When the Devil Wants In

by Cate Ashwood

  Matt followed John and Birdy into the kitchen. “Anything I can do to help?” Matt asked, not much of a cook himself but able to pitch in if necessary.

  John looked at Birdy and smiled. “Whatcha think, baby bird?”

  Birdy had already grabbed a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “Too many cooks make for sloppy food.” She looked at Matt and grinned. “That’s what Mawmaw says, but I’ll show ya how to crack the eggs right and you can help with that.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Matt said, watching Birdy move a small stool around the kitchen so she could reach the mixing bowls.

  “Soon as Mel gets up, you can grab some sweats or somethin’, change outta your uniform if ya like,” John said over his shoulder from the stove where he measured water and dumped it into a pot.

  “Mel’s up,” Melonie said as she staggered into the kitchen. She must have worn one of John’s T-shirts to bed because it drooped off her shoulders, her hair a mess of dark blonde curls. “Please tell me there’s coffee.”

  “I’m workin’ as fast as I can here,” John said, changing tasks to make the coffee first.

  Melonie walked up behind John and scratched his shoulders. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “Sorry to be a pain in the ass.”

  “You been a pain in my ass since the day you were born,” John teased, nudging Melonie, smiling at her. “Don’t go changin’ now.”

  The coffee started to drip, the room filling with the warm, inviting scent. Matt felt a little more at ease suddenly, a little more himself. Until Birdy placed an egg in his hand. She cracked hers first, one-handed, and let it spill into the bowl. “How do you do that?” Matt asked. “You didn’t get any shell in it at all.”

  “Practice makes perfect, friend.” She nodded seriously and got another egg, showing him again.

  Matt tried to do as she did, but his fingers ended up wet and half the shell fell into the bowl.

  “That’s all right,” Birdy said, fishing the shell out. “Just try again.” Her tone was only slightly exasperated, but there was a hint of fondness in it too. However awful her father was, it was clear that Birdy had been treated well by everyone else in her life, treated with patience and kindness.

  “Don’t be too hard on him, baby bird,” John said with a laugh. “He ain’t learned the way we did.”

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Hey, I can crack an egg,” he said, shooting a teasing look at John. “It’s this one-handed bit that has me lost.”

  Birdy pushed her hair back from her face and met his eye. “Then do it with two hands, man. We just need ’em cracked, don’t matter how ya get there.”

  “Don’t be rude, baby bird,” John said, his tone stern, his eyes full of amusement. “You been hangin’ out with Chloe too much, I think. Mind your manners.”

  “Yessir.” Birdy scrunched up her nose and added, “Sorry, Mr. Matt.”

  Matt leaned in close to Birdy and whispered, “You weren’t wrong.”

  “I know.”

  He could see John roll his eyes from across the kitchen.

  “You talk to Momma yet?” Melonie asked.

  “Hadn’t had a chance, no. She was up and outta the house just after you two got settled,” John said. “Why?”

  Melonie nodded toward the yard. “She’s on her way.”

  Matt didn’t want to be in the middle of any family drama, but he didn’t want to leave either. He stayed at the table with Birdy, the two of them working through a dozen eggs together.

  Ilene walked in through the sliding door without hesitation or invitation. “What on earth happened?” she asked, John or Melonie, Matt couldn’t tell. She didn’t seem to notice him. “I heard all sorts of rumors this mornin’, not a one of ’em good.”

  “Lemme pour ya a cup of coffee, Momma,” John said, his tone even, not hinting to anything.

  She glanced at Matt, smiled and nodded. “It’s good to see you, hon,” she said as she came closer, pressing a kiss to Birdy’s head even as she spoke to Matt. “You on your way to work or just gettin’ off?”

  “Just got off, actually. Wanted to check in over here,” he said.

  The room was full of things no one wanted to say. They drifted in the air with the smell of coffee, the steam from boiling water on the stove, the heat coming in from outside. They had a lot to talk about, and probably no one wanted to do it in front of Birdy or Matt. He was just about to excuse himself, suggest taking Birdy out in the yard to see the new fire pit, but Birdy beat everyone to the punch.

  “Daddy was real mean last night, Mawmaw,” she said matter-of-factly. “He woke me up and whooped me and then hit Momma.”

  Ilene caught Melonie’s eye but didn’t say anything. Her face blanched and then reddened. Anger? Embarrassment? Probably both.

  Birdy went on. “Uncle John came and whooped him back, and then Mr. Matt and his friends helped, and we get to live with Uncle John now.”

  Kid got high marks for brevity if nothing else. She’d managed to sum up the entire nightmare in three sentences.

  Ilene sat at the table and pulled Birdy into her lap. John set a cup of coffee in front of her. “Well,” she said, kissing Birdy’s cheek. “That means I get to see you every day now, don’t it?”

  “Yes’m,” Birdy said as she cracked the last egg. She passed Matt a fork. “You know how to scramble eggs?” she asked.

  “I think I can figure it out.” Matt smiled at her, trying to avoid looking at Ilene. She struck him as the prideful type, and he knew this entire situation must have been killing her, especially having it unfold in front of him.

  “Why don’t you go and get some clothes on, Miss Birdy?” Ilene said, setting Birdy back on the floor. “I wanna talk to your Momma for a minute, all right?”

  “Be right back,” Birdy said to Matt before turning out of the kitchen.

  “Get those teeth brushed,” John called after her.

  Melonie joined Ilene and Matt at the table. “Please don’t start, Momma,” she said heavily.

  “I’m not startin’ anything,” Ilene said before taking a sip of her coffee. “Thank you, son,” she said quietly to John. Matt started to get up, trying to give them some privacy, but Ilene looked at him. “You might as well stay. You knew about all this before I did.” After a long pause, Matt only nodding in response, Ilene asked Melonie, “How long?”

  “Long enough,” Mel said, her expression defiant even as tears welled in her eyes.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I’d made my bed, Momma, and I was lyin’ in it.”

  That line seemed to crackle between them, shots fired. Matt worried there’d be casualties soon. He and John kept silent, watching mother and daughter have their battle, hopefully once and for all.

  “There’s a difference, darlin’, between accepting the consequences of your actions and punishin’ yourself for no good reason,” Ilene said before taking another sip of coffee. There was a wounded look in her eyes, though, as if she realized she’d made a mistake, done something wrong, and was now accepting her own consequences.

  “I was seventeen, Momma, and I had nowhere else to go. You do remember that, don’t you?”

  Ilene looked as though she’d been slapped. She took a breath, seemed to collect herself, and said, “What’s done is done. I’m sorry if I didn’t do things the way you wanted, but I did what I thought was best at the time.”

  John’s eyes widened, but he still didn’t say anything. Matt wished the two of them could just run out the door, leave the entire scene behind them.

  “But we’ll get it all sorted, get you right,” Ilene said. “Charles had enough rope and he finally hung himself with it. We’ll get you a divorce and put it all behind us.”

  Melonie leaned back in the chair, crossed her arms over her chest. “I really don’t understand you sometimes, Momma.” Matt thought she would leave it at that, but instead Melonie went on, her tone vicious. “You knew he was garbage from the start, knew what
he was, and you still thought I’d be better off married to him than raisin’ Birdy on my own, with you and Daddy and John to help me.”

  “I didn’t know,” Ilene insisted. “I might’ve suspected, wondered, but I didn’t know. And I thought—hoped—he’d rise up and take care of himself for your sake, for Birdy’s sake.” Ilene took a steadying breath. “And I think you forget, darlin’, you were in love with him. You wanted to be with him. You needed to get him outta your system, and stickin’ you with him was the only way I could see to do it.” She leaned forward, looked Melonie dead in the eye, and said, “But you don’t get to blame me for things you hid from me. You don’t know what I would’ve done because I didn’t get the chance to do a damn thing.”

  No one shouted—if anything the conversation was quiet, nearly a whisper—but it felt like an atomic bomb had dropped in the middle of the room. John stood silently, his face unreadable but intense. Matt wondered if John had related with anything Ilene had said, about hiding things from her, not giving her a chance to react.

  Matt held his breath and waited for someone to say something—anything.

  Finally, Melonie let out a soft laugh. “You just swore at me, Momma.”

  Ilene waved her hand as she got up. “I did,” she said as she went to the stove. “I’m frustrated and I’m hurtin’ for you and I’m angry and I’m fixin’ to lose my temper with the whole mess.” She nudged John out of the way. “Your water’s near boiled away, son. Gonna have to start over so your grits’ll cook.”

  Birdy came back in wearing a sundress, her hair brushed and pulled back in a ponytail. “Y’all done fightin’ now, Mawmaw?”

  Ilene laughed and smiled at Birdy. “No fightin’ here, Miss Birdy, just clearin’ the air.”

  Birdy looked at Melonie, who wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. “If you say so.” To Matt, she said, “Let’s get us a skillet so we can cook them eggs.”

  BRUNCH WAS a big deal in the Turner family, apparently. Matt and Birdy made the omelets, but John and Ilene made grits and bacon, sausage gravy and biscuits, while Melonie put together a fruit buffet. Matt never did get a chance to change out of his uniform.

  The tension eased as they ate, everyone relaxed, laughing and talking. As if Melonie hadn’t been through one of the most harrowing events of her life, as if Matt hadn’t witnessed a showdown between them where lines were drawn and crossed and everyone seemed to come out ahead, despite the fact that there wasn’t a clear winner.

  Once the table was cleared, John and Melonie stepped out onto the porch. Matt went to follow them, but Ilene stopped him.

  “Don’t go pickin’ up that filthy habit with them,” she said. Her words were commanding, but her tone light, almost teasing.

  Matt stood and went to the sink, taking over rinsing the dishes while Ilene loaded the dishwasher. “I won’t. I promise,” he said with a laugh. “My mother would kill me.”

  “She sounds like good people.”

  Matt laughed softly. “That’s what John says too.” He glanced out the window, saw Birdy sitting in one of the chairs by the fire pit. “But, yeah, she is. She’d love it here.”

  Ilene finished the top rack and started on the bottom. “Must be hard, bein’ out here, so far from your kin.”

  “It can be, yeah,” Matt said honestly. “Makes it easier having friends here now, though.”

  “I’m glad.” Ilene’s smile met her eyes. “John needed a friend too,” she said, watching him out the window. “He’s got Chloe, of course, but… a man needs other men around sometimes.”

  It took everything Matt had not to laugh. She couldn’t be more correct. “Guy time.”

  “Exactly. Even my Ray has his bowling team and his friends down at the VFW. My John needs more in his life.”

  Ilene might be a strange sort of mother, but she had some kind of instincts when it came to her son. Even if she didn’t know him, she knew him.

  After a long pause, the sound of running water, dishes softly clanking together, Ilene said, “I’m sorry you had to witness all that.”

  Matt had wondered if she’d bring it up. “Don’t be,” he said softly. “I’ve seen much worse, and for far worse reasons, on the job.” He didn’t know if Ilene was referring to the fight between her and Melonie, or the call the night before, but it didn’t really matter. His answer was the same either way.

  “I imagine that’s true.” Her smile was thin, not quite forced, but not as inviting, not as at ease as Matt had gotten used to. “We just don’t usually put ourselves on display like that is all. Family business is private, no need to go showin’ our behinds in public.”

  The dishes were loaded, the kitchen cleaned. Matt said, “Sometimes we just do what we have to and then carry on.”

  Ilene nodded. “That’s exactly right, hon.”

  Birdy came in, excited. “Mawmaw, we’re gonna roast hot dogs and marshmallows tonight.” She paused for a breath and added, “You and Granddaddy need to come.”

  Matt hadn’t been around children much, not outside of his job, but their resilience never failed to impress him. He’d seen kids go through some of the worst things imaginable and then smile or laugh over something miniscule, like a teddy bear pulled from the trunk of his cruiser.

  She looked at Matt. “You should come too.”

  Melonie and John came in, just in time to hear Birdy’s invitation.

  John caught Matt’s eye. There was less fear there, less restlessness than usual. “Yeah,” John said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “If you’ve got time. Around seven or eight.”

  “I can do that.”

  As if John knew they’d looked at each other a little too long, with a little too much desire in their gazes, he glanced away and shrugged. “If you’re not too tired of our drama yet.”

  Matt grinned. “I’ll let you know when I’ve had enough.”

  Ilene shook her head, as if she couldn’t decide what to do with the lot of them, and cleared out shortly after with a promise to bring some potato salad to go with the hot dogs.

  Melonie and Birdy went outside to play, leaving John and Matt alone for a few moments.

  “You got a lot more than a meal today,” John said, stepping closer.

  Matt laughed softly. “Worth it.”

  “Yeah, it was.” John glanced over his shoulder and then leaned in. He barely touched his lips to Matt’s before pulling back, but it felt incredible. “You doin’ anything next Saturday?”

  “If you want me to come out here and dig a ditch or something, then, yes, I have plans.”

  John laughed at that, gave Matt a light push to his shoulder. “Thought I’d teach ya how to fish.”

  “What makes you think I don’t know how already?”

  “You don’t even know how to start a fire.”

  “I’m not sure how those two things are related….”

  “But I’m right, ain’t I?”

  Matt nodded, unable to hold back his grin. He loved it when John teased him, made jokes with him. “Okay, who says I wanted to learn?”

  “I do. Saturday mornin’, you and me and a couple of fishin’ poles.”

  “You have a weird idea of fun, John, but I’ll be there.”

  John leaned in and pressed one more kiss to Matt’s mouth. “I’ll see ya tonight.”

  “See ya.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  CHLOE FLOATED next to John on the blowup loungers in the pool at her condo. Birdy paddled around them in circles, splashing and squealing with two of the other kids from the building. Swimming had been Chloe’s idea. She’d texted him on her lunch hour, so John had picked Birdy up from her after-school program and headed straight over.

  “Fishing?” she asked, laughing at him.

  John lifted his sunglasses to look at her. “Why do you say that like it’s a dirty word?”

  “I didn’t.” She dropped her voice and added, “It just doesn’t surprise me that fishing would be your idea of a good date is all.”

&nb
sp; John let his sunglasses drop again and shifted back into his position on the pool float. “It’s not a date,” he insisted. “He’s never been and he’s new in town. Seemed… neighborly is all.” He didn’t have to look at Chloe to know she was rolling her eyes. They both knew he was lying. Maybe he wouldn’t call their plans a date, but it was at least an excuse to fuck again, and maybe even talk a little, get to know each other better.

  So, yeah. He and Matt were going on a date. Dammit all.

  Chloe teased him. “Have you decided what you’re gonna wear?”

  John splashed her and said, “Not yet. Got anything I can borrow?”

  “Your ass is too wide for my clothes.”

  With that, John let out a bark of laughter, but he dumped her float sideways so she fell into the water. “You don’t gotta be mean, woman.”

  Birdy giggled and pushed John over the side of his own float. The three of them ended up splashing and chasing each other around under the hot Georgia sun for near an hour.

  MELONIE WASN’T due off from work for another few hours. John was on dinner and bedtime duty, and he found that he didn’t mind a bit. He and Birdy had done her homework—an outline of her little hand with a fact about herself written down each tiny finger—and then ate spaghetti and garlic bread on his back porch, listening to the sounds of crickets and frogs as the night wrapped itself around them.

  “I made a mistake getting you in the bath after the pool,” he said, wiping her face for the hundredth time. “Gonna have to hose you off before bed, I think.”

  Birdy gave him another giggle for that before slurping up the last of her noodles. Once she finished she said, “I can wash my own face, Uncle John.”

  “And brush your teeth real good too.”