on a secret calendar, the way I do,” Mackenzie said.
“I think I will. Sounds like a very important day.”
“The most important one of the year. Besides my birthday, of course. And maybe Christmas too. And your birthday too, Uncle Carter, because that’s important too.”
“Thanks, Mac.”
“What do you say? Ready to be my best man?” Nick asked.
“Are you serious?”
“Never been more serious in my life, brother. You think you can manage the job without burning down the church?”
“But Daddy,” Mackenzie pulled on his shirt. “It’s supposed to be on Pebble Beach.”
“I know, honey, it’s a figure of speech.”
“What’s a figure of speech?” she asked.
“Why don’t you grab a cupcake before they’re all gone.” Nick pointed to the table that was stacked over the limit.
“I can make more. What’s a figure of speech?” Mackenzie persisted.
“It’s a sentence that means something else than you may think.” Nick shrugged, his eyes wide open, looking to me for assistance. What? Did he think I was Wikipedia? And so I shrugged in return.
“Boys just sometimes don’t make sense.” She lowered her hands to her hips, shook her head and stomped back to the table, grabbing a cupcake into her fist and biting into it like a savage.
“I see she’s been hanging around her father a lot,” I teased.
“Hey, I’m still trying to figure all of this out.”
“You’re doing great for a guy who just found out that he has a five-year-old daughter.”
“You can’t tell Jo about the wedding. It will be a surprise.”
“Well, look at you, Mr. Romantic. Seriously? You’re not telling Jo? Aren’t you afraid that she’ll say no?”
He leaned his head to the side, mocking me.
“Right. Lovebirds. I forgot. Hey, can I bring a date?”
“Who?” His eyes opened wide.
“Molly.”
Nick breathed out in relief. “Thank God. Because that’s who I wanted to ask to be the maid of honor.”
“Well, as your best man, let me do my job and ask her for you. I’m sure she’ll say yes under my persuasive gaze.”
“Just when I thought you’d changed.” Nick patted me on my back.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m teasing you. Take a chill pill, as Mackenzie would say.”
We laughed. I spent the next hour catching up with the guys. The rush of adrenaline that swam through my veins was undeniable. It was that same adrenaline that pushed me to save lives. The energy in the room was overpowering. There was so much of it that it threatened to spontaneously combust dead center of the firehouse.
When it was time to go home, my father gave me an official welcome back letter. Now I had to break the news to Molly. Would she hate me? Would she ever consider moving here with me? It would be a long commute for either of us, and I was willing to make the sacrifice. But what I really wanted was for Molly to fall back in love with our town the way she had fallen in love with me. And the only way she could do that was if her father was out, for good.
As I drove my old-yet-new car out of town and back to the city, I noticed someone walking along the road, on the further side of the trench, right by the fence guarding Mrs. Gladstone’s farm. I pulled to the side and turned off the ignition. The sun had already set, and the little glow it still spared wasn’t enough to see well.
“Hey! You need a ride?” I called out.
He didn’t answer.
“Hey, did you hear me? Are you walking back to the city? I can give you a ride.”
He turned in slow motion. It took a moment for each of us to realize whom we were staring at, and when I did, I pushed the car door open, jumped out and ran at him at a speed I didn’t know I was capable of. As expected, Ron Fowler turned around and took off.
I leaped over the trench and pushed my feet to the limit. I couldn’t let him get away. “Stop!” I yelled. “Stop you fucking asshole!”
Instead of stopping, he jumped over the fence around Mrs. Gladstone’s property and kept going.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” I picked up a stick to hold in my hand, and pretended that it was a gun.
He halted, then turned around in slow motion. His face was shadowed with darkness and vengeance. What was he vengeful for?
He stood, waiting for me to approach. I held my hands out, pointing the stick at him, and as soon as I was close enough, I dropped it and took a swing, much harder than the one Molly told me she’d thrown at him. This time I aimed for his cheek, and when the sound of cracking bone echoed, a feeling of purpose filled me. Fowler fell to the ground, grimacing, and mumbled something about me paying for this. I jumped on top of him, one leg on each side, and threw punches as he tried to shield his face. I swung one arm after the other. Blood spilled from underneath his eye, cheek, chin, and his broken nose.
“Carter, stop!” I heard Daisy’s voice in my mind. “You can’t kill him.”
I held back my next punch and said under my breath, “You deserve to die.”
While I didn’t want to kill the bastard, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get all the hate I had for him out all at once. There was too much of it. Enough to kill him. I threw another punch and felt something knock the wind out of me.
“Carter!” Daisy’s voice rang in my ears again.
She was right. Death would have been an easy out for him, but he had to pay for what he’d done — in prison. Tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye; I had no doubt his cellmates would help me out.
By the time I pulled away, I couldn’t recognize him. Given that compression sleeves covered most of my arm and hands, I didn’t even notice that my knuckles were bruised. He spat blood, along with a couple of teeth, to the side.
“Not a skinny-assed boy now, am I?”
He smirked, ignoring me. “Did you like fucking her?”
“What? Don’t you ever think of her that way again. Not in any way, even as your daughter. You don’t deserve her to be part of your family, and you don’t deserve to live,” I growled, but he sneered.
“Yeah, she likes it from behind, doesn’t she? Did you know I had her that way that night as well? That’s why her knees were scraped.”
Fuck! Didn’t we do it on her knees the other day? How did Fowler know about us?
“I can see it on your face. You’re wondering if she was thinking about her first time when you fucked her. I can guarantee you that she did, because I did her good.”
My fist moved in for another punch without a thought. “Fuck you, asshole.”
The last thing to do would have been to wrap my fingers around his neck and squeeze them until he let go of his last breath. Again, this would have been an easy out for him. Thankfully, he passed out from my last jab.
“Sick bastard,” I muttered, and went back to the car to get my cell phone.
“Yes, Chief Simmons. This is Carter Clark. I found Ron Fowler on the side of the road, passed out. As far as I know, he’s wanted on assault charges. He’s pretty beat up as well.”
I gave the dispatch the exact location and pressed the end button, appeased. My knuckles were sore, but still I managed to crack a sound of satisfaction out of them before heading back to my car.
“What the fuck is that smell?” I checked the bottom of both shoes, which were clean, and looked down at my jeans, where a brown stain was smeared near the cuff. I reached down and touched it with my finger, then brought it up to my nose.
“Stupid shit!” Literally. When I’d straddled Fowler I must have rolled over one of Betsy’s cow pies.
Story of my life.
I couldn’t have Molly see me in these. She’d never let me live it down. And so I took my jeans off, got back in the car, and wearing my boxer-briefs, I went back to my parents’ to wash and then dry them. Which meant that I would be late for supper. I picked up a bouquet of roses on my way home that evening, but when I opened the door, Molly wasn’t back from work yet. I double checked the time, then called her cell. She didn’t pick up. I texted her to let me know what time she’d be back. She didn’t reply. Emergencies happened sometimes and she’d been late before, but not often. And not by three hours. And she always called.
I looked out the window into the dark night before I took a quick shower and changed into a fresh pair of jeans. I checked my phone one last time.
Fuck this!
I wasn’t one known for my patience, but I trusted my gut with everything. Despite how often I had tried to die, it had saved my life more than once. When that second hour passed, I grabbed my hair into my fists, yelled out in frustration, grabbed my car keys, and headed for the door. Except that gut had stopped me now, and a gruesome feeling of disgust passed over me as I looked up onto the crooked wildflower painting across from the couch. I stepped toward the wall to straighten the frame when the center of a poppy flower glistened and caught my eye. I poked it with my finger, and it pushed through the fabric. Something rolled on the floor, and I crouched to pick up a button-sized camera.
“You fucker!”
When had he been here? My attention flew to the fire escape and I closed the window shut.
Fucking asshole!
My gut burned with a warning as I began to realize it was possible that Molly hasn’t returned from work because… Had I underestimated him?
I grabbed my jacket and headed out the door while dialing the hospital. My mind was raging.
“Hi, this is Carter Clark. I wanted to know whether Molly Fowler has left work yet.”
“One moment, Mr. Clark.” I heard her type on the computer. “Yes, Molly left at her regular time.”
“You sure there weren’t any emergencies today?”
“No, in fact it’s been a pretty quiet day.”
“Thank you.” I hang up the phone and turned into the corner grocery store Molly often went to after work. I paced each isle diligently, going up and down through all the sections, twice. When I realized that she wasn’t there, I called her mother’s house. While I knew it was a long shot because over the last couple of months Molly has barely mentioned her, I had to try. No one picked up.
Shit!
My brother’s number was next.
“What’s up bro? Did you get home all right?”
“I did. Thanks. Max, I need a favor.”
“Anything you want.”
“Can you stop by Molly’s old house and knock on the door to see if she’s there? I called, but no one’s picking up. She didn’t come home from work, and it’s been four hours.”
“So maybe her mother went out. Maybe they went out together.”
I looked down at my watch. It was already past nine o’clock. Clara Fowler was either sleeping or not there.
“I don’t think so. Make sure you ring the doorbell. Twice. I’m having a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that something’s happened. Molly’s not picking up her phone either. I already checked the grocery store and the hospital.”
“Well, we can’t ignore a gut feeling now, can we? Yeah, I’ll go over right now. I’ll call you back when I’m there.”
“Thanks.”
As I waited for my brother’s call, I jumped in my new car and headed back to Hope Bay. Outside, darker clouds consumed the approaching night sky. Their promise of rain and fond memories should have brought comfort. Instead, I only felt dread. Fifteen minutes into the ride, my brother called back. “There’s no sign of anyone. I saw Nathan hanging out by the mo
vie theater with a couple of friends. He hasn’t seen his sister since we took him on the yacht, and he said his mom should have been home. I rang the doorbell too. No one answered.”
“Thanks, bro. I owe you one.”
“Wait, Carter.”
“Yeah?”
“Nathan also said he saw his father earlier in the day.”
That made sense. I already knew that Ron Fowler was in town, because I’d just beaten him up.
“He also said that he didn’t look too good. Like he’s been in a fight.”
Fuck me!
The bastard was still on the loose. Which meant that Molly was definitely in trouble. As I pressed my foot harder on the pedal, I prayed that I wasn’t too late.
MOLLY
I searched for a cab, but the streets were abandoned, as if an apocalypse had struck the city. I should have known that I wouldn’t find one tonight. The busses were on a holiday schedule, and it would be quicker to walk than to wait for any sort of transportation when the World Series finals were on. I usually walked home, but today was different. An urge to get home to Carter pushed my feet to a fast walk when my phone rung.
“Doctor Burke, hi.”
“Molly, how are you? I’m in a rush and don’t have a lot of time, but can you get a message to Carter for me?”
“Yes, of course. Tell him to call me as soon as he can.”
“Sounds urgent.”
“Well, it sort of is and… well… just tell him that he was right. And tell him to call me. I have to go. Someone just came into the clinic.”
“Okay, I will. Take care.”
“Bye, Molly.”
I hung up and gazed up at the sky. Black clouds loomed in the distance, and I frowned. Rainy days were usually my favorite ones. Certain I could make it back to the apartment before the first drops, I threw my empty water bottle into a recycling bin and picked up my pace.
I couldn’t wait to see him and hug him so that he could take away this dreadful feeling I’d had since this morning. I hadn’t felt like this, ever – the worry that lightning would strike and tear away this bliss we were living in wouldn’t leave my mind.