Color of Forgiveness

by Madeleine Beckett

  “I will,” Dylan reluctantly admits before taking a drag on his cigarette.

  “So has Porter figured out who did all this break-in shit?”

  “Possibly… he had someone in Boise question Sabrina this morning, and he said she wasn’t too happy about it.”

  Chad chuckles. “I don’t mean to laugh, bro, because this shit is not funny, but I bet she was fucking pissed. I thought you didn’t think she was involved.”

  “I didn’t until I talked to her. She said a few things that kinda fucked with my head. Porter said she’s the number one suspect right now.”

  “Jesus. You really think she did it?”

  “I don’t know. But I think it’s definitely possible.”

  “Fuck. That’s awful, dude.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Hey, I’m gonna come down Saturday morning, and I’ll stay until Sunday night. Maybe we can work on Myra’s house and get the rest of the shit done on it.”

  “Yeah, I could use the help.”

  “Good. Take ma’s calls, do you hear me, man? She’s worrying about you.”

  “I will.”

  “All right, I gotta go. I’ll see ya Saturday, okay, fucker?”

  Dylan snorts as he hangs up his phone and resumes his smoking.

  * * *

  When Myra’s phone rings, she grabs it and almost drops it trying to flip it open.

  “Susie…” she breathes.

  “What’s up? Sorry I couldn’t answer. I was in a stupid meeting. I only have a ten minute break so talk fast.”

  “There’s something wrong with me. Dylan got drunk last night and slept in his truck so I stayed out there with him. But then he got mad at me when all I was trying to do was make sure he was safe. Then I found out that his house got broken into, but he didn’t bother to tell me about it. And then all of a sudden, I just got so mad at him. He’s not talking to his family again and that made me even madder because he has the most amazing family, and I have nobody. So we argued and I—”

  “Myra?”

  “What?”

  “It’s called hormones, hon. Hellish hormones. You know those baby shows on TV where they show the woman having the perfect pregnancy and everyone is smiling and full of joy and all things happy? That’s bullshit, big stinky piles of bullshit. They edit the crap out of those shows. I want see a show like Bridezillas only called Pregzillas. I can just see it now…” she says dreamily. “The show starts with a Pregzilla sitting on the couch crying over a Geico commercial with ice cream dripping off of her double chin. She looks into the bottom of her empty pint of Chunky Monkey and screams at her husband to go get her some more or she’s going to remove his balls with her spoon.

  “The next scene shows him getting home with the ice cream. She immediately starts shoving huge spoonful’s into her mouth and starts screaming at him about how ugly and fat she feels and that she knows he’s having an affair with the check-out girl. Then the last scene cuts to her dragging the poor man into the bedroom and stripping him naked and throwing his skinny ass on the bed. That’s reality. So it’s normal, honey. Don’t worry if one minute you want to suck Dylan’s balls, and the next you want to puree them.”

  “So it’s normal to be so irrational?”

  “Yes, perfectly normal. Crap, I gotta go. We’ll talk later, okay? Don’t worry about how you’re feeling, and I’ve still not upgraded Dylan to sweet dick status yet. He’s still a dickhead douchebrain, and it’s more than okay for you to be honked off at him. Actually, it’s about time.”

  “I don’t want to be mad at him, but I just can’t seem to help myself.”

  “I know. I’ll call you later. Bye.”

  “Bye.” Myra closes her phone and stares at her laptop lying on the bed next to her. Frowning, she picks it up and Googles “pregnancy hormones” and is happy to learn that maybe she’s not going crazy after all.

  * * *

  Dylan packs up his tools for the day. He finally got Myra’s kitchen done. Now he just needs to work on finishing up the bathroom remodel, which he and Chad should be able to knock out this weekend. Walking into the living room, he looks around for Myra, but doesn’t see her anywhere. Setting his tools down, he climbs the staircase. Stepping up to her closed bedroom door, he knocks softly. He hears some movement and a few moments later, she opens the door. Her hair’s a mess, and she has pillow creases on her face. She’s so beautiful that it knocks the breath out of him. His mouth goes dry.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles, running her fingers through her hair. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  Frowning, he clears his throat and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I thought I’d call it quits for today. Your kitchen’s done.”

  “Thanks.”

  He gives her a quick nod. “Are you gonna stay here tonight or go back to Jackie’s?”

  “I thought I’d stay one more night with her. She’s going to Boise after work tomorrow and plans on staying there for the weekend.”

  “All right, I’ll just wait for you downstairs.”

  “Okay,” she says, giving him a nod before she closes the door.

  He scowls as he makes his way downstairs. Things are so awkward between him and Myra. He knows he needs to fix it, but he just doesn’t know how.

  * * *

  “Why don’t you come to Boise with me this weekend?” Jackie asks. It’s late and they’re both in their pajamas, sitting on Jackie’s bed. “I was talking to this woman that comes into the bookstore all the time; she’s one of my best customers. Anyway, she mentioned that I should ask you to go with me, and I was like, ‘Duh, why didn’t I think of that?’ You’d be safe from this whole scary stalker stuff that’s going on here, and Dylan shouldn’t care since you two are broken up now. It’ll be so much fun. I can show you the town, and you could go with me to look at a couple of places for my new store. I’ve been looking online and have a few spots that I want to check out that looked promising.”

  Myra frowns, wishing that Jackie wouldn’t talk about her issues with strangers. For a moment, she considers calling her out on it, but decides against it because she knows Jackie can’t control her mouth. She takes in a deep breath. “I’d love to come with you, but I just can’t leave right now.”

  “Why not? That doesn’t make any sense. You have a stalker after you, and you want to stay here and be a target for them? That’s ridiculous. And why is Dylan still hanging around protecting you if you two are broken up? He can’t protect you all the time, you know that right?”

  “I know,” Myra says with a sigh.

  Jackie grabs a pillow and hugs it to her chest. She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “You really frustrate me, you know that? I wish you could talk to me. I hope you aren’t waiting on something with Dylan that may never happen.”

  Myra frowns. “Me too…” Myra whispers.

  “Now, I’ve been doing some more thinking. Have you ever thought about renting or selling Grampie’s house and moving? I think you should with everything that’s going on. It’s really too dangerous for you to stay here. I was thinking you could move to Boise, and maybe we could get an apartment together. I know you’re a writer and all, but I’d love to hire you. You could help me get my shop up and running. We’d have so much fun together. What do you think?” Jackie bounces up and down on the bed, jostling Myra.

  Myra stares at her for a moment before taking in a deep breath. “I’m so honored that you asked me, I truly am, and I know we’d have a lot of fun together, but I just can’t leave Nyssa right now. I know it doesn’t make any sense with the stalker and everything, but… I’m in love with Dylan. I’m still hoping that somehow we can make things work so I just can’t leave him now.”

  Jackie sighs. “I understand. Although I don’t understand what you see in him. I mean, the guy is all right to look at, I’m not that stupid. But he’s just so mean all the time.”

  Myra stifles a giggle when she remembers Dylan calling Jackie mean last night. “Yeah, he is mean sometimes, but h
e’s been through a lot in his life.”

  “Well, we all have but that doesn’t mean we have to act like big jackasses because of it.”

  Myra smiles. “You’re right.”

  Jackie yawns and stretches her arms above her head.

  “Well, I’m going to go to bed,” Myra tells her. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  Jackie grabs Myra in a hug. “Sweet dreams, Myra,” she whispers.

  “You too…”

  Myra walks down the hallway, her eyes glued to Dylan’s bedroom door. They barely said two words to each other during dinner with Jackie before he ran off outside to hide in his truck again. He came back in about an hour later, and she’s not seen him since.

  Opening the door to Jackie’s spare bedroom, she steps inside and stares at the curtains, covering the window. If she pulls back those curtains like she did last night, what will she see in that master bedroom? Are they open again or closed? She decides that it doesn’t matter because there’s no way in hell she’s opening those curtains and looking.

  Slipping under the covers, she opens her laptop and decides to try to do a bit of writing. But instead, all she can do is think about the gruff man in the bedroom next to hers and contemplate how strange it is that he’s so close, but still so far away from her. She misses him desperately and realizes that she’s never felt lonelier in her whole life.

  * * *

  Dylan groans, his eyes shut tight, as his hand gropes on the bedside table for his phone. His fingers finally find it and he angrily grabs it and turns the alarm off. It feels like he just fell asleep five minutes ago. He was up most of the night tossing and turning and worrying about how to fix this shitty mess with Myra. That was after he’d spent who knows how long standing outside her bedroom door, debating whether or not to just go inside and slip into bed with her. He finally just went back to his room.

  Stretching, he scratches a spot on his stomach before he slowly climbs out of bed and grabs his jeans off of the bedroom floor, tugging them on. He digs a clean T-shirt out of his bag and throws a flannel on over top of it. Picking up his bag, he steps out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. After brushing his teeth, he runs his hand over his face. He really needs to shave, but he just doesn’t feel like it. He groans when he sees the state of his hair. Opening his bag, he pulls out a baseball cap and shoves it on.

  Walking downstairs, he drops his bag by the door. The smell of breakfast cooking hits him as he hears voices coming from the kitchen. He slowly walks down the hallway.

  “… but I’m thinking more along the lines of… Oh. Dylan,” Jackie says, a look of dislike crossing her face. She stands, picking up her plate. “Well, I was done anyway. Dylan, I’m going to Boise this weekend. Can you help me pack up my car when I get home from work tonight? I want to start taking boxes back. I’ll be home by five or five-thirty.”

  Dylan nods.

  “Okay. Thanks.” She turns to Myra and gives her a quick hug. “I need to head off to work. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Dylan sits down at the table as Jackie walks out of the kitchen. Myra sets a plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee in front of him. “Thanks,” he says in a quiet voice. Myra gives him a tight smile and nods.

  He clears his throat. “I’m gonna tear out your bathtub today. Chad’s coming in the morning so we’ll get your new one installed tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  He nods and grabs the syrup but by the time he looks back up, Myra has disappeared from the kitchen.

  * * *

  Myra stares at her laptop and sighs loudly. She’s read the last paragraph that she wrote about a dozen times, and she can’t seem to come up with a single solitary word to add to it. With an annoyed huff, she closes her computer and lays it beside her on the bed. Her phone rings.

  “Hey.”

  “So how are you enduring hormone hell?” Susie asks.

  “I’m a little better. I don’t seem to be as mad at him as I was.”

  “Ah, that’s too bad. I really liked hearing you be all pissy at him. Has he talked to you anymore?”

  “Not really. We’ve barely spoken. Things are just weird.”

  “I still think you need to leave his ass for a while. Give him a wakeup call.”

  “Jackie asked me to go to Boise with her this weekend.”

  “Really? You should go. It’d get you away from the stalker and away from douchey face.”

  “I thought about it, but I just can’t.”

  “Why am I not surprised? You sound really down in the dumps so I have a little story that will brighten your day. Last night, I washed the boy’s sheets because they were nasty and crusty. So I hauled them upstairs while the boys stayed downstairs with Jeff. I went into Tucker’s room first, and I bent over to put the fitted sheet on the mattress when I was suddenly goosed from behind. Now this wasn’t your typical pinch to the ass, or some mere gropage. Nope. This was a full-on fingers straight to the spot that only sees dick and the occasional tampon.”

  Myra giggles.

  “I screamed in terror because I didn’t even remotely hear Jeff sneak up behind me to begin with, and I jerked straight up because of where he goosed me at. I never knew that spot was so sensitive. Anyway, I jerked and stumbled backwards, and my foot got caught in Tucker’s backpack. I was standing there doing circles with my arms trying like hell to grasp at something invisible in the air, when I fell flat on my back. I fell so hard that I should’ve set off at least a 5.0 earthquake, and I ended up with my legs flopped straight up in the air. I swear to god, it was like some of that cornball shit you’d see in a Home Alone movie.”

  “That’s hilarious,” Myra says, still giggling.

  “Yeah, it was hilarious all right. At least Jeff thought it was. He fell out, and I do mean literally fell out. He fell onto Tucker’s bed, holding his gut, tears streaming out of the corner of his eyes, that fucking jackass. And then I couldn’t get up. I could not get my fat ass up off of that floor. So I had to wait until that idiot stopped laughing so he could give me a hand and pull me up.

  “Now, you know that moron has been married to me for ten years so he should know better than to try to pull a stunt like that on me. Jeffypoo is in deep doodoo, up to his eyeballs in de doodoo.”

  Myra giggles and wipes tears from her eyes.

  “I knew that mental visual of me falling flat on my ass with my feet straight up in the air would cheer you up. Well, honey, I gotta run. I’ll call you later. I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  Myra lays her phone on the bed. The visual of Susie on her back pops into her head again, causing her to laugh so hard that she falls over on the bed and has to grab her stomach.

  * * *

  Dylan takes off his ball cap and wipes his forehead on his sleeve. He’s had a hell of a time trying to get Myra’s old cast iron bathtub ripped out. He’s had to bust it into pieces and carry the heavy shit downstairs and outside to the dumpster. It’s kicking his ass, and killing his back.

  Finally, he takes off his flannel shirt and wipes his face with it. He startles slightly when Myra calls his name from behind him. He turns to face her.

  “I made you some lunch. I left it downstairs on the table.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

  Myra just stands there staring at him for a few minutes. He runs a hand through his sweaty hair, not knowing what the hell to say to her.

  “All right, well, I’ll just be in my room,” she says.

  He nods and stands up, following her out into the hallway. She shyly looks up at him, giving him a quick smile which he returns before she goes into her bedroom and closes the door.

  Sighing, he runs his hand over his jaw. He stares at her door for a long time before he finally turns back to his work.

  * * *

  “Do you have everything you wanted to take?” Myra asks as she peeks inside Jackie’s car filled to the brim with boxes.

  “No. I’ve got everything that would fit,” Jackie says. �
��Are you sure you don’t want to come with me? I’ll dump the boxes out of the front seat just for you.”

  “No,” Myra says, smiling as she hugs Jackie. “Be careful on the roads and call me as soon as you get there.”

  “I will. I’ll be back Sunday night.”

  Myra nods.

  “Oh. I almost forgot,” Jackie says as she pulls a key from her pocket. “Here’s a spare key for emergencies or in case something happens and you don’t get a new tub tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” Myra says as she takes the key from her.

  “Bye, Dylan,” Jackie says, “and thanks for packing up the car for me.”

  He tucks his hands in his pockets and nods.

  Myra watches until Jackie’s car disappears out of sight.

  She wonders what in the world she and Dylan are going to do now that Jackie’s gone. She steals a quick glance at him, and he looks just as lost as she feels. She pulls in a deep breath. “Well, I’m going to go in and start dinner.”

  Dylan nods. “I’m gonna smoke. I’ll be in there in a bit.”

  Walking up to the house, Myra looks back at him one more time before she closes the door with a sigh.

  * * *

  Leaning up against his truck, Dylan starts on his second cigarette and stares up at Myra’s house. Now that Jackie’s gone, will they eat dinner together? So far, Jackie’s been with them every time, monopolizing the conversation. It’s going to be fucking strange to eat with Myra alone. What the hell are they going to talk about? How did he let things get so fucking messed up?

  His phone rings. He shoves his cigarette back in his mouth and pulls it out.

  He groans when he sees Sabrina’s name. This is the third time she’s called in the last hour, and he has no plans of answering it. He knows exactly why she’s calling. She wants to chew his ass out over getting questioned by the cops today. He silences it and quickly shoves it back in his pocket. Taking another drag on his cigarette, he stares up at the dark clouds. The wind whips hard, almost blowing his baseball cap off his head.