The Bars Between Us

by A. S. Teague

  Whether that was out of desperation on my part or desire on his was not important. She’d seen our connection and had used it, exploiting it to get what she wanted, to keep me in the dark about the man that I longed for every day of my young life.

  I was furious. Plain and simple, my blood simmered with pure hatred for the woman that had orchestrated this. I was angry with Riley, too, for keeping it from me. Yet, I didn’t blame him.

  He was Nana’s attorney. Bound by law to keep her secrets, he couldn’t really have ever told me. Until now.

  “Tell me again,” I plead.

  Riley rolled his shoulders, undoubtedly stiff from sitting awkwardly on the end of the chaise for the last two and a half hours.

  I’d spent the time pacing, stomping, screaming, crying, but Riley had remained in his seat with a calm that I didn’t know I’d ever feel again, telling me everything he knew, answering my barrage of questions, never once asking for a break.

  I have to give it to him, he’d been much more patient than I would have been if the roles were reversed. But he knew that the curses I’d yelled at him weren’t aimed at him. I was in a state of shock, and the emotions I was experiencing were overflowing, desperate to find any way out of me. Even if that meant that I used him as a punching bag in the process.

  “He has an appeal hearing this week.” He sighs, pulling his phone out of his pocket. After a brief moment of tapping the screen he looks back up. “It’s at the Lexington County Courthouse. Nine a.m.”

  I nod, my fingers laced, my thumbs pressed against my lips. “I’m going,” I announce.

  His face registers shock and he opens his mouth, undoubtedly to protest, but I shake my head hard. “Don’t even try to talk me out of it.”

  “But, Grace. Listen to me. He’s—“

  I hold up my hands. “Shut up!” I shout. “I don’t care what you say, dammit!” My voice cracks. “I want to see my daddy.”

  Movement catches my attention, and I realize it’s my hands shaking. I cross my arms over my chest, hoping that he didn’t notice.

  The thought of seeing him terrifies me. More than that day that I saw him lying in a pool of his own blood. I have a million worries.

  Will he recognize me?

  Will I recognize him?

  What if he doesn’t want to see me?

  I suck in a breath and hold it as long as I can, until my lungs begin to burn and my eyes water before releasing it with a loud whoosh. With the release of air, I let the questions go.

  It doesn’t matter.

  I’m going to see him, to let him know that I’m there, that I support him, and that I’m going to do whatever the hell it takes to get him out of the nightmare he’s been living.

  The rest we can figure out later.

  I spent the rest of the night reading through the letters in the folder, alternating between hysterical sobbing and laughing until my sides hurt.

  Daddy had sent me a letter a week for the entire first year after his “death.” They remained positive, optimistic that he would see me soon, something that I’m sure he had begun to realize wouldn’t be coming to fruition.

  But, the following year, the letters cut back to once a month. There was a change in his writing. Gone was the promises to see me again, in its place, sadness and despair. Most of them were short, a few sentences about how much he loved and missed me. Reassurance that he was doing fine. Questions about school.

  The third year he’d started dating the letters, so it was easier to follow in chronological order. These letters were much more sporadic, but not nearly as devastating as the previous. In the letters that he sent he talked about his favorite memories of me, of us.

  He would recount the time we borrowed a neighbor’s golf cart and then got it stuck in the marsh. He’d looked like a pig in mud that day, having to dig the wheels out and getting filthy in the process. I’d thought it was a great adventure, he’d made it that way, pretending to be a pirate digging for treasure while I laughed and squealed from the safety of the driver’s seat.

  I’d belly laughed when I’d read that letter, remembering that day so clearly. There were quite a few more just like it.

  But then I’d gotten to the letter he wrote to me on my eighteenth birthday. It had been the worst birthday I’d ever had. I’d just graduated high school, the valedictorian. I’d walked across the stage and looked out at the crowd, longing to have my parents there cheering me on. Instead, I’d seen my papa, smiling timidly, my nana beside him, her face pinched, looking impossibly bored.

  My friends’ parents were throwing epic parties to honor them. Giving them lavish gifts, taking them to fancy dinners. My grandparents had given me a pat on the back and then excused themselves to the club.

  My birthday had been just two days later.

  My Dearest Grace,

  You’re officially an adult today. Sometimes when I sleep I see your face, but not the chubby little child’s face that I’d last seen. No, I see you as you probably look today. And it takes my breath away how beautiful you are, how much like your mother you look. And I think to myself, God, how did I create something so perfect, so beautiful like you? The answer is that your mother probably had a lot more to do with that than I did, but nevertheless, I’ll take some credit.

  You’ve probably graduated high school, doing something even your dear old dad never was able to do. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of you. I wonder what you’ll study in college. I know that you’re destined for great things, how could you not be?

  I’ve had a lot of time to think, to reflect, to try to understand life and the whys of it all. In all the time that I’ve had, I still can’t come up with an answer, a reason for why our lives go the way they do.

  But I know that you’re safe, I hope that you’re happy, and I think that maybe, just maybe, my life took this terrible turn of events so that you could have the life you have. So that you would never want or need for anything.

  And Bear, if that’s the case, then I would do it all over again. I would gladly stay here, for a hundred years, if it meant that you would get everything out of life that you deserve.

  I love you so much, my saving Grace. Happy 18th Birthday.

  Your Daddy.

  The tears stream down my face, the sobs wracking my already exhausted body. How could a man that would gladly spend his entire life in prison possibly be able to commit the crime he was accused of?

  I’d sent Riley home hours earlier amid protests that he would stay with me as long as I needed him. I appreciated his offer, knowing that it was genuine and without ulterior motives, but I just needed to be alone, to immerse myself in the letters, to read every one of them twice, to hear my father’s voice again, even if just in my head, the way I imagined it would sound.

  I’d long since forgotten the rich timbre of his voice, the heavy southern accent that my mother had found so charming, and it had crushed me when I realized that I couldn’t call it to memory anymore. But reading his letters, seeing the poor penmanship scrawled on dingy notebook paper, brought the sound back, and had given me a comfort that I didn’t know I would ever have again.

  I’d nearly reached the bottom of the stack when an envelope catches my eye.

  It isn’t like the others, there is no address on it, no postage stamp. Just my name printed on the front in my mama’s pretty script.

  I flip it over to see that it is sealed, evidently not having been opened by my nana.

  Tearing into it, I pull the single sheet of paper out and unfold it, hesitating.

  Do I even want to know what my mother had to say?

  Swallowing hard, I decide that I do.

  Grace,

  If you’re reading this letter, it means that you know about your father and about the letters that he sent you.

  I have no excuse. There’s nothing that I can say that will change what I’ve done, what I’ve allowed Nana to do.

  I can only hope that you’ll forgive me for this one day.
/>   I love you.

  Mama

  I crumple the letter in my hand, tears rolling down my face. I’m not sure that I can forgive her, and if I did, would she even know?

  One thing I know for sure, I would have gladly lived my entire life in a shack, with pathetic Christmases and threadbare clothes, if it meant that I was able to have some sort of relationship with my father.

  Even if it was through the steel bars of a jail cell.

  Voicemail.

  Again.

  Voicemail.

  Again.

  Voicemail.

  Again.

  I was bordering on psycho stalker status the number of times I’d called her. Her phone went straight to voicemail every time, thankfully saving me the uncomfortable task of explaining why I was calling her every two minutes, without fail, for hours.

  I was actually beginning to weird myself out.

  I know that I need to put my phone away, to put the bottle of tequila away, to stumble my way home and go to bed, sleeping off this worry-induced intoxication.

  But no matter how many times I try to reason with myself, I still can’t force my legs to stand, my feet to move, or my arms to lock up the bar.

  Dani left shortly after my third shot, promising to check in on me later, with more false assurances that everything was fine.

  When she called an hour ago, I’d sent her call to voicemail, then laughed at the irony.

  Looking at the screen of my phone, I see that it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning. With one last attempt, I dial Grace’s number again.

  Voicemail.

  A-fucking-gain.

  With a heavy sigh, I stand and stumble to the door of my office, slamming my hip on the corner of my desk on the way.

  “Shit!” I groan, the pain searing through my side. “Fuck it,” I slur, turning the light switch off and snagging the cushion from one of the chairs. Dropping to the floor, I tuck the pillow under my head and close my eyes, the world sloshing from side to side.

  Chuckling, I mumble, “Just like home sweet home.”

  Just before I pass out, a memory of my mother flashes in my mind, the pain of that day as fresh as if it were yesterday.

  “You’re abandoning me?” she moaned, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

  I scoffed, not even bothering to answer as I continued shoving my shit in a bag. There wasn’t much, seeing as how I had spent my teen years blowing every dollar I ever earned on booze or drugs. I wasn’t about to waste money on things like clothes or possessions.

  The trailer we lived in was in the worst part of town and had been burglarized so many times I’d learned from an early age not to keep anything of value.

  “Where ya gonna go, boy? No one in this town likes you.” Her words are slurred, no doubt from the bottle of vodka she’d had for breakfast.

  “Anywhere that you’re not,” I snapped back, finally meeting her gaze.

  She’d been pretty once, my mother. But that was a long time ago. Now she just looked used up—because she was. She’d spent her life doing whatever she had to do to get her next bottle of liquor. Well, whatever she had to do except actually working for a living. Not that she could have held a job anyway.

  “Please, Son, don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone.” Her lip began to quiver and shock jolted me.

  I’d never seen my mother cry, not even when my father died. For a brief moment I hesitated.

  Her eyes lit when she saw my hand still. “You’ll stay?” Her voice was optimistic, her speech still nearly unintelligible.

  “No,” I told her firmly, but gently. I may hate her for the years of neglect and all the nights I spent pining for someone to come to my school plays, football games, or, hell, even cook me a meal, but I’m not cruel.

  I’m not her.

  “Fuck you then. If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back,” she screeched, the hope in her eyes morphing to spite in less than a second.

  I cleared my throat, and without raising my voice told her, “I am not abandoning you. You would have had to been here for that to be the case. You fucking abandoned me the moment you conceived me. Sure, you lived in this place, most of the time at least, but you were never really here.”

  Her eyes widened, her toothless gums flapped wordlessly.

  “Best of luck to you,” I finished, slinging the ratty duffel bag over my shoulder and striding through the door without another backward glance.

  The sudden pain in my ribs jolts me to consciousness. My mouth is dry, my tongue thick, and along with my ribs, my head pounds.

  Groaning, I roll to my side, careful to avoid my sore side and push up on an elbow. I look around, trying to gauge my surroundings when my sister’s voice invades my ears.

  “Bronnson? What the fuck are you doing on the floor?” she snaps, dropping to her knees beside me.

  It’s a question I don’t immediately have an answer to. The events of last night are a hazy blur. I try to focus on her face, but my vision is swimming and a wave of nausea rolls in my stomach.

  I swallow hard and shake my head, only to have it remind me that any movement is a bad idea.

  “I don’t know,” I groan.

  Dani grabs my arm and helps me to my feet, but I’m still woozy and collapse into the closest chair.

  “I think I was roofied,” I say lamely, attempting a joke that falls painfully flat.

  I already know what she’s going to say, and I’m not in the mood for one of her lectures, no matter how badly I probably need it.

  “Bronn…” she trails off, her face full of concern. She doesn’t want to play the role of my mother any more than I want her to.

  Besides, I already know that I need to lay off the booze. My pounding head is proof positive of that one.

  She squats in front of me, getting directly in my line of vision and hands me a bottle of water, waiting while I drain it. When I hand the empty plastic back to her, she grabs another bottle out of her purse and twists the cap before dumping a handful of pain relievers in my outstretched fingers.

  I smile weakly, my only attempt at thanking her, and pop the pills, downing bottle number two of water.

  “Have you heard from Grace?” she asks, her voice laced with worry.

  I shake my head only a fraction of an inch before thinking better of it. “Nope. Although I’ve been asleep for a while, so it’s possible she called while I was passed out.”

  Dani pushes to her feet and shuffles over to my desk, shoving papers out of the way until she locates my phone. After bringing it back to me, she flops into the chair across from me and waits patiently for me to check my missed calls.

  None from Grace.

  Seven from Dani.

  I glance up and shake my head. “Sorry,” I tell her, apologizing for making her worry.

  With a slight shrug she smiles sadly. “Don’t worry about it. You’re fine. That’s all the matters.”

  A pang of guilt hits me in the gut, followed quickly by anger at myself for making her worry in the first place.

  I’ve got to stop being such a selfish asshole. And, a pathetic prick that immediately assumes the worst just because my girlfriend got tied up.

  I check my texts while Dani and I sit in silence, and I’m surprised to see one from Grace. It’s just as short as the one yesterday.

  Grace: I’ll be staying here until Thursday. Need to get some stuff sorted out.

  Without a word, I turn the screen toward Dani so she can read the message.

  She tilts her head to the side, chewing on her lip, her signature look when she’s trying to figure something out. Finally, she looks up.

  “What’s going through your head?” she asks.

  “A fucking freight train.” I grimace and she laughs.

  “Sorry, but you did that to yourself.”

  I don’t disagree, but give her a hard time. “Where’s the sympathy?”

  “You don’t deserve my sympathy.” She’s still smiling, not truly meaning it.
“She’s probably just got a lot to do.”

  This time I shake my head despite the way my brain protests. “This isn’t like her. She’s never gone more than a couple hours without texting me.”

  “But she did text you,” she argues.

  Waving my phone toward her, I counter, “Those impersonal fucking texts aren’t what I mean.” Pulling the message back up, I type out a response.

  Me: Call me.

  I don’t expect to get an answer, so I’m shocked when I see the message bubble pop up indicating she’s typing. After a few tense seconds, her message comes through.

  Grace: I can’t talk right now.

  My lips thin and my chest tightens.

  Me: Why the hell not?

  Yesterday, I was upset and I’d thrown myself a pity party.

  But I wasn’t sad today.

  No, I was fucking pissed.

  I would never go MIA on her the way she had gone on me.

  Grace: I just need to be alone. It’s not you, I promise.

  Me: Well, if it’s not me, then what is it? Because the way you’re avoiding my calls, it sure as fuck feels like it’s me. And I thought you weren’t alone. What about Riley? Is he helping you figure things out?

  Grace: I can’t do this with you right now, Bronn. Please.

  Me: Oh, so that’s how you’re going to play this? Won’t fucking talk to me on the phone, won’t even tell me why?

  Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m being a dick. She’s at her grandmother’s house, clearing it out. She’s probably just going through a lot, the emotional toll more than she was expecting. But, that’s what I’m here for. Or at least, that’s what I thought before she went ghost on me.