by Grayson Cole
“You heard me. Wake up!” Big told him again. Rett put a hand to his head, hoping to clear it. Rett could smell the liquor on his father’s breath.
“I’m up,” Rett grunted, looking around for his clock. He could have sworn he’d just laid down. He was disoriented. “What you want?”
“I want you to get up and put some clothes on. We’re going shooting.”
“What time is it?”
“Time to get up. I got the truck running. I’ll meet you outside in ten minutes. Count ’em, ten minutes.”
This was not the first time Big had awakened his son in the middle of the night drunk as a skunk and wanting to go shoot. Hell, it had happened fairly frequently when Rett lived at home. But he was already uneasy. He and Angie had sat in the kitchen listening to Big and Mary Margaret yell all night long. Well, no, his momma had yelled all night long, but Big had been in there with her. Then she’d stormed out of the house and left. Rett didn’t figure she’d be back that night. She was probably going to her cousin Betty’s. But after she’d left, Big had come into the kitchen with them. They’d watched him get as drunk as drunk could get—which was easy for him—and now, here he was. Well, actually, there he had been, ’cause he was out of the room on the way to his truck by then.
“Damn,” Rett hissed and got dressed. He was pulling sneakers on as he made it outside. Sure enough, there was Big sitting in the truck. He slipped in on the other side. When he noticed that Big’s head was lolling around, he slammed the door.
Big jumped, then snapped his head around every which way, confused. Rett tapped him on the shoulder. Big turned to look him solemnly in the eye. Rett wanted to laugh so bad at this immediate desire to sober. Especially when Big announced gravely, “You’re my son, son.”
“Yep,” Rett agreed, nodding.
“You’re my blood.”
“Uh-huh,” Rett agreed, putting his hand over his heart.
“And you can’t do anything to change blood, no matter what your momma says.”
“Yep.” This time Rett couldn’t mock his father, because, as usual, Big was trying to tell him something important. This just happened to be the way he did it. Even with Angie, when she won her first medal and Big wanted to congratulate her, this was what he did. Rett turned to face forward, thinking about what his father was telling him.
“And you know what else, son?”
“What?” Rett asked, humbled.
“I’m not giving you a damn check!” And after saying that, Big Atkins slumped over in the driver’s seat, passed out.
“Damn,” Rett hissed for the second time that night. He was sorely tempted to just leave Big there in the car. Let him sleep it off. But he couldn’t do it. So he gritted his teeth and got out of the car. As he always had done in this situation, he spent a moment looking at his father and wondering how in the hell he was going to move a near three-hundred-pound man back into the house. But, hey, Rett actually smiled to himself, he’d been doing it since he was a skinny fourteen-year-old. Somehow, he’d managed it then.
Chapter 26
Her eyes felt dry and gritty when Tracey woke up. She walked into the bathroom, where she ran a face cloth beneath warm water even though she had turned on the cold. That was how hot it was outside. She ran the towel over her face, feeling her pores stretch and yawn. They woke late. Back in her room, she changed out of her hospital gown into a purple maternity sundress Mama had brought her from home. When she walked out of the bathroom, there was Garrett staring straight at her, with his face as expressionless as that of a Buckingham Palace guard.
She tried to ignore him as she struggled to get back into bed. Humiliated that she had to rely on him to help her back up she settled and swiped the wild hair out of her face. The pregnancy had made it really grow. Tracey didn’t know what to do with it. She reached for the pitcher to refill her cup when, suddenly, she felt Garrett’s hand on her wrist. His eyes met hers. The sentiment she saw in them was highly unexpected.
“I’m sorry about the mall. I didn’t mean to startle you that way. I didn’t want to upset you to the point the baby could be in danger.” His voice was hoarse.
“It’s okay. I was already feeling overheated.”
Garrett ran a gentle finger over the palm of her hand, shaking his head slowly. The grief she saw on his face knifed into her, carving itself forever in her mind. She wanted to ask what had happened, but didn’t dare. “I was in shock when I saw you.”
“I understand.”
“But I don’t. Why didn’t you tell me? How could you keep something like this from me?”
“I don’t know what to say. There’s no excuse. I just thought it would be better if—”
“If I never knew my child?” He placed his hand on her belly.
Garrett had always been the compromising one, and Tracey the unyielding. Guilt weighed on her like those big, black plates that balance precariously on the ends of dumbbells. His hand still rested on her wrist. Tracey looked down at it. He was touching her, not the baby.
Garrett Atkins was touching Tracey McAlpine.
Then, as if he had realized it, too, he recoiled.
“I don’t think I can ever forgive you for this. I thank the Lord He saw fit to step in.” His accent had thickened and he held her with blazing yellow eyes until his words had been understood, until, she guessed, he felt he had made his point.
Tracey turned away from him as soon as she could. Deep breaths helped control trembling that didn’t want to be denied.
Garrett returned to his chair. He didn’t look at her. Instead, he ran his fingers through his hair, which she noticed had grown down his neck in soft brown and amber waves strung with copper. Dark auburn stubble was beginning to shadow his jaw.
He’d changed, really changed. Already handsome, this tanned, scruffy look combined with his always mesmerizing eyes had made him haltingly so. On impulse she started to reach out and touch the hair he’d stopped cutting. Hardly advisable at right that moment. Tracey tried to shake the sensation.
“Tracey, there’s something I need to ask you. I didn’t want to bring it up in front of your parents, so I didn’t say anything last night. And I truly, truly don’t want to put any more undue stress on the baby, but I need to know. I have to know, Tracey. Do you want this baby?”
“What?”
“I need to know if you want her, because if you don’t, I do. Nothing has changed. I want to take care of her.”
“And what makes you think I don’t?”
He leaned his head back against the chair, took a breath, let it out slowly, then faced her again. “I know how you feel about me, and I don’t want my baby to have to go through that, too.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You mean to tell me you think I could mistreat my own baby because she’s…she’s…because you’re—”
“Look at you, Tracey, You still can’t even say it.”
“Garrett, listen to me. She’s my baby and I love her. I love her so much already I couldn’t possibly do anything to hurt her. And that means I love her too much to just let her go.”
“So you already love her more than you ever loved me. You let me go,” he concluded with a voice steady but foreign, not like any he’d ever used with her before. It sounded sad. She twisted her hands in the material of her dress just beneath her belly. “Did you ever love me, Tracey? Did you?”
“Yes, Garrett.”
Then, as if that wasn’t the answer he wanted, he hissed, “How could you have loved me and let things end up this way?” He rose and stormed out.
She covered her eyes with her hands, willing the tremors away.
She just wanted to be alone and not think. She didn’t want to think about any of it.
“She’s in here,” she heard her mother announce.
The next minute, her mother and her aunts, Colleen and Charlotte, helped Tracey understand the meaning of claustrophobia.
* * *
A week after she got out of the hospital, Tracey he
ard the knock at the door of her parents’ guesthouse. She immediately assumed it was Monica since no one else seemed to knock anymore. Plus, Moni had planned to come up for a visit and keep her company. However, when she opened the door to the guesthouse, all she saw was long, wispy, sun-streaked blonde hair. “Angie,” she breathed, almost unable to get it out.
Just like her brother, she barely looked at Tracey. Instead, her small hands with their silver rings and nibbled nails came out to touch her belly. Tracey didn’t expect that and so only stood there, stunned and ashamed. Suddenly her hazel eyes, darker than her brother’s and much less fierce, came to meet Tracey’s.
“I’m sorry.” The hollow sound was all she could manage.
“I know,” Angie whispered and smiled. She smiled even though her hands were still resting on Tracey’s stomach and her eyelids were struggling to hold up two precarious pools of water. Tracey’s death toll seemed to be going up by the day.
“When you stopped calling,” Angie said as she finally moved into the house, “I told Garrett something had to be wrong with you. Either that or he’d done something to you. He never told me about the baby…or that you were ever pregnant.”
Tracy smiled as best she could. She had attempted to correct with speech what couldn’t be corrected. He never knew there would be a baby. “What did he tell you?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah. I’ll brace myself.”
“That you were an evil, conniving bitch. I think he said you were the devil trying to steal his seed. That was one hell of a fun night drinking.”
“Did he really say that?”
“No.” Angie grinned, though she didn’t sound as if she found it funny. She gave an exasperated sigh. “He said you broke up with him and made me drop the subject. I couldn’t get a word out of him beyond that. I will say this though…”
She knew already that she wasn’t going to like whatever Angie was going to say, but she couldn’t stop herself from listening.
“After you guys broke up, he went around getting drunk and flirting with everything in a skirt. I’m not saying he did anything. I’m just saying it wasn’t pretty.”
When Angie said that, it was as if Tracey’s ribs started to shrink around her lungs and heart and everything. Her windpipe closed right up and she felt light-headed. Her forearm went protectively over her stomach and she bit down on her lip. She had known he was probably with other women. She had told herself time and time again that was probably the case, so why did it hurt her so much?
“I’m sorry, Tracey. But I thought you should probably know. He’s changed a lot since you split up. One of the more weird things is that he won’t let anyone call him Garrett. It’s always got to be Rett. I mean, we’ve always called him by either name, but not anymore. I don’t know, I think he lost his damn mind after y’all broke up.”
Tracey was trapped between sickly flattered and just plain old sick.
“Anyway, he drinks all the time, he won’t cut his hair, and he snaps at any and everyone that comes near him. It’s weirding me out, man. He’s worse than me. Tracey?”
“I’m listening,” Tracey replied, though she didn’t know how her lips formed those words. She found herself leaning against the sofa staring intently at the display on the stereo.
“I’m sorry. I know you guys have stuff to work out, so take this as a warning. I guess all I’m telling you is that he’s changed a lot since you were last with him. Take care.”
She nodded. “You hungry? I’m starved, like always. You want something to eat?”
“Yeah. You want to order something?”
“I was having a friend come by with some food and videos tonight. I can call and tell her to bring enough for us all.”
“She won’t mind?”
“I doubt it. Besides, I’d really like you two to meet.” Tracey started towards the phone but, even before she could move towards it, her door opened and Monica was coming in carrying a huge brown paper bag with a heavenly aroma spilling out of its top.
“Hi.” She smiled curiously at Angie.
“Um, Monica, this is Angie Atkins.”
“The sister?” Then, “I’m sorry to sound that way. I’m just a little surprised. I’m Monica Johnson, nice to meet you.” They shook hands.
“I hope you have enough food in there for me.” Angie rubbed her stomach.
“Girl, I could feed a whole troop. So that means we might have to stretch it if Tracey eats.” Tracey threw a cushion at her and all three women laughed. Ice broken.
* * *
Later, Angie and Tracey both laughed deep and long as Monica regaled them with the series of unfortunate, incredible, and hilarious events that had led her and Maurice to each other.
They laughed and they bonded and Tracey felt blessed to have friends like them.
She started to cry. “What’s wrong with you now?” Monica asked, coming to sit beside her. She added as an aside to Angie, “She does this all the time.”
“Nothing,” Tracey answered, shaking her head. “It’s just seems like it was so easy for you and Rico.”
“What?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Tracey, no.” Monica put an arm around Tracey back, “Tracey, it is never easy to love someone and make it work. Never. I don’t care who you are or how alike you think you are.”
“I guess not,” Tracey answered, but she felt the tears coming in earnest then.
“Jeez, I wish you could drink!” Angie said, coming to sit on the other side of her. “Does this happen all the time?”
Monica had the nerve to snicker. “Pretty frequently.”
“Okay, I’m gonna fix this,” Angie chirped. “Listen to me…listen. What happened to the canary that had unprotected sex?”
“What?” Tracey asked, confused.
“It’s a joke,” Angie answered. “What happened to the canary that had unprotected sex?”
“What?”
“It got twirpies and I hear it’s untweetable!” she replied with relish.
Tracey felt the laughter come from deep inside her. It just bubbled out and Monica was there laughing with her.
“That was the dumbest joke I’ve ever heard,” Monica said, shaking with humor.
“It’s not the dumbest joke I know, though.” Angie waggled her eyebrows.
Tracey hugged her best friends close. She and Moni listened to Angie tell the most horrible jokes ever the rest of the afternoon, the next always funnier than the last.
* * *
“You’re a damn vagrant, dude,” Angie remarked as she helped Garrett pack some boxes.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you don’t have an address, Rett.”
“I do have an address. That’s the whole point of you helping me pack.”
“But it’s a sublease.”
“What’s wrong with that? I go to work early and stay late, really late. The place is close by. What’s wrong with that?”
Angie held her hand out for the packing tape. “You’re the one who said you wanted a house, aren’t you?”
“So what?” he asked, handing her the tape. “I still plan to buy one. I just need some time to get situated. I would have waited, but I don’t feel right staying here anymore, no matter what Dad says.”
“I know what you mean.”
Rett knew that she did.
“You’d better not be taking any girls there.”
“What business is it of yours if I do?” he fairly yelled.
“You have been getting around a little too much lately, if you ask me.”
“Just ’cause you see me flirt with a chick doesn’t mean I’m doing her. You know me better than that.”
“I thought I did.” She shrugged guiltily.
“I haven’t done it since—” He cut off his words.
“Since Tracey?”
Rett didn’t want to answer, but he nodded anyway.
A deep scarlet flush heated his sister’s face.
“You really haven’t been sleeping with a different girl every night?”
“No!” Rett yelped. “I don’t have time for that.”
“Oh.”
Rett cocked his head to the side. “What?”
Angie squeezed her eyes shut.
“Tell me.”
“I might have told Tracey that you’ve been out with a different girl every night.”
“Why in God’s name would you do that?” Rett shouted.
“Because you have been on dates.”
Rett’s chest rose and fell rapidly, and he looked as though he were about ready to strangle his sister.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Why would you do that? I’m your brother.”
“If it had been anybody but Tracey, I swear before God I wouldn’t have said a thing.”
“Why does it matter that it was Tracey and not some other girl?”
“Because it’s Tracey.” As if that was any kind of answer.
Rett rubbed his eyes. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Garrett, I’m so sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter, Angie. I’m not hers, she’s not mine. It doesn’t matter.”
“But I’ll make it right. I’ll tell her that nothing was—”
“Doesn’t matter, Angie. She can think whatever she wants. It doesn’t change anything.”
“I think she was jealous.”
Rett’s head snapped up. “Really?”
Chapter 27
Tracey’s friends, her mother, and her aunts tried to keep her cheered up, they really did, but Tracey was the most morose pregnant woman that ever existed. Times alone, times when she was left to think about the past year, really did her in.
That’s when thoughts of the short but beautiful period with Garrett before the pregnancy crowded in. Those made Tracey smile, but were always followed by memories of their fragile relationship cracking, of Garrett getting angry with her, of the horrible deception that could have led to him believing she was heartless enough to get rid of their child. Then it was usually topped off with a searing pain associated with the idea that he might be out falling in love with someone else.
Tracey tried to occupy herself with baby books and real estate magazines. The time had come to get rid of the house that had been her sanctuary for years but had turned into a place with too many haunting memories. She had already exchanged it for life in her parents’ guesthouse. But she wanted to move out on her own, which she could afford if she sold her grandma’s house. She had already landed a job that would support her and the baby.