With a charming smile, his dad gave a jaunty, twitchy wave.
I retreated into the shadows, but I found a crack in the shed wall that gave me a splintered view. My head felt like it was in a vise, squeezed together and tightening my vision as Micah walked toward the car, his arms curved at his sides, although his hands weren’t fisted.
A lover, not a fighter, I thought.
When his dad got out, anxiously walking toward his son, I prayed he’d go away. Even though he was thin and moved with the jumpy starts and fits of someone who liked hard drugs, I saw a sad scrap of a man who was looking at his son with hope.
“You’re not welcome here,” Micah said.
His dad seemed bewildered. “Thought I’d come by to say a hi. I heard you’d moved in with the twins—”
“And that’s why you’ve been cruising around the area lately, is it?” Micah went to the car door, calmly holding it open for his dad to get back in.
My heart broke for him in that moment, because while all I was seeing was a friendly enough man who was probably a little high and a lot sad, Micah was seeing the monster who’d killed his mom and nearly done the same to his uncle.
His dad had tensed like a wire that was being bent into a defensive angle, then he smiled again, twitching into a shrug. “Aw, come on now, Mike. Why you gotta be like this?”
Micah didn’t move. “I’ve been politer than I should’ve been in the past, Marvin, but I’m done with that. You leave now or—”
“Or what?” He held out his hands, nearly stumbling with the sudden movement. He twitched again.
“What’re you on?” Micah asked. “Your pupils are taking over your whole eyes. Is it meth?”
“I’m totally clean.” He started going toward the house. “Yo, where’s the twins? I hear Darwin’s got a baby. I need to meet the baby.”
Even though no one was home, Micah took two long steps, intercepting his dad by grabbing his arm.
And that did it.
The older man whipped around, catching Micah in the jaw with a balled fist. From my shadowed spot, I sucked in a breath, jumping to a stand.
It was as if Micah knew I was about to run out there, because he made a subtle gesture toward me, and my mind scrambled around itself. What if his dad was so high this time that he got really violent, going much further than he usually did when “visiting” Micah? Micah was already going further than he usually did since I was here and he obviously wanted to protect me, just like he’d done at the Lonesome Star.
As his dad stumbled toward Micah, apologizing, Micah raised a hand, warding off his father. I got my brain together enough to realize that my phone was still in my hand and I should call someone.
The repair shop.
When Deacon answered, I whispered fast. “Micah’s dad . . . he’s here . . . and he’s really high . . .”
The phone clicked off before I could finish, and I automatically started shoving it into my pocket before realizing that my cut-offs were still a little damp. I set the phone on a nearby shelf, then went back to watching as Micah walked away from his dad, leading him from the house, past the car, and toward the road. The whole time, Marvin sobbed at him, trailing.
“Please, son, don’t walk away. At least give me a few bucks. Your old man needs it for a place to stay, stuff to eat . . .”
Micah ignored him the whole time, and his dad went stock still, bunching his fists, quivering.
“Micah, you listen to me, you little bitch! You listen!”
Even then, Micah didn’t respond. He merely kept walking toward the road, luring his father away.
With a strangled yell, his dad charged at him. Micah didn’t pay him any mind until his father rammed into his back, head first.
I was sprinting out of the shed before Marvin recovered, cocking his fist and landing a punch to Micah’s ribs, then another and another . . .
All Micah did was take the assault, blow after blow, absorbing each attack, almost like he was being punished for letting his mother die a hundred feet away in the kitchen, with only a locked door between them.
“Stop!” I was screaming. I was pretty sure I said it more than once, but his dad didn’t seem to hear me, so I jumped on his back, not thinking at all, just pulling his thin hair. Pulling and pulling . . .
The man yelped and Micah burst into action, hooking his arm around his father’s neck as I tumbled off. He put him into a chokehold that brought his dad to the ground in a weak heap, fists flailing to get at Micah as he stoically kept him in a hold.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” I shouted at him, nearly crying, so damned angry that he’d let himself get punched over and over again. Seeing him pummeled had throttled loose the emotion in me.
Micah looked at me, and I knew for sure then that he’d been taking punishment for the past.
A lover, not a fighter.
His dad craned his neck to get a glimpse of me, and his eyes flickered with something like recognition. On a dime, his mood changed.
“Jackie Carson’s kid,” he said on a high laugh. “Spitting image! Jackie’s girl, Jackie’s girl!”
Micah increased the pressure on his hold, like he was trying to stop his dad from talking. But even though I’d told myself I didn’t want to know anything about what Marvin Wyatt had to say about my father, I did.
Goddammit, I did, and the words came rushing out.
“What about Jackie?” I asked him.
Micah cut in. “Don’t, Shelby.” He was still calm, still embracing his dad in the only way he’d probably ever done—with that chokehold.
That broke my heart all over again, because what if I could find my father and things would turn out better than I’d ever hoped? What if he’d been looking for me, too?
I didn’t think about how my dad would’ve been able to easily find me, with Mom still here in Aidan Falls. I was making excuses because this was my opportunity. It was right here, after years of never knowing and always wondering.
And I was finding that talking to Marvin Wyatt was distracting him from Micah, and if he could be distracted until the twins came . . .
Micah seemed to understand that his dad was calmer now, and he let go until Marvin fell to the ground. He peered up at Micah with a bitter, why-did-you-just-hurt-me? glance, then at me. Micah touched his ribs, as if testing the new bruises he’d have, then lowered his head, watching his dad, embarrassed and angered and . . .
Wishing he’d disappear before he could say anything else to me?
“You know my mom?” I asked, afraid he’d say yes, afraid he’d have even more to say than that.
But I wanted to hear. Didn’t I?
Marvin rubbed his knuckles like they were hurting him from the punches. “I know enough about her.”
“I . . .” What else should I say? My tongue was tied, my adrenaline like freezing snags in my veins. “She never said she knew you.”
Then Marvin cocked his head, looking me over with those crazy eyes. “Little girl . . . just the spittin’ image. Of Jackie, at least. Don’t know about her daddy, though.”
I should’ve taken the hint and backed away, getting out of there.
Instead, I lowered myself to my knees to be on the same level as Marvin, and he narrowed his gaze at me, taking me in.
“Jackie never told,” he said. Then he laughed. “But that makes all kinds a sense, seeing as she doesn’t even know who the daddy is.”
Was he too high to even know what he was talking about?
Marvin looked at me with his unfocused, dilated eyes like I was a moron. At the same time, a truck raged up the drive, skidding to a stop about a hundred feet away.
The twins.
But I was locked on Micah’s dad as he smiled at me with his yellowed teeth.
“Your mama was a bad, bad girl,” he said, laughing a little more.
Then he was laughing so hard that he doubled over.
Micah went for the chokehold on his dad again, but not before Marvin added one more thing while trying to shove Micah away.
“She don’t even know who Daddy is ’cos there was more than one guy that put the screws to her that night!”
18
Marvin Wyatt’s voice rang in my ears, and every time I tried to grasp what he meant, I lost the meaning.
More than one guy? A party?
My mom?
No. He had to be lying, because Mom didn’t do stuff like that. Sure, Mom was fun-loving, someone who liked to live free, but this?
“That can’t be right.” I sounded and felt like I’d been given an anesthetic. “It’s not true at all.”
Marvin squirmed under Micah’s chokehold, trying to get away from him. I didn’t want them to fight again but, God help me, I also had to hear more. Marvin Wyatt couldn’t just say something like that and leave it hanging.
“Micah,” I said so flatly that he looked over at me like he didn’t recognize me. “Please. Let him talk.”
“He’s full of shit, Shelby.”
“Please.”
After a gritting hesitation, he released his dad. He sent a long, fierce look at me, like he wished I wasn’t making him do this, like he wished I wasn’t doing this to myself. My heart lifted a little. He had my back, no matter what my choice was.
My eyes burned, but I blinked back any wet blurriness. Micah’s jaw went tight as he pushed his dad away, keeping a grip on the man’s shirt collar.
“Just don’t give her bullshit, Marvin,” he muttered. “You hear me?”
His dad only shrugged his way out of Micah’s hold, adjusting his shirt. Then his gaze jumped back to me. I had to wonder if he looked a little gleeful that he was the center of attention and wasn’t being run off the property anymore.
“I ain’t lyin’, little girl,” he said.
“Tell me.” It was almost a whisper, but forceful and desperate enough.
That seemed to sway Marvin into talking. He shrugged again. “Your mama . . . She was at a small party way out a town near Horseshoe Bay at . . . Aw, shit, whose house was it? Don’t know. But she had a couple older friends with her. Waitresses at the country club her parents went to, I believe. I knew it was Jackie from some time I’d spent here, workin’ construction on the public library one fall. One of the young studs on the crew had a thing for her, so he watched for her every day, walkin’ home. When I saw her stroll into that party, I knew just who she was. Didn’t know how young she was ’til after, though. She looked older.”
I’d known about life at the country club because Mom used to tell me how tedious it was when Grandpa and Grandma would make her go with them. Had she snuck out of their dinners to hang out with the staff in the back, smoking and joking around?
By now, Deacon and Darwin were approaching us from their truck, eyeing Micah. Darwin had a shotgun hanging at his side and Deacon had a rifle.
Micah shook his head, making the twins stand by. He shot another piercing look at his dad, and that seemed to be an even bigger threat than the firearms.
I got Marvin’s attention again. “Tell me more.”
I saw Micah close his eyes, then open them, as if he wished I would stop. But I couldn’t.
It took Marvin a few seconds to remember where he’d been in his story. “Oh, yeah. Those girls with Jackie was wild for certain, whooping it up, drinking like fish. Jackie didn’t seem as experienced as them, but you could tell she was a fresh kind of wild. She was all in with the partyin’, and a couple hours later after most everyone went home, she had enough wine coolers in her that she went into a backroom with three older guys she’d had her eye on.”
“Did they force her to . . . ?” I started, but I couldn’t go on.
Marvin laughed. “Shit, don’t be thinking she was coerced back there. Nu-uh. She was willin’ and able. Them drinks just made her a little looser than when she came in with her girls.”
That should’ve been good news, right? But a nightmarish veil was beginning to float over everything. I wanted to find holes in Marvin’s story, to tell him that Mom had standards about guys. Most of all, I wanted to tell him that she’d been in love with my father and it just hadn’t worked out, that this was the wrong story.
But Marvin was on a roll. “Loser boys, all of ’em. The fake rebel kind who had attitudes and long hair that was styled just so. You know, the kind that hang out in the corners of bars and slip off with the girls without tryin’ all that much. I didn’t know their names since I’d just dropped by ’cos my buddy was driving me around that night.” He raised his eyebrows. “See, I thought Jackie was a looker, but she wasn’t lookin’ back at me. Sometimes good girls just like ’em all cool and James Dean-like, even if they’re all just show.”
“Losers?” I repeated, the word ripped out of me.
It sounded like Marvin was jealous of the kind of guy who’d attracted Mom, but if he thought those three guys were losers . . .
Micah cursed and sent a pleading gaze to me, but even if that awful veil was still descending over me with every sentence Marvin uttered, there was no removing it. Not now.
“Tell me,” I said to him again.
Marvin laughed quietly, pointing at himself, his dilated eyes dark and marbled. “I almost went inside that room, too. How about that? They had it all locked up, though, so I never minded ’em and watched some TV.”
Micah spoke. “Shut up, Marvin.”
“What? It’s the truth.”
I wanted to throw up, but I wasn’t going to let him toy with me. “So you didn’t actually see what happened in that room.”
“Oh. Nah.” Marvin tilted his head at me again. “I sure heard what happened in there when I was standin’ at the door, though. Heard, heard, heard. No mistakin’ the sound of fucking.”
Bile was roiling in my stomach, sweat breaking over my skin. Not my mom . . .
He continued. “Jackie woke me up by sneakin’ out of that room, glowin’ like she’d had a good time. It was like she’d just gone on an adventure with those new friends of hers. I guess her and her girls left after they were done with the boys they’d been with themselves.”
Adventure . . . good time . . . glowing . . .
Micah seemed to sense that I couldn’t think of any more questions, that I was stuck in all these images and nightmares that were sewn into that veil surrounding me.
He said, “And how could this have remained such a secret with your mouth as big as it is, Marvin?”
“As I said, most everyone else went home by then, and the party wasn’t in this town. Besides, I ain’t got such a big mouth, just . . .” He went quiet, then added, “If I’m anything, it’s a good man to trust with a secret, you know, Micah? I can be good.”
Micah and the twins remained stone-faced, and Marvin seemed to shrink into himself as they stared at him. Meanwhile, everything was getting darker around me. So dark.
“I swear,” Marvin said, “I didn’t stay around town long enough to spread gossip, and I haven’t been much interested in Jackie’s shenanigans since. Not honestly. Jackie’s boys weren’t locals, either, so I suppose even her friends took an oath of secrecy about ’em after she got knocked up. Those girls might’ve gotten their asses whooped for takin’ around an underage country club girl and gettin’ her drunk and preggers.”
Maybe they’d regretted taking Mom out, so they’d all vowed never to talk about that night. Maybe they’d all ended up in another town in the end and weren’t here anymore to spread tales. And Mom? She wouldn’t have blamed them. Just herself.
It was like I had a bunch of fists banging at my head, pummeling it until I couldn’t think straight. Mom . . . three guys she hadn’t known . . .
Then me.
One clear thought did come throug
h, and the irony almost had me laughing on a sob. Before now, I hadn’t ever had a good idea of who I was. Now I had no identity whatsoever.
Micah’s next comment passed in a vocal smear. “Why should Shelby believe anything you just said?”
“Birthmark,” said Marvin. “Jackie’s got one on her ass. Heart-shaped. I heard the boys talkin’ about it after Jackie left.”
Mom joked about that birthmark all the time, saying that she wore her heart on her skin.
That veil descended even more, half-obscuring everything around me. I felt here but not here.
I could barely even see Marvin as he offered one last, knife-thrusting comment.
“To think that I just missed bein’ your daddy . . .”
Out of nowhere, Micah slammed a fist into Marvin’s jaw, making him go quiet as he slumped to the ground, his eyes half-closed. Then, in a flash, Micah was by my side.
But that veil was all the way over me now, blurring everything until it was gauzy. It was so much more comfortable under here. It let me be alone with all the information banging around my head, trying to find a place where everything would finally make sense.
“Shelby?” Micah held me, keeping me sitting upright.
But all I wanted to do was shut down. My mom, young and drunk . . . My mom, with three men at one time.
My mom.
I pulled my knees to my chest, burying my face against my legs, wishing I could crawl away.
But the only place I went was somewhere in the back of my brain . . .
***
Vision . . . swimming in and out . . . one of the twin’s voices in a quiet room. . . .
“. . . took Marvin to a motel in the next county and paid for a week’s rent. I know we shouldn’t give him money, but we figured this is a good time for an exception. It’ll keep him away.” A long, spiraling pause. “How is she?”
Then Micah’s voice, close, warm, like a hand that was trying to pull me back to him. “She’s been sitting here, staring, not saying a word. I think I should call her mom, or maybe her friend Evie.”
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