by Eden Butler
“And Autumn and Declan?”
She smiles. “They were so stupid. So annoying. He was a total asshole to her at first and then her ex comes back and Declan hated him, hell, we all did, and I suppose by that time Declan wanted her.”
Mollie looks at Vaughn, thinking about how desire can shift your behavior; how it clouds all logical thought and reason. How, she hopes hers won’t undo whatever it is between them. Vaughn hasn’t touched her, not since that night in the hotel. For two days he’s stayed away from her, willingly not looking too hard at her, certainly not getting close enough to touch her. It all changed that night in his sister’s office. Mollie knows Viv told him something and whatever that something was, had put Vaughn off of touching her.
When he seems to catch himself looking a bit too long at her, Vaughn returns his gaze to the road. “But Declan didn’t know that Autumn was Joe’s daughter?”
Mollie isn’t surprised at the reaction, doesn’t bother responding to his quick deflection. “Nope. And when he found out, Joe made him swear he wouldn’t tell her. It caused a lot of grief.”
“I bet it did. And now they’re all one big happy family?”
“Yeah. They are. Joe had a heart attack. He almost died and it brought them all together. It wasn’t all hugs and kisses, but they got over it.”
“So really all that was Joe’s fault?”
“Yeah, but Joe’s a good guy.” Mollie doesn’t like the quick snap of Vaughn’s gaze or how the expression on his face tells her he thinks she’s a little naïve. She was used to that reaction. Mollie and her friends garnered the same look by association. Their classmates just didn’t understand about Declan and Autumn, thanks in part to Heather and Tucker—the two people who wanted Declan and Autumn apart most in the world. “Ever do something stupid to protect someone?” He nods and she wonders about that flash in his eyes. “Well, that’s what Joe was doing. Trying to protect everyone from the past. He just went about it the wrong way. Don’t get it twisted, they’re a family and Autumn and Declan, well, for them family is everything. Declan only had his mom and then she died. Autumn only had her mom and she died, so for them to be together, sharing a dad, well, it means a lot. It hasn’t been easy, but they make it work.”
“You said she’s your family.”
Again, Mollie looks out the window. The girls are her family, all of them. They accepted her, took in this harsh, blunt little thirteen year old girl with a bitchy mom and a father who had landed in prison. They never judged her, never questioned why she was still so loyal to her father. People accepting you despite your flaws, loving you sometimes even more because of them? Yeah, Mollie thought. That’s family. “She is. All of them are. We sort of became an instant family when we were kids. To Autumn, family is everything, same with Deco. That’s why he’s so protective of us.”
“I thought he wanted you.” Mollie makes a face and mocks a gagging sound. “What?”
“I’m not blind. Declan’s gorgeous, but ugh, no. That’s never, ever going to happen. Besides, those two were married the day they met. Well, after he got over her kneeing him in the balls.” Vaughn barks out a laugh, and stares at Mollie as though she can’t get away without telling him how her sweet, gentle friend was able to cripple Declan with one knee to the groin, but then the gates of the prison come into view and the pleased smile on Mollie’s face disappears. “That’s another story for a different day.”
The gate is large, a steel structure with looming lines of razor wire and fencing that circles the prison. Vaughn and Mollie pass over their I.D.s and a fat guard with tight buttons threatening to pop off his gray shirt waves them through. Three sharp turns and they are parked in the center row staring up at the dark gray building. Dread collects in Mollie’s stomach. It always does when she visits this place.
Vaughn’s hand rests on the door handle and Mollie can feel his gaze moving between her face and the mammoth building in front of them. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“Yeah… why?” She didn’t realize she was staring straight ahead, eyes losing focus as she tries to guess what her father would tell her today.
“It’s been a while, right? When was the last time you saw your dad?”
“A year.” She turns toward him, resting back against the headrest. She just needs a moment; a small pause before she faces her father. “A little over that, actually.” She takes a breath, eyes back through the windshield again. “I hate it here.”
“That’s not surprising.”
She looks away, blocking out the building and Vaughn next to her who speaks to her with his voice easy, with a concern that vanishes any distance he’s shown her for the past few days. Outside her window a slim woman with tight curls drags along a young boy toward the prison. Visiting day was always like this: mothers pulling their kids inside, parents old or aging taking quick steps to their sons, waiting for a visit that’s monitored by guards in gray uniforms. There was little privacy, little ease in these visits, but most families managed a smile, seem to take the small moment of comfort despite the unwelcoming air of the prison.
“He doesn’t laugh anymore.” Mollie tries to remember the last time she heard an honest, genuine laugh from her father. It had to be before he went away. “I haven’t heard my dad laugh in ten years, not really. He’ll chuckle, he’ll find something funny, but it’s not the same.” She runs her finger along the window seam, feeling the cool chill that has covered the summer heat. “Like he doesn’t really mean it.”
In the back, to the left, the concrete yard is visible. Vaughn watches a group of inmates, some shirtless, some sweating with bodies that shine against the sunlight, playing basketball. Periodically, an inmate will look toward the parking lot, eyes searching, hopeful, like tigers itching to be released from a confining cage. “I can’t imagine this place offers much room for laughter.”
“No. I don’t guess it does.” Mollie takes another breath, steeling herself. “Let’s go. They’re not going to give us much time.”
Vaughn is walking just a step behind, not touching her, not leading her and the distance barely registers as they move through one gate with an intercom system, controlled remotely by the guards within, then into the lobby of the visitation room. Vaughn will be unable to get beyond this point, Viv told them that much, but for the first time in ten years, Mollie will have a private room with her father. Viv didn’t want the guards knowing that her brother would be there; she was still so suspicious of anyone knowing what Mojo was doing for them. But the Warden was a friend of their father’s who owed her a favor.
When Mollie reaches the last guard station, with cameras moving in every conceivable corner of the room and guards glancing at each visitor as though they are suspicious, she pauses for the metal detector, then turns when a wand moves over her body. She sees Vaughn beyond the glass, watches the way he eyes her, how he attempts a comforting smile before he sits on a chair just near the entrance.
A guard bigger than Vaughn, uglier, with less confidence in his stride, leads Mollie to a private room down the cement hallway and she waits for her father. The table is a solid poured piece of metal that is bolted to the floor. Stools, also bolted to the floor, surround the table; no cushions, no comforts at all and there are no walls of glass or mirrors, no closed circuit cameras to afford the authorities a glimpse into what goes on in this room. Deals, pleas, the usual business of getting someone out of this place, or keeping someone in, all happen in this room—it’s were the attorneys meet with their clients.
Her skin tingles, then prickles hard when the door opens and her father is escorted in, handcuffed and led by two guards. But Mollie doesn’t pay attention to them, or how they take their time releasing him from the cuffs. She only sees the gauntness of her father’s face, how the salt and pepper hair has gone almost completely white.
She knows instantly that something has happened; something he hasn’t told her about. Where once his face was full, slightly worn from the sun, from the hard life he must
live here, it is now thin and his high cheekbones protrude to give him a sickly, old appearance. He smiles at her, but happiness doesn’t extend to his eyes, doesn’t make his face brighter, younger like it’s always done.
“Daddy… what’s wrong?” She is in his arms before he has a chance to sit at the table. “You’re sick?”
“I am, baby.” He smells like butterscotch and cheap soap, but Mollie doesn’t care, can just maintain her composure at how thin his arms have grown, how his once large, muscular chest is now emaciated.
“Is it cancer?”
“Yes. In my gut.” Her father holds her tighter when she can’t help the tears. Mollie rubs her face against the ugly white jumpsuit he wears and tries not to scream. “Come on now, don’t do that. I’m not dead yet.”
She pushes back, watching his face as he still holds her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You got enough to worry over. When do your classes start back up?”
“Daddy, don’t.” She hates when he does that. Changing the subject, deflecting. “This is why you’re testifying? You want a clear conscience?”
He sighs, nods toward the table and Mollie pulls the second chair to meet the other one so she can sit next to her father. “Big Frank got killed last year. He was meeting the connection for a drop and just got in the middle of a beef. It wasn’t his fault.” Mojo wipes the moisture from Mollie’s face with his long fingers. “Six months before that Spider went in for life. Caught with product that wasn’t supposed to be there for another week.” Her father looks over his shoulder, making sure the guards have left and then leans in toward her, taking her small hand in his. “The, um, big fellas,” she knows he means the suppliers, the elusive cartel she’s heard mentioned a handful of times over the years, “have been taking too many chances. We got new blood, some young brothers in the club, but they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Everything’s gone stupid, baby, and when I got the verdict from my doc,” Mojo closes his eyes when Mollie feels her chin tremble, “and my brothers were dying off or getting pinched, I thought this was enough. I don’t wanna die in this shithole, Mimi.”
“Daddy…” Mollie can’t control the tears when they come again. And when her father’s grip on her hand tightens and she sees how his own eyes have gone glassy, moisture collecting in his lashes, she crumbles against his chest once more. She doesn’t know if he’s crying too. She only knows that she hears a rough wheeze in his throat when he whispers small words meant to console her. She only knows that his arms around her shoulders, though tight, aren’t as strong, as menacing as they once were. This is why he was taking chances, but the threat isn’t just the sickness. It isn’t just about him dying in this place. “They know, don’t they? The cartel? That you’re going to testify against them?”
“They found out, yeah. I have some pretty convincing evidence.” Mojo rubs his face, then pushes the hair off Mollie’s shoulder. He always did that, she remembered. He always said she should wear her hair off her face so the world would see how pretty she was. “That’s why I’m usually in solitary. I don’t have much protection around here anymore. And I knew they’d come at you, baby. When I heard they were branching out, moving on to Tennessee, well, I couldn’t have those assholes so close to my baby. I had to make a deal.”
Mollie uses the sleeve of her shirt to wipe her face dry. “What’s Viv offering you?”
Her father presses his lips together, works his mouth as though he’s debating on what he should say. Finally, when Mollie frowns at him, he exhales and leans an elbow on the table. “Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-accusations.”
“That’s enough. You’re not a SEAL anymore, Daddy.”
“I’ll always be a SEAL, baby.” When she only glares at him, Mojo’s shoulders lower, defeated. “Time served for turning state’s witness.”
“But if they know… they’ll come after you. They’ve already tried getting to me and the girls have gotten in the way. You won’t be protected once you’re out.”
“I know, baby.” Mojo locks their fingers together, stares at the chipping, red paint on her nails. “But I won’t be around long enough for them to find me.”
She knew what that meant. She knew it wasn’t good and that thick dread that surfaced out in the parking lot, grows. “You’re going dark?” Her throat burns from her crying, clots with the question she isn’t sure she wants an answer to.
“I have to. Viv knows a doctor, a good doctor up north.”
“But I won’t see you, will I?”
This time, it’s Mojo who cries. It’s her father that turns away from her, hiding his face with his thin fingers. She’d only seen him cry once in her life. It happened when one of his brothers had been run off the road, flipped from his bike, by a drunk lawyer driving a BMW. The cops found him in pieces along the highway and the lawyer never served a day in jail.
“I’d trade that to keep you safe,” he says, between his fingers. “I’d give up never seeing you again if it meant you could be proud of me just once.”
“Daddy, no.” Mollie forces his hands from his face and makes her father look at her directly. “I am proud of you. I love you so much, Daddy. I just want you safe and happy and free.” There is a hitch clotting in her throat and Mollie doesn’t bother to clear it away. “Please don’t do that.”
“It’s already done, baby.”
There was no swaying him. Mojo Malone was a stubborn ass, always had been, and Mollie knew there was no way that was ever going to change.
She scoots her chair in, and when she wraps her hands around his pale arm to lean her face against his hand, her father slides his fingers in her hair. She sits there a moment, smelling the harsh, soap scent of his skin. “Fine.” She kisses his knuckles and again dries her face. “What do you want me to do?”
This time when he smiles, her father’s eyes are brighter, though they do not completely lose that low dim. “I want you to keep your head down. That’s the only thing you have to do.” Mojo’s throat works, he clears it as though he isn’t sure he wants to say what’s presently on his mind. “This boy? The one watching you?” Mollie nods. “Viv tells me he’s a Marine, that he’s a good sort.”
Mollie knows that tone, she knows enough about her father’s mannerisms to know when he was trying to gauge her reactions. Slick old thing. “What about him?”
“I want you to listen to him. He’s a jarhead, but Viv says he’s seen action. He’ll know what to do in a tight spot.”
“I guess he does, Daddy.”
“Good. Now, that don’t mean—” Mojo goes silent when the door opens behind them and two guards, and Vaughn, slip into the room. Immediately, her father moves from his seat and by the way he stands, feet apart and fists rolled at his side, Mollie knows that he’s preparing himself. For what, Mollie isn’t sure, but she’d seen him take on that stance more than a dozen times as a kid. It never led to anything good.
“Daddy,” she warns, but then the guards walk forward, one of them pulling out his handcuffs.
Ignoring the two men in the gray uniforms, Mojo extends his wrists, all the while looking Vaughn over, inspecting, analyzing. “You my baby’s fella?” he asks and Vaughn hesitates, then smirks when Mojo’s eyes dart to the guards. Mollie knows her father wants Vaughn to play along and that small question is spoken to measure just how quick Vaughn is.
“Yes, sir.” He stands next to her, pulling her against his chest.
“Good.” Again Mojo’s eyes work over Vaughn. Daddy doesn’t like him, Mollie thinks. Her father’s neck is held too rigid, his now handcuff hands carry white knuckles. “You gonna take care of her?”
“I’m gonna do my best.” Tension has now formed on Vaughn’s face, as though there is something else shifting through his mind.
“You better, soldier,” her father says and Mollie winces at the insult. She knew enough about military folk to know you just didn’t call a Marine a soldier. The Army had soldiers. Marines were just Marines.
“Wait!” she says, stopping them. “Can I give him a kiss goodbye?”
The two men exchange a look, hesitate, but then step aside so Mollie can wrap her arms around her father’s neck. His mouth instantly curls by her ear and what he says makes tears she thought she could no longer produce stream down her still wet face.
“It’ll be over soon, baby doll. One way or another.” He kisses her cheek and gives her an easy smirk. “Remember, no one loves you like your daddy.”
“I know it.”
And then, her father is rushed from the room and with a quiet click, Mollie is left with Vaughn. But he is soundless, waiting for her to move, waiting, she guesses, to see what the next seconds and the visit with her father will have Mollie doing.
She swallows thick, clears away the congestion in her chest and looks at Vaughn with her chin dipped low. “Get me out of here. Please.”
Vaughn didn’t realize how tiny Mollie was until he saw her against her father’s chest. He knew she was small, he’d felt enough of her body, watched her moving enough times, to know that she wasn’t a big thing. But, he thinks, that she always seemed taller, broader; it was her attitude, the fierce way she held herself, the hard lash of her mouth when she was pissed off and the determined set of her shoulders when anyone challenged her.
Today though, leaning against Mojo, eyes swollen and red from her tears, Vaughn thought she looked so small. He’d been surprised, shocked when the Warden greeted him in the lobby. He hadn’t seen the old man in years, but after a small welcome, Warden Jefferies had the guards slip Vaughn into the private room where Mollie and her father were visiting. “Mojo’s giving her some bad news, I’m afraid,” he told Vaughn and Jefferies knew that the girl might need a shoulder. “It’s against the rules,” he’d said, “but I think you being there will help her father feel a bit better about leaving her.”