As she peeled away his kindergarten packet, she uncovered the envelope where his prekindergarten likeness was revealed through the cellophane window, she realized she was only halfway through. She compared his prekindergarten and kindergarten photos, knowing that their mother had disappeared between them. She hoped she had been a decent substitute.
She turned and smiled at Declan. "Thank you. I thought those pictures were long gone and I'd never see them again. I didn't even think it was possible to get them after I turned them back in. I always wanted their pictures but I never seemed to have extra money. Did they keep them on file or reprint the negatives?"
He shrugged and a chagrined smile came to his lips. "You'll have to ask my mother."
"Are the rest your school pictures?" she asked and set aside the last of Cody's portraits to reveal her own 10th grade likeness.
She groaned and then fell silent.
"You really did have a growth spurt between freshman and sophomore years. You look almost the same as you do now," Declan said.
"I guess so," she said, subdued.
She only looked at it for a few moments before placing it with the children's.
"That's how I remember you. Of course that was your yearbook photo,” he said, his finger outlining one cheek of her freshman photo.
"I bet there were lots of pictures of you in the yearbook."
Declan didn't need to be told that Nyxie hadn't purchased the yearbooks. The money she had scrounged up went to groceries. Next time he visited his folks, he’d have to ask if they still had his senior yearbook so Nyxie could see it. He had scoured it for pictures of her and knew every place where she had been caught by the camera lens. Declan tightened his arm that was still around her shoulders. As he looked at the girl he had fallen in love with, he could see things he had never noticed before. Perhaps it was because the yearbook snapshot was in black and white and the original was in full color. She had dark circles under her eyes and there was not a hint of a smile. Her yellow shirt appeared dingy with age.
Before he could look deeper, Nyxie turned to the next one. She was probably in sixth-grade and the change in her looks could not be called subtle. "I skipped school for picture day in seventh and eighth," she volunteered.
"Why?"
"It was embarrassing to never have the money to buy them."
The near silent sigh came out under his breath as he gazed at her sixth grade portrait. "Have you ever seen the poster for Les Miserables? You remind me of Cosette—only with dark hair."
Nyxie silently shook her head and set the packet aside.
Fifth grade. Little Onyx did not even try to muster a smile. Her hair looked as if she had just rolled out of bed. Dirt smudges on her cheeks made her cheekbones stand out. She wore a stained white tank top that looked too big for her, her shoulders barely wide enough for the straps.
Fourth grade. Her weak smile without teeth caught his attention first, then the tangled hair that stopped just above her collar. She wore a horizontal striped T-shirt in red, blue and yellow. It looked as if it could be a boys’ shirt.
Third grade. Her hair cut short to her ears, she wore a Beauty and the Beast T-shirt so old, the transfer was faded and peeling around the edges. It looked like it might be too small. On her cheeks she had dark smudges again. Declan plucked it from the shrinking pile. "Hand me your fifth grade picture."
Declan opened both envelopes, pulled out the 5 x 7s and turned to put more light on the portraits. The marks on her cheeks looked the same.
"Are those bruises on your cheeks?"
Nyxie look more closely at them and could barely see the purple coming through the skin. She was surprised he could see them with one eye bandaged.
"Probably. Momma liked to hold my face when she yelled at me, especially if she thought I wasn't listening."
His body tensed, his chest expanding as his breathing increased. "Where were your fucking teachers? They had a duty to report if they suspected child abuse."
"I don't think they noticed. My whole goal was to be invisible. My hair was usually in my face." She placed her hand on his arm and leaned into him until she felt his body begin to relax a little.
"Still…."
Nyxie shrugged as she pulled the pictures from his hands and placed them back in their respective envelopes. "It's water under the bridge. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. There's nothing that will change the past."
She set them aside and reached for her second grade picture, making a sound of disapproval at her appearance and expression. "Jeez, you would think we didn't own a hair brush," she said, more to draw his attention away from the obvious incongruities of the picture. Her eyes were awash with tears, her wet cheeks catching the bright light that shone in her face to illuminate the shot. A wide but fake smile showed a mouth full of baby teeth, save the two front bottom teeth which were in the process of coming in.
"Why were you crying?" he asked gently, as if speaking to the child in the picture.
Nyxie thought about lying. She could tell him she didn't remember or that one of the other kids said something mean to her, but not only was she trying to live by the standards of being collared, but she had also learned she could trust him to keep her secrets and not use them against her.
"To understand why I was upset; I have to tell you about the other photos."
Nyxie handed him her second grade picture and spread the two remaining packets apart on her lap.
"This little girl was so excited to get her picture taken,” she said pointing at her kindergarten picture. It was the first time Nyxie had smiled at one of her own portraits.
A smile came instantly to Declan's face seeing tiny little Onyx's wide smile and jubilant eyes. The expression was genuine and heartfelt. He wondered how anyone could think she looked old enough to start kindergarten. Since the photographers came fairly early in the school years she was probably four, or was just about to have her fourth birthday as they had discovered when they found out Nyxie’s correct birthday.
"Melinda brushed my hair for me that morning and let me borrow her hair clips."
Declan set down the envelope containing Nyxie's crying portrait and took the kindergarten pack from her. He pulled out the largest print and could see the plastic window had only revealed part of the picture. Her broken arm wore a plaster cast inside a blue sling and long black Velcro belts immobilized her arm to her body. A large fading bruise peeked out of the neckline of her oversized T-shirt along her collarbone, where it was broken. Despite her injury, the four-year-old beamed with happiness.
"I had never had my picture taken before that I could remember. I was so excited; I couldn't stand still. The teacher made me go to the back of the line, but I didn't care. I was getting my picture taken! But when it was time to buy the portraits, Momma didn't have enough money to buy both mine and Melinda's."
"What? You’re fucking kidding me. She paid for your sister's portraits, but not yours?"
"Yeah. But she promised she'd buy mine the next year."
Declan looked at her first grade picture—another happy picture—but not as joyous as the previous one. She wore the same Beauty and the Beast T-shirt that she wore when she was two years older but it barely registered in his mind. He saw her little overbite, present even when she had baby teeth, and the pouty bottom lip that he found sexy as an adult, looked so adorably cute as a child, that he had a strange desire to push Nyxie on her back and blow raspberries on her belly. Maybe he would, later.
"She didn't follow through, did she?"
"No. I reminded her she had bought Melinda's the previous year, so it was my turn. It made her so mad, she screamed at me. She asked, what would she do with twelve wallet-size photos of an ugly bucktoothed brat? No one would want a picture like that. She wasn't going to waste twenty bucks on something that everyone would just throw away."
She had been staring at the little girl in front of her while she spoke, and did not look up at him. Nyxie didn't want to see the pity in his face t
hat she was certain was there.
It wasn't until he didn't make any response at all, that she finally turned her head to face him. His mouth was set in a hard line and his visible eye was squeezed closed. She set her hand on his arm, wondering if his injury was causing him pain. "Declan?"
He turned his head away.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice becoming tight with her concern. Was he…was he crying? Unsure what to do or say, Nyxie said the first thing that popped into her head. "You will not hide your emotions from me," she said, trying to imitate his Dom voice in an attempt to bring levity to an uncomfortable situation. A half-hearted smile played on her lips as she tried to tease him out of his uncharacteristic reaction.
Finally, his bloodshot eye opened and sought her out with laser precision. A well of tears pooled in the bottom lid, held there by thick black lashes. "Shut up."
Nyxie removed the pictures from his hand, setting them on top of the stack and climbed into his lap. "Lose the fucking attitude, Declan, or I may have to punish you."
An involuntary chuckle made him shudder. "Oh, yeah? What are you going to do?"
"Maybe I’ll spank you naked. And when I’m finished, you can take your clothes off too."
He laughed briefly, weaving his hand into her hair and making a loose fist. "Oh, yeah, you and what army?"
With a feigned dramatic sigh, she reached out and cupped his face, running her thumb along the length of his bottom lip. "You’re upset about the pictures?"
"How can I not be? Nearly every picture shows signs of neglect or abuse. And then I think about all the bruises I’ve left on you."
"No, it's not the same, Declan. These marks, came with anger and hate," she said pointing at the stack of portraits. "It was never the physical pain that hurt my heart. It was the emotional pain they hurled at me. Hell, bruises and broken bones oftentimes brought me attention from people. I went unnoticed otherwise. Maybe that's the reason I'm a masochist."
Nyxie separated the children's pictures from her own and climbed off his lap.
"Where are you going?" he asked, grabbing her around her slender waist before she could get too far away.
"I'm going to throw away the pictures of me."
"What? No! Absolutely not," he said. "Why? Don't you like them?"
Declan's brow lowered into a dark grimace, not understanding why she would toss a gift that his mother had gone to a great deal of trouble to procure at his bidding.
"I love them, but they're upsetting you."
"The pictures are not upsetting me. You were the most adorable child I think I have ever seen—messy hair and all. I'm upset by the bruises and broken bones. I'm upset because people are always putting teachers on a pedestal and not one of these saints could follow the law and report the abuse."
"I don't know if they knew. I always had an excuse. I covered it up," she said.
"How do you explain away bruises on your cheeks?"
"I slipped my head between the posts of a railing and it got stuck. Or I fell."
"And the broken arm and collarbone?"
"I was little, no one expected me to be articulate. My mother explained it away or told me what to tell people."
Declan's eye blinked as he silently looked at her. His brow lifted in mute inquiry.
"It was an accident—both times," she said. "The first time he grabbed me by the arm to move me out of the way. It just snapped when he jerked. The second time, he was passed out in the chair—or at least I thought he was. Sometimes, I climbed up in his lap and took a nap with him."
Onyx had liked those little naps. Sometimes her dad would wrap his arms around her, and even after she woke up, she would stay like that because she liked the closeness.
"That day, I guess I stepped on his private area with my knee. The next thing I knew, I was flying across the room. He just went ape-shit crazy. He turned over everything that wasn't nailed down, including the bed and the ugly-ass-green refrigerator we used to have. With the mattresses strewn across the floor, Melinda couldn't get out of the way and when he tipped the fridge over, it landed on her, trapping her under it. When Momma came home, Daddy said I had climbed on top of the refrigerator and put my feet on the wall and pushed it over."
"Surely she didn't believe that."
Nyxie shrugged, her eyes coming no higher than his chin. "I don't know. I was known to climb up there occasionally—you know—seat of the rocking chair to the arm of the rocking chair, to the card table—I pulled the bookshelf down on top of me once, so I didn't use it as a step. But I would open the freezer and use it to climb the rest of the way."
"When you were three?" She looked into his eye, the green color appearing more dominant than the gray since the accident, his left eye still bloodshot from the minor injuries to that eye. The right—she could barely stand seeing it when he removed the patch to apply the medicine. Blood pooled in the white part and in one area of the iris. She nearly tossed her cookies the first time she saw it.
"I was hungry and the cereal was up there." A sad smile came to her lips. "The fridge never worked after that. Mrs. Jones refused to replace it, so Momma had to buy a used one that lasted only a few months. "God, was she pissed at me."
Declan studied her face thoughtfully. "You never told her the truth about what happened?"
"She knew—I'm pretty sure she knew. I had only climbed to the very top of the fridge a couple of times. Getting down was a lot scarier than getting up there. The second time, no one would help me get down. I never climbed all the way up after that. If I couldn’t reach the cereal, I just went hungry until Daddy woke up.”
Declan fought another wave of emotion, the result of which was a desire to feed her and make sure she never knew hunger again. He had a strange desire to put peanut butter crackers and other snacks in her purse the way he had put them in her locker so many years ago. “How do you feel about going out for some Korean barbecue, running to mall for some picture frames, and then watching TV all night?”
"Sounds like heaven."
Epilogue
Journal entry #1
As per Dr. Luniper's instructions, I am beginning a journal. But I do it under protest. Dr. Luniper says, I don't have to show it to anyone, including her. I don't know what this is supposed to do—except maybe give me a written record to see what I was thinking at a single point in time. I don't want to do this, but Declan went all Dom on me about it, so I guess I have no choice.
Going to therapy to deal with my childhood is Declan's idea—and my early Christmas present to him. Ironic, isn't it? I finally have the money, thanks to my husband's generosity, to buy Christmas gifts and what is my present to Declan? Going to a shrink. That's what he said he wanted.
I have been going, quite reluctantly, twice a week for two weeks now, and I think Declan would probably be pissed if he were allowed to sit in on the sessions—thank God he's not.
I have trouble talking about myself; I always have. Of course I know that Dr. Luniper is not a playground bully, but still, you know what they say about old habits. She must think that I might start answering her questions in more than monosyllabic answers if I can get in the habit of expressing myself on paper.
Monosyllabic—I've wanted to use that word since I saw it in a movie ages ago—I don't even remember what movie—something I checked out of the library on VHS, I suppose. It was a sad day at the Carmichael house when the library threw out all the old VHS tapes and replaced them with DVDs. We still found them at garage sales for a while, but the heads on the VCR got so dirty we couldn't get them clean anymore and finally had to throw the thing away.
I loved movies—dreamed I would be a movie star when I grew up. I couldn't imagine an ordinary life would be worth living. I couldn't understand how people could tolerate a boring mundane life.
And then after Daddy died, and my life became routine and drama free, I slowly became happy. Well maybe not happy, but at least content. Certainly happier than I'd ever been before. Then I understood there w
as nothing wrong with routine.
Declan doesn't understand that, I don't think. My standards and expectations are so much lower than his.
Today was not that routine or drama free, and I've had a lump in my throat and a burn in my gut since. I guess that's why I finally decided to start writing in a journal—not to scrape up my childhood memories, but to deal with the present.
One of the best things about being a waitress and working twelve hours a day had been that my mind was not on what was going on outside the truck stop, because my brain had to stay focused on the task at hand if I expected good tips. But now I’m not working and it's a lot harder to ignore the bad shit—stuff—I meant stuff. Dammit, I'm trying to stop cussing—at Declan's request. At his demand.
So, back to what happened today. Melinda had her trial today—sort of. Melinda has been out of rehab a couple of months. She's been really doing well. I'm proud of her. Clete is helping her stay sober. I guess they are back together—officially together—not like when they were teenagers and they snuck around so no one would know that Clete was with a Carmichael. She's moved in with him. He lives in a mobile home on his parents' farm. People who are not from rural areas might think that is the equivalent of living in your parents' basement, but it's not. No, Clete is poised for taking over the family farm. He works for his old man making more money than I made waiting tables. That mobile home was purchased outright and he and his future bride will move into the big house when his folks retire. And the way it looks now, Melinda is most likely going to be his wife.
And good for her. I would like to say she deserves to be happy like everyone else but I'm not feeling particularly magnanimous.
As I said, today was her day in court. She had asked me to be there and asked if I could bring Lotus and Reina. I did not. I wasn't going to pull them out of school to hear their mother's driving under the influence case.
I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I guess since Declan had paid for her to go to rehab, and she had been sober since, the DA and judge had agreed to a three-year suspended sentence if she would plead guilty. She has to go see her parole officer—or is it a probation officer (I admit I don't know the difference) weekly and would have to take random drug tests. But as long as she follows the rules and, doesn't test positive for drugs, she can stay out of prison.
The Love He Craves (The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Book 2) Page 40