“And you do?” Alex laughed. “If you think a couple of months at the head of the table makes you some kind of expert on raising children—”
“I know what it feels like to barely rate a notice from your mother. I know what it feels like to be less important than whatever man happens to be in her bed.” He regretted the cheap shots instantly, but it was too late.
“You’re a bastard, Mason. You don’t have any right to lecture me, and you have no reason to compare me to your mother.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve devoted every minute of the past twelve years to raising Debra, so stop trying to make me into some kind of monster because I found a man who actually loves me and treats me the way I want to be treated.”
“I said I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean that.”
When she spoke again her voice had lost its severity. “I should know how you get whenever the subject of your family comes up. After all this time I should know better than to even mention them. But I’m tired of watching you torture yourself, and I don’t want you to start doing the same thing with Debra. I want her to get to know you while she’s there, and I want her to get to know more about herself. For her sake, I hope you can put the past aside long enough to let that happen.”
To make sure she got the last word, Alexandra disconnected just as Debra had earlier. Seething, Mason jabbed the off button and tossed the phone onto the counter. He had let go of the past. That was the whole point. He’d buried it all—his parents, his childhood, the old insecurities and doubts. So why did everybody suddenly want him to dig it back up?
CHAPTER SIX
TWO HOURS LATER, Mason lugged the heavy garbage bag down the outside stairs on his way to the trash barrels behind the clubhouse. Dinner had been a disaster from the moment he’d dished up the burned stew to the second Debra had closed herself in her room and turned up the stereo again. From the first dirty look to the last hateful glare. You’d think he’d be used to it by now, but every one of Debra’s sullen looks cut him.
He’d deliberated over whether to tell Debra about her mother’s decision to leave her here, but they’d both been feeling so foul by then, he decided to leave it alone for the time being. He was going to have to tell her, though, and soon. The longer he put it off, the harder it was going to be.
He shifted the bag from one hand to the other and followed the sidewalk to the corner. Not that long ago, his nights had been taken up with late hours at work and an occasional night out. Now, he got excited by the prospect of hauling garbage, just so he could get a few minutes away from Debra’s stereo.
There was definitely something wrong with this picture.
Being outside on a cool spring night had exactly the effect he’d hoped for, and within a few minutes his head began to clear. As he trudged across the long stretch of grass, one of the things Henry had taught him as a child ran through his mind.
Each morning upon rising, and each evening before sleeping, give thanks for the life within you and for all good things the Creator has given you.
Easier said than done, Henry.
Give thanks for all the opportunities to grow a little each day. Consider your thoughts and actions of the past day and seek courage and strength to be a better person. Seek for the things that will benefit others.
Well, let’s see. In the past few days, his daughter had been dragged home by the police, Ike had stirred up the past, he’d become even further behind on the county complex project and his ex-wife had told him to disappoint their unhappy daughter again. There were probably plenty of opportunities for growth there. It was the being thankful part he got hung up on.
Lost in thought, he stepped off the curb just as a dark 4Runner roared around the corner. When he realized it was heading straight toward him, he jumped back onto the grass a split second before the vehicle rushed past, so close he could feel the heat from its engine.
He glared after it, trying to memorize the license plate. To his delight, the thing screeched to a halt and the driver’s door opened.
Okay. Bring it on. He had a few things to say to the idiot behind the wheel, and he was in just the frame of mind to say them.
“Mr. Blackfox?”
The sound of a woman’s voice surprised him almost as much as hearing his name. He was even more surprised when the pretty cop from the other night clambered out of the 4Runner, leaving the engine running and the door hanging open.
The last time he saw her, she’d worn her hair pulled back from her face. Now it hung loose to her shoulders, soft and dark and shimmering in the streetlight. She wore frayed jeans, tennis shoes and a pale green sweater that hugged her curves in a way her blazer hadn’t.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, smelling faintly of something fruity. “I didn’t see you. Are you all right?”
She looked so distraught, he bit back a sarcastic response and nodded. “I’m fine. You were going a little fast for inside the complex, weren’t you?”
She glanced behind her at the 4Runner, as if it had done something outside her control. “I…Yes, I…” She brushed her hair away from her cheek and he noticed that her eyes seemed a little wild, and her fingers were trembling. “Look, I’m really sorry. I’m just glad you’re all right.”
“No harm done. What about you? You seem shaken. Is something wrong?”
“I nearly ran into you.”
He held up the garbage bag, “Don’t let it bother you too much. I had my handy safety bag to cushion the impact.”
“You carry that around all the time?”
“Pretty much. It’s the latest thing in personal safety. Haven’t you heard?”
She shook her head but watched him cautiously, as if she couldn’t decide how to take him. “I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“Well, you know what they say—the cops are always the last to know.” Propping the bag at his feet, he said, “I never did thank you for bringing Debra home the other night. It was beyond the call of duty, I’m sure.”
Jolene looked back at the 4Runner, as if now that she knew he was okay, she was eager to be on her way.
Too bad. After the day he’d had, Mason could think of worse ways to spend a few minutes than talking to a beautiful woman.
“It wasn’t out of my way, and I wasn’t going to leave her at the station. She’s a little young for that. How’s she doing?”
“She’s sullen and angry. Barely spoke to me over the weekend. Slept most of today, missed diving practice and barely spoke to me at dinner. Things are pretty much normal.”
A half laugh escaped Jolene, which seemed to surprise her. “It’s really that bad?”
“She’s just an unhappy kid, and I’m not sure I know how to help her with that.”
“It’s easy to tell that you love her.”
“Well if that’s enough, then I’m in good shape.” It felt so good to be talking to someone who wasn’t wishing he would crawl into a hole and disappear, he almost didn’t want the moment to end. But for all he knew, she had a husband and kids waiting at home.
“Sorry for flinging myself at your car that way. I’m glad there was no damage. I’ll let you get on home to your family.”
She stiffened slightly. “My family?”
“I thought maybe you were hurrying to get dinner home to the kids or something.”
Her expression cleared. “No, I’m not married. No kids, either.”
“That’s surprising.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. A woman who looks like you…” He left the rest unsaid. No sense making a complete fool of himself.
“Thank you, but I don’t think looks have very much to do with marriage.”
“Just not interested?”
She looked surprised by the question. “Most men are put off by what I do. Guys tend to shy away from a woman who can cut them off at the knees and then slap on a pair of handcuffs.”
“Well, that’s their loss.” Again, she smiled, but her gaze flicked
to the 4Runner once more and this time Mason took the hint. “I don’t want to keep you. Just wanted to say thanks.”
“I’m being rude. I’m sorry. I’m just distracted.”
“Is something wrong?”
She had to think about that for a second, but she shook her head as she slipped her fingers into the pockets of her jeans. “No. Well…sort of, but it’s personal. You know.”
Yeah, he did. Still, he felt compelled to ask, “Anything you want to talk about?”
She took a step backward. “No, but thanks.”
“Anytime.”
She walked away and Mason told himself to do the same, but like a kid at the pet store, he stood on the curb and watched as she climbed behind the wheel and shut the door between them.
JOLENE SLEPT FITFULLY that night. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since her mother dropped the bombshell. She dragged herself out of bed just as the sun came up and went out for a run that lasted until her lungs felt ready to burst and the muscles in her legs burned. Usually she could count on physical exercise to help her think through problems and gain perspective. Today even that failed her.
Her mother’s story ran relentlessly through her mind accompanied by images that flashed in and out as if they were on a tape loop: her mother standing in front of the Cherokee Cultural Center; her father—Lawrence—the way he looked in their wedding picture; Billy Starr smiling as if an entire lifetime stretched out in front of him. Even Mason Blackfox, though she had no idea why he should keep popping into her head. Except that knocking over that box at his house was what started this whole thing.
She stopped at the Burger King on the corner, grabbed French toast strips and a large coffee, and walked back to her apartment, trying to decide how to fill the next few hours. She didn’t have to be on shift until eleven o’clock, and the last thing she wanted to do was spend the time thinking.
As she rounded the corner of the building next to hers, the sight of her mother’s BMW parked behind the 4Runner brought her to a stop. Of all the nerve. Furious, she started walking again, this time straight for the driver’s side of the car.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The window came down and her mother’s face appeared, eyes red-rimmed and deeply shadowed.
“I need to talk to you, Jolene.”
“There’s nothing you can say I want to hear right now.” Jolene turned away, fully intending to go inside and let her mother sit out here and stew. It was childish, she knew, but Margaret had called the shots for thirty years and Jolene needed to feel some control.
It didn’t matter anyway, because her mother kept talking as if she’d agreed to listen. “I’ve been just sick since I told you about Billy,” she said as she got out of the car. “And I know how upset you’ve been. But you can’t go on being this angry with me. We need to resolve this.”
“How do you propose to resolve it, Mom? Are you going to turn back the clock? Undo the past? Are you going to tell me it was all just a dream? That Dad really is my father, and that neither of you has been lying to me for the past thirty years?”
Her mother locked the car using her key chain remote, apparently planning to stay for a while. “Your father and I should have told you the truth. You can’t possibly imagine how sorry we are.”
If they had to talk about this, at least they could do it in private.
Jolene dug her keys from her pocket and headed down the short flight of steps to her apartment. Inside, she left her rapidly cooling breakfast on the table and poured the coffee from the paper cup into her favorite mug. “I don’t know what hurts most, the fact that you lied to me for thirty years about who I am, or the fact that you lied about who you are.”
Her mother dropped her keys on the table and looked around the apartment. Jolene felt a moment’s embarrassment over the as-yet-unpacked boxes stacked in the corners, but she didn’t want to care what her mother thought right now. She was through feeling bad because she didn’t measure up to some standard that didn’t even exist.
“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” her mother said, turning back to look at her. “You have to believe that.”
“But you did hurt me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Margaret’s laugh was harsh. “I saw how people treated Billy when we went into the wrong store or restaurant. I didn’t want you to have to deal with that.”
Jolene was too agitated to sit and her appetite had vanished, so she turned her attention to the closest stack of boxes. “If you felt that way, why did you marry a man who was guaranteed to give you little Indian babies?”
“I loved him.”
“But you were ashamed of him.” And of me.
“If Billy had lived we could have faced it together. He could have taught you all the things you needed to know, but I couldn’t do that on my own.”
The pain in her mother’s eyes forced Jolene to look away.
She pulled a crystal pitcher from the box—a gift from her parents, and one she’d never used. No wonder she hadn’t ever felt as if she fit in. Her parents had been trying to make her into something she wasn’t since the day she was born.
She thrust the pitcher toward her mother. “Here. Take it back. It doesn’t belong here.”
“But Dad and I want you to have it.”
“Why? I don’t cook. I don’t entertain. All it does here is collect dust.”
Her mother’s eyes flashed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jolene. This doesn’t change who you are. It doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything,” Jolene said, leaving the pitcher on the table. “I’m not who you think I am. I’ve never been who you want me to be. I never will be.”
Her mother clucked her tongue against her teeth impatiently. “Come over here and sit down, Jolene. If this is going to bother you so much, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
How did she do that? How did she manage to make Jolene seem unreasonable? She shook her head and dug into the box again. “I don’t want to sit.”
Margaret made herself comfortable at the table anyway. “Billy and I met when we were young—both of us. I was just nineteen. He was twenty and so handsome he took my breath away.”
Jolene felt a stab of annoyance in Lawrence’s defense. Had her mother ever felt that way about him? Or had he merely been a convenient fallback after Billy Starr’s death?
“We met at a dance,” Margaret went on softly. “I was there as a guest, he was working. He was dark and mysterious and different from any boy I’d ever met before.” She toyed with her wedding ring for a long, silent moment. “We didn’t date long, and my family was horribly upset by the marriage. We both had trouble dealing with that. We didn’t want them to cause problems for us, but I was too young and too desperately in need of their approval, I guess.”
“Then you were unhappy together?”
Margaret tilted her head slightly. “Unhappy? No. Not for a minute. We were head over heels in love. I think the only real fight we ever had was when he insisted on enlisting in the army. He had some big need to make the world a better place.”
Jolene’s heart gave a painful lurch. “I was like him, and you never told me. Do you know how many nights I lay awake wondering why I couldn’t be like Trevor? Why I didn’t get all excited about school?”
“Would it have made that much difference?”
“Yes.”
“You think so now, but you don’t know. I didn’t even find out that you were on your way until after he left for Vietnam. He would have been over the moon to find out about you, but—”
“He never even knew about me?”
Margaret shook her head slowly. “I was trying to decide the best way to tell him when I got the news that he was gone.”
How could it hurt so much to hear that when she’d never even known he existed until a few days ago? She straightened, clutching a set of plastic bowls to her chest. “Did Billy have any
family?”
Margaret nodded and opened her eyes. “He had a mother and two brothers. His father died when he was a teenager. Both of his brothers were married when I knew them, so I’m sure you have cousins by now.”
Every piece of information felt like a stone against her chest. “Did they know about me?”
Margaret shook her head. “I should have told them, I know, but I just couldn’t. I was so young and frightened, and I was half convinced they’d try to take you away from me. Now, of course, I know better, but you know how it is when you’re confused and vulnerable. I wanted to protect you. I couldn’t bear to lose you, too.”
“Where are they?”
“I—I don’t know. Not for sure. I haven’t had any contact with them in thirty years.”
“So for all you know, they could all be dead, too.”
“I’m sure some of them are alive.”
“Where were they when you knew them?”
Margaret ran one hand along her arm over and over again. “Here in Tulsa.”
“They’re here?” That shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. “I could have passed them on the street without even knowing?”
“I suppose it’s possible.” Margaret raised her eyes slowly. “Are you planning to look for them?”
Finding them would make this all too real. She wasn’t ready for that yet. Suddenly overwhelmed, she put the bowls on the counter and broke down the empty box. She could feel her mother watching her, but she didn’t look up.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
“I don’t know.” She carried the box to the front door. “But if I can, it’s not going to happen overnight. I need space and time to think. If you love me at all, please give me that.”
She left the apartment, door standing wide open, hoping her mother would get the hint and be gone by the time she got back from the Dumpster.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HEY JO, GIVE ME A HAND with this, would you?”
Ryan’s voice brought Jolene out of the fog she’d been lost in since her mother’s visit that morning. On the desk in front of her, a screen saver bounced from one side of the computer to the other changing colors every few seconds, and a nearly empty bag of barbecue potato chips lay open but forgotten on the desk.
Sherry Lewis - Count on a Cop Page 6