by Rea Winters
“No. You married a monster. You chose to create a life with him. Accept the consequences—”
She reached up and struck Caspar across the face. Amie jumped out of the truck and stood between them, facing the stranger.
“Hey, what’s the problem here?”
Caspar glared at Vera; her head held defiantly high. “Feel better?”
“Your mother gave you a chance. My son deserves one, too. I’ll be waiting at this diner every day at noon for the next seven days. I hope you’ll see it in your heart not to punish Aaron for his father’s sins.” She put the picture of her son in Amie’s hand. Her number was written on the back. Then she walked away, down the block and around the first corner.
Caspar’s cheek stung, the pain not to be out done by the sinking in her chest conjured by Vera’s frustrated despair. It locked her in place and suspended her in time as her mind went back to what it was like when she felt the same. Day in and day out. Watching the person that she would move heaven and earth for slowly die and being helpless to stop it.
“Cas?”
She blinked out of her trance just as Amie was swiping a tear from her jaw, the latter’s face drawn with worry.
“You okay?”
Cas grunted and rolled her shoulders, reanimating her limbs. “Yeah. Why?”
“You’re crying.”
“Oh.” She wiped her face, sniffled.
“Who was that lady? What was that about?”
“Nobody, nothing. Let’s go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Caspar couldn’t stop seeing that woman’s face in the darkness behind closed eyes. Couldn’t stop her heart from bobbing for deeper memories and bringing forth the darker thoughts attached to them.
Pie. The thought of chocolate pie popped into her mind and vanquished some of the heaviness anchoring her to her bed. It wasn’t her favorite desert by a long shot, yet she suddenly craved it and set her mind to having it right then and there. In the kitchen, the heel of her foot slipped on something round and rubbery, startling her as it ejected a loud squawk into the quiet. She braced for barking and nails scraping across the floor, but there was none. Nothing. Not a quiet whine, shuffle of sheets, creak of the floorboards.
Following a suspicious inkling, Caspar stood before the art room door. Knocked three times. Knocked three more. Nothing. She cracked open the door and switched on the light. The sheets on the bed were crumpled and adorned with plushie toys, but otherwise empty.
“Amie?” she called out. “Dog?”
She checked every room in the house before noticing the front door was unlocked. Then she threw on some shoes, grabbed a flashlight from a tote on the porch, and jogged into the front yard, searching the trees for movement in the blinding autumn night. A chill ran through her, both from the cold and rising panic. Caspar whistled a few times and after a twitch in the woods, the dog emerged. He leapt on his owner’s legs and playfully nipped at her hand.
“Hey, boy. What’re you doing out here? Where’s Amie?”
The dog jumped down and ran back into the forest, this time with Caspar on his trail, leading her to Pine Lake. Rough Road didn’t like the water, so he steered clear of the edge, but trotted around a bit before lying on his belly and resuming his chew session with a stick.
Cas shined a flashlight on the lane of moonlight over the trickling water, catching a glimpse of Amie’s head as she launched into another mermaid dive. Her eyes shut tight as shudders of relief and waves of annoyance clashed within her.
“Amie.”
The reckless girl whipped around, smiled and waved as if it was the day they met all over again and not the middle of a cold night. The heavy-duty flashlight in Cas’ hand coupled with the moonlight over the space above the tress provided enough light for Amie to note the tension in her stance.
"What's wrong?" she called out.
“What’re you doing out here?”
“Swimming, what’s it look like?”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Then Roadie had to use the bathroom, so I decided to take a quick dip. Tire myself out.”
“If you’re gonna leave in the middle of the night, you should leave a note or something.”
“We’ve only been out for ten minutes.”
“Still. It’s just better that way.”
She cocked her head, a mischievous grin blooming below her narrowed gaze.
“Worried about me, ey?”
Caspar grabbed the towel bunched on the ground. “C’mon, we should get inside.”
“Hold on. Clearly, you couldn’t sleep either, so why don’t you join me?”
“No.”
“C’mon, please. Here, I’ll serenade you.”
She began badly singing a terrible off the cuff siren call.
Though it made Cas laugh, the power of Amie’s charms failed to make her budge.
“Amie, seriously. It’s too cold and too dark for this.”
“The water’s good for my ankle. Besides, I don’t get cold.”
As if the Ancesti were watching, a distant crackle of thunder objected her lies.
“Fine. You win this time.”
She swam to land, immediately gripping her shivering form, slipped on her shoes, and limped to Caspar’s toweled embrace. The taller woman wrapped her up and used the excess edges to wipe fallen leaves from the shorter girl’s face and hair. Amie tried in vain to keep her teeth from chattering. Cas shook her head, laughing.
"Don’t get cold, huh?”
“So, I e-e-embellished a lil’ bit, so what?”
“C’mon.” Cas turned around and squatted some, letting Amie climb onto her back. Securing her legs and arms around her, she whistled for the dog to trot ahead and carried the girl back through the woods.
After a hot shower, Amie sat on the rug a comfortable distance from the fireplace dressed in her own pjs, brushing and moisturizing her damp hair with something that filled the air with a coconut-y aroma. As soon as the rain began to pour, the dog curled up beside Amie, lying his head on her thigh.
“Aw, Roadie. You don’t like the rain, huh? It’s okay.”
“Why Roadie?” Cas asked from the kitchen.
“It’s short for Rough Road. Do you like it? You’ve got time to change your mind. It takes them a couple weeks to learn their names.”
“No, Roadie is good. I like it. Here. It’s not too hot,” Cas assured, handing her guest a mug of steaming cocoa, then joined her on the rug with a plate of chocolate pie for herself.
Amie kept staring at her while she ate, then averting her gaze when she noticed, leading Caspar to pick at her plate, poking and sliding its contents around.
“Hm. This doesn’t taste like it has poison in it…”
“What?”
“Just wondering why you keep staring at me."
“Sorry.”
“Something on your mind?”
“No, not at all.”
“Oka—”
“It’s just…never mind.”
Caspar ducked her and nodded, rubbing her shoulder. “You’re wondering about what happened earlier, right?”
“I don’t so much care about the details. I just care that you’re okay. And without prying and probing, my go-to method of figuring that out is to watch and guess. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She didn’t have the guts to say as much, but she liked that Amie worried about her. When she went to put her plate away and tend to a full sink of dishes, Amie and Roadie followed.
“I’ll wash, you dry,” Amie offered.
Half way through the menial task, Caspar broke their comfortable silence with a quiet sigh.
“That woman…” she started, but couldn’t finished.
“She looked upset.”
“She was. Not that I should care.”
“Who’s the boy in the picture? I notice you didn’t throw it out. Does he mean something to you?”
Should he? The million-dollar question on Caspar’s mind. “No,” she
answered. “He’s the son of a man named Jack Kent. The man who raped and nearly killed my mother when she was eighteen.”
“So, he’s your…”
“Unfortunately. And that woman is his wife, apparently. Someone actually married him, shared a bed with him. Can you believe that?”
Amie picked up the crinkled picture of the boy off the counter. “She said he ‘deserves a chance,’ her son. Is something wrong with him?”
“I think he’s sick. Kent might’ve mentioned something about it, too, when he showed up at my house yesterday. My first time seeing his face…” Caspar scoffed.
Amie stared at the photo, an old knot tightening in her chest.
“What kind of sick are we talking about?”
“Kidney failure.”
Caspar put the final dish down and paused, beating back thoughts she’d rather not listen to.
In the heavy silence that followed, Amie leaned against her, hugging her arm and rubbing soothing circles against her back. Her touch sent the tension rolling off Cas in waves, breaking down her stubborn resolve.
“You think I should help them, don’t you?”
Amie put her back against the sink, facing Cas.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel for the boy. I’ve been where he is now.”
“You have?”
Amie put Aaron’s picture down and folded up her t-shirt, revealing the v-shaped scar across her abdomen. Caspar reached to touch it, hesitating. Amie held her wrist and guided her the rest of the way.
“It’s okay. It won’t bite.”
She laid her rough palm on the upper curve of Amie’s scar, gently running her thumb down the swoop above her hip. “What happened?”
“Wilson’s disease. My liver had commitment issues with copper, it was a whole thing. My mom had it too, only she didn’t know it until it was too late. Her bad luck was my good fortune. Got me diagnosed a few months after her funeral. I stuck to the diet and the meds as well as I could. But, life with a restless gambling addict didn’t make it easy.”
Caspar protectively drew her a fraction closer. Amie let her hold remain, but shook her head at the unspoken assumptions shining through Caspar’s sympathetic gaze.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. Antonio “Tony” Seda wasn’t a bad man. He came up from Mexico when he was fifteen and laid his roots in The Big Stallion. One glitzy night out leads to another and another and he’s been head over heels for the fast lane ever since. Even when he gave up the lifestyle to be with my mom, he never really fell out of love with it, not completely. I love my dad. He was just…more like a puppy than a father a lot of the time.”
“Was?”
“Oh.” She caught herself, shook her head. “He’s still alive, just not around.”
“So, I take it he’s not exactly away on business.”
“No, not exactly…”
“You don’t have to say—”
“He’s in prison. Currently serving a dime behind bars for indulging in some shady stress relief. I’m sorry I lied before. I just don’t like to think about it because then I worry and when I worry, I have to fix things and this is something I can’t fix. He even told me not to bother trying this time, to just move on with my life. That’s why I came here. But before that, though, he really stepped up. He had to once my liver started to give.”
Amie’s gaze flit down to her stomach before she looked Caspar in the eyes again.
“I don’t give up on anything without a fight, but even I thought I was a goner back then. What else can you think when no matter how strong or how tough or how young you are, your body keeps doing the one thing you’re not ready for it to do? Or when your best chance at stopping it is to rely on somebody else, anybody else to give a damn, and you doubt every day that anyone will or that they even should? This was about a year ago for me. I got lucky at the last minute. Jack’s wife is just trying to work the same miracle for her little boy before it’s too late.”
“But I didn’t ask to share the same blood as some kid I’ve never met. This is Kent’s problem, not mine. Why should I do anything to help him? Anything that would make his life less painful?”
“Because dying is Aaron’s problem. Not Kent’s, not his mom’s. Just his.”
Caspar sighed.
“Hey, I’m not telling you to jump under the knife on word go. A hundred good reasons why people can’t make this kind of sacrifice come up every day. You could go in for testing and find out you’re not even a suitable choice. Just think about why you’re choosing not to try. Is it because you really don’t have a care in the world about this kid’s problem or is it because he’s Jack Kent’s kid? Because the latter he can’t help any more than you can. I think that’s all his mother wants you to see.”
Caspar stared into her eyes, the wheels in her head turning for some kind of protest and finding none. Amie was right. Cas wasn’t ready to admit it, but thankful she was there to say it for her.
“You’re thinking about how right I am, aren’t you?” A sly smile parted Amie’s perfect lips.
“Yeah…Among other things.”
“Really? Do tell,” she said playfully.
Given the flush of Amie’s cheeks and her gaze falling to Caspar’s lips, the ladda didn’t think she needed to say much. So, she took a chance and let her actions do the talking. She bent down and teased Amie’s lips with a gentle kiss. Amie gripped her shirt and pulled her closer, deepening their kiss, turning the air around them rushed and sweltering. Caspar's hands slid past her waist and gripped her ass, sending a jolt of heat to the smaller woman’s core. Then she hoisted Amie up on the counter, leaned between her knees and locked her strong arms on either side of her. Amie’s nails trailed up Caspar’s neck into her hair, eliciting a moan between their tying tongues. As the heat between their bodies seeped further south, Caspar’s hand snaked between them, brushing Amie’s swelling center as they lost their breath consuming each other.
Thankfully, Roadie was there to save them from themselves.
With an impatient bark, the dog jumped on the back of Caspar’s legs, the domino effect knocking Amie’s head right into the cabinets. They broke apart, Amie instantly laughing.
“Ah…ow.” She whined and laid her head on Cas’ shoulder. Cas petted away the ache in the girl’s scalp as they caught their breath and Amie sighed in amused aggravation as their dizzying cloud of lust dissipated.
"You okay?"
"I'll live."
She raised her head and looked to Cas. A smile still tugged at her own lips, but Caspar’s subdued smile threatened to fall, her gaze lowered.
“What’s the matter?” Amie asked.
"Was that...okay? I mean, I didn’t mean to get carried away.”
"Hey, look at me. It was perfect. Really. Right down to the timing and that swoop move you did. Felt like I was in a movie, which says to me somebody likes rom-coms," she sang teasingly, squeezing and twisting Caspar’s shoulders. Alas, a confident grin shook loose from Caspar’s uncertainty.
Roadie let out another impatient howl and paced in a circle, threatening to dizzy himself to death if they didn’t pay attention to him that instant. He was begging for food despite the fact that his shiny new bowl was full of kibble.
“Okay, Roadie. I hear ya,” Amie placated as Cas helped her down off the counter.
She fixed her clothes and cupped Roadie’s face, giving it a scratch. “What we’ve got here is a dog that won’t eat dog food. Between our lunch dates and your pasta dinner, I think we broke him. But, luckily, that is what these tasty morsels are for.” She snagged a bag of pungent smelling bacon bites from the counter. “They’re training treats. You give him one only when he does what you’re telling him to do, so he associates whatever it is he’s resisting with a reward.”
“I didn’t see training treats on the list.”
“They weren’t on there, but I figured the sooner you have them the better.”
“You had a dog back home?”
“No, but I took care of about six dogs a week one summer when I was maybe fifteen or sixteen. Mostly small breeds. Walking them, washing them, teaching them basic commands so they’d listen to their lazy rich mommies.”
“How many jobs have you had?”
Amie snorted, teasing Roadie with a braided rope. “Depends on what counts as a job. If there’s no specific criteria, then I couldn’t tell you. Lost count after I turned eighteen.”
“So that’s always been your thing, huh?”
“What?”
“Taking care of other people.”
“I guess so. Started with my dad, but the pay was inconsistent. If I wanted us both to eat and for him to keep his legs intact when the bookies came knocking, I had to expand.”
Figuring her for the type to decline the offer if proposed, Cas made up her mind right then and there to take care of Amie without her ever needing to ask.
Chapter Twenty
Restless children and tired parents filled the lobby of the doctor’s office. Vaccine season. School must’ve been starting soon. Caspar did her best to keep her hulking frame out of the way, standing against the wall in the corner. But no corner was big enough to keep children under ten from looking up at her towering form with that conqueror’s glint in their eyes, itching for a climb. It brought back pleasant memories from middle school when the elementary school kids would elect her their honorary monster during recess. She’d let them pile onto her limbs until her ultimate defeat. Didn’t last long, those games, once her reputation as a menace stopped being pretend.
Even now, the parents and grandparents who recognized her as ‘that troubled one’ made it a point to avert their kids’ attention from her direction.
Caspar endured well enough with a magazine in hand to distract her, though she hardly flipped the pages. Every few minutes, she glanced up at the entrance to the deeper end of the hospital, wishing Amie would emerge from those double doors in the next second. Before she could turn back to the unturned pages, another woman caught her eye. And Cas caught hers eyes, evident in the stutter of her steps as she ushered her kids to the front desk.