Love You to Death

by Melissa March

  “Sorry, Mags. I’m lugging some extra poundage here. I need sit breaks.”

  “I know. I still can’t believe you got knocked up.” She shook her head, spilling blond locks over her slender shoulders. “Have you not listened to a thing I’ve told you?”

  “I guess not.” I laughed.

  “So, when are you getting married?” she asked nonchalantly, pretending to be engrossed in a group of young men entering the deli.

  “We aren’t.”

  “Says you, but I know Gideon—”

  “Why is everyone expecting us to get married?” I snapped.

  “Uh, the little butterball you’re growin’?” She gestured to my six month abdominal extension.

  I rolled my eyes. “What is this, the sixteenth century?”

  “You love him, right?” Maggie met my irritated gaze with her questioning eyes.

  “Yes, of course I do. Just because I can’t marry him doesn’t mean I don’t love him.”

  “Can’t?” Maggie asked.

  “What?”

  “You said can’t. You can’t marry him.”

  I waved at her, dismissing the whole conversation.

  “Don’t wave at me.” She straightened her back. “I heard it.”

  “A slip of the tongue, for God’s sake, Mags, lighten up.”

  “I just don’t see why you can’t at least let him give you the ring.” She sipped her coffee. “It’s a gorgeous antique. It was his mother’s and her mother’s before her—”

  “What?” I accidently breathed in my latte and started choking. I bent over trying to cough the liquid out of my trachea. Maggie pounded on my back. It was then that a pair of expensive black loafers caught my eye.

  I stopped coughing because I’d stopped breathing altogether. I didn’t dare raise myself back up to sitting until the shoes were halfway down the block.

  Very calmly and slowly I raised myself up, still staring down the walkway. Panic gripped me. There he was—Cass in all his glory—his artfully styled hair blowing in the breeze as he ambled his way down the sidewalk. I felt like I was going to throw up and pass out at the same time. How did he find me here? It was impossible. I left no trail. Not paper or money. I hadn’t even hocked the rings.

  “Arden?” Maggie said worriedly.

  “Shhh!” I hissed.

  She bent down beside me. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re gonna be sick.”

  “Nothing, I got a cramp,” I lied. “I’m tired, Mags. I need to go home.”

  “Okay. Wait here. I’ll go get the car.”

  I pretended to doze while Maggie drove us home. I felt terrible for causing Maggie to worry, but unable to do anything about it. My heart palpitations could be confused with the whirring of helicopter blades. The baby was kicking and moving around inside me as if he or she knew I was upset and scared.

  Absently, I rubbed my stomach in a light circling motion.

  “Are you still cramping?” Maggie sounded flustered.

  “No, I’m fine. Just tired...” I patted her arm reassuringly. She downshifted, turning off the road and onto our lane.

  “Gideon will have my head if I made you over do it.” She frowned, narrowing her eyes at nothing through the windshield.

  “No worries. I’m going to go lay down. He’ll never know.”

  She pulled up to the front door, putting the car in neutral and yanking on the emergency brake. She bolted from the driver’s seat to grab my door. Little bits of guilt now hovered over me like orbiting planets. I let her help me out of the car and walk me to the door. I actually needed her to do this. Not because I was sick, but because I felt weak and faint when I thought of Cass being only a twenty minute drive from me.

  How could I run now? I was six months pregnant. I had no more money than when I’d gotten here. And then there was Stewie. I’d have to leave him behind. JD and Aurora were the only parents he ever really knew. I knew they’d take good care of him. Cass wasn’t really looking for Stewie anyway. It was me he wanted.

  * * * *

  My presence was required downstairs. I’d been holed up in my room for days, coming out only to eat. My nerves were shot. I was jumping at shadows, cringing every time the phone rang.

  The whole family was gathered in the sitting room. I felt a trickle of dread run down my back. I stopped at the threshold, looking from Gideon to Sissy then back to Gideon.

  “Ah... Arden, Sheriff Packer is here. He needs to speak with us.” Gideon came to me. Reaching out, he took me by the hand, brushing his thumb over my palm. He led me to a chair. I didn’t feel like sitting, but I did anyway, my hands clasped over my stomach protectively. Bad news was coming. In what form I didn’t know, but I knew when someone was about to shake my world into pieces.

  Sheriff Packer leaned back in his chair, crossing his boots under the coffee table; he tipped his big brimmed hat back off of his face. He looked comfortable enough, but the way he angled his head and looked at me made me very aware of his professional capacity.

  “There was a man...he came in to the station yesterday. Flashed me your picture and gave me some song and dance about a missing persons report...” The Sheriff trailed off, but he watched me with a look of great intensity, kind, but serious. I knew Cass had told him the lie about Stewie kidnapping me. I also knew that his longtime friendship with Sissy kept him from helping Cass until he got the truth from me.

  “Arden, someone’s been showing your picture around town, asking questions,” Gideon said. I didn’t realize I was trembling until he took my hand in his steady grip.

  “I think it’s time you told us what happened to you,” Sissy said.

  I shook my head. “I have to leave,” I said. Stewie was sitting in a chair next to Sissy. He looked scared.

  “No,” Gideon forced the word from clenched teeth.

  “Where would you go?” Aurora asked. I gave my head another shake. I didn’t have a clue. “You can’t keep running,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Oh sugar...that’s no way to live, especially with a baby.”

  “Arden, tell us what happened to you. We can help,” Maggie said.

  They sat there, surrounding me. JD and Aurora with Maggie and Cort sandwiched together on the sofa. Sissy, Stewie, and Gideon in chairs like me, forming a tight circle around the old antique coffee table. I could feel their concern like an August heat wave off a concrete street.

  I always knew it would come to this. In the back of my mind I expected it every day from the moment we arrived.

  I stood up, crossing the room to stand in front of the large picture window. I stared out, not really seeing anything except the images in my head as I began to talk.

  “When I was a little girl my dad used to read me bedtime stories. He would tuck me in and lay there beside me. He’d make up voices for all the different characters.” I paused, remembering the only good times I had with my father. “One night, I guess I was about five, he didn’t come home. My mom told me he was working late. I went to bed disappointed, but didn’t really think anything of it.

  But something woke me up. I remember tiptoeing out of my room. I wasn’t afraid. I don’t know why I wasn’t. I should have been. I went down the hall to my parents’ room. The door was half open. My mother was crying. I’d never seen her cry before... She was whispering something, something I couldn’t hear, she spoke too low...but my father heard her because he punched my mother in the face.

  I was stunned. I must’ve cried out because he swung the door open and started screaming at me to get back to my room. So I did. I threw the covers up over my head and waited for him to come get me. The next day my mom smiled and pretended nothing happened, but the welt across her cheek told another story. My mother explained that sometimes Daddy got sad and drank too much. It wasn’t his fault. He was sick, and we had to love him extra to help him get better.”

  I drew a breath, rubbing the swell of my unborn child.

  “So, we did. We walked on broken gl
ass around him. But it didn’t matter how much we loved him. He kept drinking more and more until he was always drunk. He picked a fight over anything.

  My mother was too thin; she was cheating. My mother was too fat; she was letting herself go. Dinner was too cold, dinner was too spicy, the beer was warm, or the house was dirty. He always had something to use as an excuse to beat her. And after each fight he would say he was sorry. He’d buy her flowers or a little trinket. She’d forgive him, and the next day it would start all over. Finally, he went too far. He pushed her down a flight of stairs. She broke her leg.

  She had the cops arrest him. When she came home from the hospital she had the locks changed. He stayed away for a few weeks. But eventually she forgave him and he moved back in. It was a vicious cycle.” I smirked. “You get the drift.”

  My feet were swelling from standing in one spot too long. I circled back to the chair I’d abandoned and settled myself into the plush cushion. I took a long sip from the glass of tea Sissy poured for me.

  “When I was sixteen my father decided I was old enough to take a few hits. He said I dressed like a slut. I wore too much makeup. I’d laughed at him. I told him mom only let me wear lip gloss. That was my first black eye. My mother was furious. She waited til he left for work then she packed up all his stuff and changed the locks again—this time for good.

  He called all hours of the day and night, begging, pleading with her to take him back. But she stood her ground. She said it was one thing for him to hit her, but it was an entirely other ball of wax for him to hit me.

  He finally gave up and only called when he was rip-roaring drunk to tell my mother she was worthless and he was going to kill her, because if he couldn’t have her, then no one else would either.”

  “What about the police?” Sissy asked.

  “She went to the cops.” I laughed bitterly. “She filled out the paperwork and filed complaints. It didn’t do any good. After about a year we figured he was all talk anyway because all he ever did was call. He never showed up. So we went on with our lives.” I closed my eyes. I steeled myself against the emotions that were struggling to stay buried inside of me.

  “Arden...” Gideon said. I felt the warmth of his hand covering mine. I opened my eyes to see him kneeling in front of me, his warm whiskey brown eyes sending me love, giving me courage. “You don’t have to do this now if you aren’t up for it... maybe later...” he said, cupping my face with his other hand. I pressed my cheek into the palm of his hand.

  “You have a right to know. You need to know,” I said, lifting my head to stare off into the past, my voice dropping to a whisper. “So my mother and I moved on. I was planning on going to culinary school. My mom and I were going over some of the school brochures and making dinner when the doorbell rang.

  I remember her laughing about it being the Avon lady from across the hall. She was always trying to sell us stuff. But when she opened the door it was my dad. He was drunk. He pushed his way in and started throwing her around, yelling and cursing. My mom shouted for me to call 911. But I was scared. I just watched as he picked her up and threw her against the wall.

  She screamed for me to call 911. While I did that, I heard her yelling at him to ‘Put it down!’ That he would go to jail if he didn’t. She was crying, and in between trying to talk to him and calm him down, she was screaming for me not to come into the living room.

  I was so scared. I wanted to help her, but I knew I couldn’t. I’d tried before.” Absently, I fingered a faint scar above my right eye from the stitches I’d gotten for my effort.

  “I thought I could sneak closer, find something to throw at him, or at least create a diversion. I hid behind the sofa. I prayed. I prayed so hard for the police to hurry and get there. I heard the sirens. I knew they’d be there any minute to haul his sorry butt to jail. So did he. That’s when I noticed he was holding a gun.

  He raised the gun and pointed it at my mom. She was a mess. Her eye was already swelling shut, her lip was bleeding. She crouched in a corner, crying and he...he just stared at her like he’d never seen her before...” I trailed off. I was lost in the memory.

  “I don’t think I want to hear anymore,” Maggie whispered brokenly.

  I looked at her. Her kewpie doll lips were trembling. Her big blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. I watched as one escaped and trailed its way down her cheek. The rest of them were hardly breathing. They were sitting still as stone, staring at me with their faces pinched in various degrees of horror, pity, and sorrow. Even Sissy was crying. My eyes were dry. I’d cried over this memory countless times.

  “You asked for my story.” I weakly lifted my shoulders in a barely there movement. Taking a ragged breath, I went on. “He stared at her with this...this lost look on his face. Then he told her he loved her...and then...he shot her. I think I blacked out or something because I don’t remember how I got to her or the cops showing up. One minute I was behind the couch and the next I was holding her, trying to stop the bleeding. The blood was everywhere, all over me. Her eyes were wide open, just staring at nothing.

  My father was handcuffed and taken to jail. They had to sedate me to get me to let go of her. ‘Don’t leave me, Mommy. Please don’t go,’ I begged her. I screamed for her to wake up. And then I just knew...I kissed her face...I told her I loved her over and over again, but she was already gone.”

  Aurora got up, crossed the room, leaned down, and drew me up into her arms. She was sobbing uncontrollably. I let her hold me. I even hugged her back. I was surprised to find myself crying. I didn’t think I had anymore tears to cry.

  Sissy and Maggie got up and joined us, wrapping their arms around us, and crying. I couldn’t see Gideon or Cort or JD or Stewie, but I knew they were there by their manly sniffles.

  “You poor baby,” Aurora cooed, rocking me while running her hand over my head and down my hair.

  Finally, they let go and took a few steps back. Sissy ripped handfuls of tissue from a box and passed them around.

  “What happened to your father?” JD asked.

  “He’s serving a life sentence without parole. I had to testify against him. That’s the last I saw of him.” I took one of the tissues Sissy was shoving into my hand and blew my nose.

  “Where did you live?” Cort asked. He was white as a new piece of chalk.

  “They tried to make me live with my aunt, but she hated my mom and I couldn’t take her trash talk...I just couldn’t. So, I decided to go on my own.”

  “Yeah,” Stewie chimed in. He was rocking on the balls of his feet, wringing his hands together. “That’s when Cherry found me, right? Isn’t that when we met?” he said anxiously.

  “Yep, that’s when we met.” I smiled at him. He slowed his rocking to a stop. “I ended up on the streets, staying at the same shelter where Stewie happened to be.”

  “Oh my Gawd,” Aurora gasped, “you lived on the streets?”

  “For almost a year,” I said, smiling at the look of terror on their faces.

  “Is that how you got shot? You try to rob a store or somethin’ for food money?” Sissy reached out to smooth her fingers over my brow.

  I shook my head. Here was where I had to come clean about the other half of my life. This seemed scarier to me than telling them about my mom. I guess because that was the past—dead and buried—but this was something that was alive and well and could still hurt me. Cass was out there, living and breathing.

  I drew a couple deep breaths. “You might want to kick me out after this part of the story.” I locked my eyes on Gideon as I said this.

  “Not a chance,” he replied, coming to stand beside me and wrap me inside his warm embrace. He kissed the top of my head. I gave him a squeeze before extricating myself to sink back down into the chair. Then I told them the story of how I met Cass and how he reeled me in, trapping me. JD was furious when I told them about the beating Cass gave Stewie.

  “Rotten son of a—” JD said, barely containing his anger, “needs a few
kicks himself.”

  Then when I told them about the attack in the park, JD and Cort let out a stream of curses and threats that blistered my ears. Gideon remained deceptively calm. The only hint of his anger was the swirling color in his darkening eyes. I skipped over the part about me living with Cass and getting married. I was saving that for later.

  “It’s a long story, but the short version is he’s a bad cop that uses his authority to do whatever he wants. He kidnapped Stewie and used him for a lab rat.” Stewie was nodding furiously in agreement. He got up from his chair to sit at my feet. I took his hand and squeezed it.

  “So you might be running from the law, of a sort,” JD pointed out. I nodded.

  “Stewie banged him up pretty good,” I said worriedly. “He’ll be looking for me. He won’t give up until he finds me.”

  “I’ll protect you, Cherry.” Stewie squeezed my hand.

  “If he’s dirty, he’ll have to do it on the sly,” Cort said.

  All the wheels in the room were turning, everyone was thinking. Sheriff Packer was taking notes and nodding his head.

  Then Gideon murmured, “Why you?”

  “What do you mean?” Cort asked.

  “I mean,” Gideon said as he cocked his head, eyeing me with curiosity, “why is this guy so bent on getting to you and not Stewie?”

  I guess later came sooner than I thought. I struggled to keep eye contact. No more lies, I reminded myself. I took a long deep breath, held it a second or two then exhaled slowly.

  “I’m his wife.”

  Their collective gasps went up at the same time. Gideon’s eyebrows shot up in shock. Whatever he’d been expecting it wasn’t that. Cort whistled through his teeth. Stewie started moaning and rocking back and forth. I thought Maggie was going to pass out. Her mouth gaped open in a perfect ‘o’.

  “Wife?” Sissy breathed raggedly. “So that’s why you had to say no to Gideon.”

  “We were married a few weeks before I came here.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair, licking my lips. I wanted to look at Gideon, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t brave enough to see the look of accusation and hatred I was sure I’d find in those liquid brown depths.