by Lyn Cote
Gil nodded, his eyes pitying her.
“Oh, no.” Patience felt as if the words had been jerked out of her somewhere near her heart. She couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want anyone to know. I left that all far behind me. Dear Lord, make this just a dream. Her heart pounded in her ears. “I’m going now.”
“No.” Gil blocked her path. “No, don’t leave like this. I wanted to shield you from this, but I couldn’t.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, edging back from him.
“I frankly couldn’t believe it when I read it.” His voice low, he leaned toward her. “You don’t fit the profile of a person with an abusive childhood.”
She glanced up at this, her face burning. She wanted to scream at him. Hit him. She wrestled with her rage. Moments filled with fury flamed through her. I can’t give in to emotion. I should have expected this. Wherever my mother goes she brings only pain and shame.
She finally subdued her rage, sucking in deep even breaths. She couldn’t let Gil know why this affected her so completely. He was merely the father of a student. Nothing more, and would never be anything more. His delving into her past had sealed that.
“Something obviously made a difference,” he was saying. “I was shocked at your mother’s charges—child endangerment, neglect, abuse. Why didn’t they take you away from her?”
She averted her eyes, but she couldn’t hold back the acid words that frothed up from inside. “Chicago’s a big place, and in court my mom always did very well at remorse and enacting a convincing show of resolve to change her ways.” She felt a sneer twist her features. “But she never did.”
He said no word.
“I don’t think she has now.” Patience felt herself running out of steam. The shock had charged her anger, but it was impossible to sustain. “She’s been an alcoholic her whole adult life. She becomes violent when she’s drunk. Every week she heads off to her AA meetings and I ask myself—how long will this dry spell last?” Patience pressed a hand to her pounding forehead.
“You don’t think that she’s on the wagon for good?”
“You read her criminal record,” Patience challenged him. “What do you think?”
He made no reply and then said, “She’s your mother. You know her better than I do.”
“Yes, I do.” Unfortunately.
Patience’s crushed tone pushed Gil forward. He folded her into his arms, cradling her, wishing he knew more about comforting a woman. “Let it go,” he whispered.
She spent only one moment pushing at him, and then she drooped against his chest.
“Let it go. Whether your mother falls off the wagon or not is not your fault—”
Patience buried her face into the inviting fold between his jaw and shoulder and moaned, “Why did she have to come here…now?”
Gil held her, wishing he hadn’t had to reveal this news, wishing he could have just expunged the record of the fingerprints as unpromising. But I couldn’t. Martina’s got a long and unpleasant record and she’s hard up for cash. She could have…
He stopped his thoughts. He heard a small sob slip from Patience. No, no, this has nothing to do with you. You’re innocent of any wrongdoing. You show such love to my son. How are you able to do that? With a mother like yours, the textbooks say you shouldn’t be such a kind, gentle, strong…
He pressed small kisses along her hairline, feeling the silky softness of her feathery bangs and smooth skin under his lips. You feel wonderful in my arms, Patience. I don’t want to let you go.
This last thought rocked him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. I can’t let this start. We’re in a sticky situation with these two cases. And now your mother’s right in the middle of it.
And I’m not the kind of man you deserve. I’ve got an ex-wife hanging around my neck and a child that needs all my attention. I’m a bad bet all around. You deserve better.
Still, he couldn’t release her. His arms held her flush against him.
“You shouldn’t be holding me,” Patience murmured. Her voice had lost all its fire. And her actions belied her words. She remained within his embrace.
“I know I shouldn’t,” he whispered into her ear, just centimeters from his lips. He bent closer and kissed her mouth. As their lips pressed together, he found it hard to breathe. He savored her mouth, taking his time drawing out all the sweetness there.
The phone rang.
He tightened his hold on Patience, her soft form molded against him. But the mood had been shattered, and he released her. “Hello,” he barked into the receiver.
“This is Coreena, Gil. Please, I need you. Will you come down to the courthouse?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Blaine and I need you to put up our bail. We’re in jail.”
Gil stood at the entrance of the county jail. Patience waited at his elbow. Gil scanned the page of minor charges of disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct against his ex-wife and Blaine Cody.
Patience had insisted on coming with him but would not give him a reason.
He had balked but finally given in. It felt good to have her by his side—so cool and refined—and so out of place at the jail.
“Okay, Deputy,” Gil said in a tight voice. “I’ll put up the bail for my ex-wife.”
“What about her boyfriend?” the deputy asked, trying to look as though he didn’t recognize him as the D.A.
“No. He can wait for the bail bondsman from Marion to get here in the morning.” Gil turned away.
“How much is his bail?” Patience asked, still facing the deputy and looking over Gil’s shoulder.
Gil swung back to confront her.
“He needs seven hundred, ten percent.” The deputy looked her up and down as though trying to measure her.
“Are the charges that serious?” Patience asked quietly.
“No, but he’s got a record. We don’t want him to skip.” The deputy leaned against the counter, looking even more curious.
“Patience,” Gil said close to her ear, “that biker can rot in here for all I care.”
“Yes,” she whispered back, “but would Darby want him rotting in here?”
“What?” Gil stared at her.
“Darby talks about Blaine a lot,” Patience murmured. “He has an affection for him. What if you leave Blaine in jail and Darby finds out…” Her voice faded.
“All right,” Gil agreed, guilt tugging at him. He looked to the deputy. “I need to get cash from the ATM machine down the block at the bank entrance.”
“No, I’ll go and take it out of my account.” Patience dug into her bag.
Gil grabbed her elbow as she turned to exit.
“Let me,” she said in an undertone. “Blaine might leave you holding the bag. But he won’t leave a woman—Darby’s teacher—holding it.”
He released her. Disgruntled thoughts like furious wasps swooped through his mind.
Within a half hour, Blaine and Coreena walked out into the open area behind the front desk. Both looked disheveled and upset.
“Thanks for coming,” Coreena said, pushing her riotous hair back from her makeup-smudged face. Then she saw Patience and stopped.
Patience held out her hand. “I’m Patience Andrews, Darby’s—”
“Darby’s favorite teacher.” Instead, Blaine shook her hand. “I hear you’re the one who bailed me out.”
“Yes,” Patience explained. “I know Darby wouldn’t want you to spend the night in jail—”
“Don’t worry, lady. I won’t skip and leave you holding the bag,” Blaine growled. “No matter what the D.A. thinks.” The man tossed his head at Gil.
“I didn’t think you would,” Patience replied, her voice sounding confident.
Coreena eyed her.
Patience offered her a hand again. “And I’m glad to finally meet you, Mrs. Montgomery—”
“After the divorce, I took back my maiden name,” Coreena snapped. “I’m Ms. Tucker.”
“Nic
e to meet you, Ms. Tucker.” Patience pushed her hand closer to Coreena.
“Well, I just wish we weren’t meetin’ here,” Coreena admitted, flushing, as she shook Patience’s hand.
Gil herded them all to the door.
Over an hour later in the after-midnight blackness, Gil walked Patience up to her door.
“You didn’t need to get out of the car,” she said, her collar turned up. “It’s cold—”
“And late and I wanted to walk you to the door. So I am.” Gil gripped her arm. I want to, I need to hold you once more. Even if I know it’s a bad idea.
He stepped beside her into the shadow on Mrs. Honeycutt’s porch. His arms turned her to him and pulled her close. Her wool coat tickled his nose. “Why did you go with me to the jail?”
“It’s terrible to have to deal with bail and…”
Her compassionate reply made him tuck her even closer. He buried his face deeper into the collar of her winter coat.
He expected her to pull away. She didn’t.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I know that?” she asked.
“No,” Gil said with a serious note of finality. He kissed her mouth. But before he could forget himself and linger too long, he released her. “Good night.”
He shuffled down the steps. Halfway down the walk, he heard her close the door behind him and lock it.
About a week later on a Saturday morning, Patience sat on a gray molded-plastic chair outside the door of the county parole office, waiting for her mother to be done with her weekly interview. The office was nestled in one of those antacid-pink corridors in the basement of the courthouse.
Her mother had finally been questioned by the sheriff earlier in the week, a painful experience for both of them. So far, however, no one outside of the sheriff’s office had made any sign that they knew that this had happened.
Dear Lord, please keep this from being known. I don’t know if I can bear another round of gossip. But if it comes, please help me survive once again.
After checking that she still had the corridor to herself, Patience glanced up at the large institutional wall clock. They had Christmas shopping to do. Mrs. Honeycutt was driving them with her to the Marion Mall and would be picking them up soon. She’d wanted to come later with Bunny, but Bunny had assumed Patience was going with her mother. So what could Patience do?
Hurry up, Mom. I don’t want anyone to see me here. No one has found out yet that you are on parole.
Patience tried to keep her hands still in her lap. But one kept slipping up and combing through her bangs.
Stop it.
Patience wondered if the sheriff had contacted her mother’s parole officer to tell him that one of his parolee’s fingerprints had been found at a crime scene. Coming to the courthouse hadn’t bothered her when she’d come with Gil to bail out Blaine. He was not family.
Hurry up, Mother, before someone—
Then what she feared happened…
Her mother stepped out of the office still talking to her parole officer, and down the corridor came the dark-haired juror—what was her name? Harrington? The woman who had let it be known that Patience was the one responsible for the hung jury.
The Harrington woman stopped and gave Patience, her mother and the parole officer a very satisfied double take. “So it’s true?” the woman said. “Your own mother is an ex-con? I had to see it for myself.”
Chapter Nine
Huge Christmas balls—red, green, gold and frosty white—dangled from the high ceiling of the vast, echoing mall. Branches of artificial greenery draped every shop doorway. Highly artistic faux pine trees helped clog the aisles in front of stores. Christmas carolers, dressed in nineteenth-century garb, roamed the gleaming terrazzo floor. And in the center of the mall, a grinning Santa posed with a pair of howling and protesting toddlers.
An instant connection with them rumbled through Patience. She didn’t want to be here. After being seen at the courthouse just an hour ago, she wasn’t in the mood to smile for Santa’s elf either. Who had tipped off the Harrington woman that Martina was on parole? How could everything go so terribly wrong?
“What’s the matter, Patience?” Her mother spoke into her right ear over the voices and noises that echoed around them.
Patience felt her lips tighten even more. They were starting to feel numb. “It’s nothing.” It’s just that you’ve been my cross to bear since I was born. And I’m tired of it. I’m sick of you wreaking havoc in my life, shaming me.
Carolers passed right in front of them joyously singing, “‘God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay—”’
Yeah, right. Put a cork in it.
Her conscience bound itself around her lungs like a tourniquet squeezing, bringing her back to herself with a jolt of real pain. I’m sorry, Lord. I’m sorry. I know what you want me to do, but it’s so hard…
That excused not a thing and she knew it. Forgive me, Father. Help me. Change my heart. Pour out your love and let it flow through me, so that I have love for her.
But there will be a new tide of gossip! She shut her mind to the voice that had shrieked this, her own voice, her own frustration and embarrassment.
She fought to control her emotions. This is all in God’s hands. There’s nothing I can do.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Her memory began flowing with verses she’d memorized. “‘Love one another as I have loved you. How many times should you forgive? Seventy times seven. Honor thy mother and father…”’
“Patience,” her mother pleaded.
Patience forced a smile. “Let’s see if we can find a lovely wedding present for Cousin Gracie.”
Her mother’s pinched face relaxed. “Yes, yes. I wish I’d had a chance to meet her fiancé.”
“He’s a great guy.” Patience wove her mother through the unpredictable ebb and flow of the shoppers toward a nearby linens shop. “You’ll meet him at the wedding.”
“Oh, no.” Her mother turned her head away. “I don’t think I’ll be able to attend Gracie’s wedding.”
The tone of her mother’s instant refusal and reluctance to look toward Patience revealed her mother’s low self-esteem. The cause of this wasn’t hard to guess. Facing the past, sober now, couldn’t be easy.
“Mom, I’m sure you’ll be invited.” If you’re still in AA and not in jail again. Patience cringed at her own nastiness.
“I’ve never been much of an aunt to Gracie or her sister Annie,” her mother muttered. “And after I attended Annie’s wedding…after what happened…” Her mother parted from Patience, walking briskly, overtaking Bunny who’d gotten separated from them in the holiday crowd.
But her mother’s comment had yanked to the surface another horrible memory—Annie’s wedding reception, with her mother roaring drunk and having a humiliating row with her brother, screaming, “I’ll never forgive you, Mike! You holier-than-thou hypocrite! You stole my daughter from me!”
In her pale blue bridesmaid dress, Patience—shedding hot tears of shame—had fled from the reception hall. She’d climbed aboard a passing RTA bus crowded with gawking, whispering strangers and gone home to Uncle Mike’s house alone. She’d wept so hard that night she’d made herself sick to her stomach. The same sick feeling rose in her stomach now. She braced herself against it.
The mall carolers passed again, now singing, “All is calm, all is bright.”
Patience let Bunny and her mother drift farther ahead. She couldn’t trust herself to be near either of them. She longed to scream at her mother and recount to Bunny all the disgusting things her mother had ever done in private and in public. No.
Patience sank onto a cramped vacant spot on a bench-length of exhausted, bebagged shoppers. A loud cheerful intercom voice announced, “Only six more shopping days till Christmas.”
The woman beside Patience groaned. “I’d rather be nine months pregnant and forced to ride a donkey than shop one more day.”
Patience couldn’t have said it better herself. The Christmas spirit had deserted her and its departure left her thin and flat.
Then she spotted a bookstore directly across from her with a colorful display of children’s books. She rose and let another wilted shopper take her seat. Patience wondered if Darby had a copy of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.
The next morning, Patience forced herself to dress with care in a pale pink wool suit. Her mother had begged off going to church. Patience hadn’t tried to persuade her. I’m going regardless. I won’t stay away from church no matter what anyone says. She swirled on blush and lip gloss, trying to give her strained and pale face reflected in the mirror some life.
Finally outdoors and feeling all alone in this bitterly cold world, she shivered and power walked the deserted blocks to church. Her footsteps made a crunching sound on top of a trace of the powder-dry snow that had fallen overnight.
Inside the half-filled sanctuary, resisting the urge to settle far in the back, she made herself take a seat on her usual pew near the middle. She refused to change her routine, as if she was expecting disapproving stares and avid glances cast at her. I’ve endured public humiliation before. I can do it again.
She stared forward at the pulpit lavishly decorated with balsam branches and holly. The fragrance of pine wafted over her. The advent wreath set on the table in front of the pulpit displayed three lavender candles already burning under glass lamps. Today was the last Advent Sunday. A purple candle lay upon the white linen tablecloth beside the wreath, ready to signal the Christ child would come before the next Sunday.
The organist began playing, “O come, O come, Emanuel and ransom captive Israel.” In five days, Christmas would come. This thought brought no consolation. She’d have to spend it here with her mother, far from the family she loved. A lone tear trickled down her cheek. She blinked furiously to dry her eye.
Lord, I wanted to spend Christmas at Uncle Mike’s. It would have been so good to spend it with everyone, everyone who loves me. She pictured Uncle Mike’s comfortable living room with a large white spruce like the ones he always bought. Then her memory summoned up the sounds of laughter and impromptu caroling as she and her cousins decorated the Christmas tree.