by Chloe Walsh
“A raps what?” Kyle asked in confusion.
“A rapscallion,” I said with a smile. “It means rogue or mischief-maker. Mr. Frey used to call Cam and I rapscallions when we were little.” Shrugging awkwardly, I added, “Probably for very different reasons.”
“Probably.” She smiled softly and I watched as her eyes clouded over broodingly. “We dated in secret for a few months and when my Papa found out . . .” her voice broke off and she sniffled. “It ended abruptly. Papa was furious with me for disgracing him, decided it would be best if I went to live with an old friend of his in Montgomery—whose unattached son was a car mechanic with his own land and, at thirty-five, was looking to start a family.” She sighed heavily. “We were married within the month.”
“Jimmy,” I heard Kyle mumble as he shifted in his chair, his grip on my knee tightening. “You were forced to marry him? At eighteen? You never told me that part, Tracy.”
“You never asked me, Kyle,” Tracy replied simply before turning her gaze back on me. “We were married a month when he first hit me.” Her eyes glistened with un-shed tears. “Of course he apologized and promised never to lay a hand on me again. That promise lasted all of a day,” she whispered. “As soon as his belly was full with whiskey he lashed out and I quickly learned that I had to bend to his will in order to survive.”
“Why didn’t you leave then?” Kyle demanded. “The first time he put his hands on you?”
“I was pregnant with Lia,” she said almost apologetically. “I telephoned Papa and told him, but . . . but my grandfather wouldn’t hear a bad thing said about Jimmy. I was completely alone, broke and pregnant, and I . . .” her voice broke off and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I was trying to make the best of a bad situation. I hoped things would change . . .”
“But they didn’t,” I whispered, understanding filling me to the point of pain. “He didn’t.”
“No,” Tracy agreed quietly. “He didn’t, but as my pregnancy progressed, he showed genuine signs of remorse.”
I raised my brow in surprise. I’d lived with my father for eighteen years and had never once seen an ounce of remorse in his gray eyes.
“How fucking good of him,” Kyle snarled, causing Tracy to flinch. Seeing her reaction to his outburst, he paled and mumbled an apology.
“When I was about four months along, Jimmy beat me,” she confessed. “I’d put onions in the gravy instead of . . . and he . . . It was bad. He lost his temper, used his belt, and I spent a week in the hospital.” Tracy shuddered and used her free hand to wipe her brow. “The blood was the worst part,” she admitted quietly. “He was very careful after that. He didn’t want to lose the other baby. He was hoping for a boy . . .”
“Hoping?”
“You were a twin,” Tracy confirmed in a small voice when she noticed my shocked expression. “Multiples run in our family. I was an only child, but my father was a twin and his sister had a set of triplets.”
“Do you see them now?” I croaked out, finding all of this incredibly hard to take in. It had been much easier to think of Tracy Gibbons as the mother who had abandoned me to a life of misery, instead of Tracy Gibbons, the woman who had endured so much pain and sadness . . .”Your dad’s family? Your aunt and cousins?”
Shaking her head, she sighed, “I lost all contact with my father’s family when I went to live with Mimi and Papa. I haven’t seen or heard from them in over twenty years, and my mother was their only child.”
“That sounds lonely,” I whispered, feeling a strange kinship form in my heart for the woman in front of me.
“After that, Jimmy couldn’t have been more different,” Tracy said, carrying on quickly. “He stopped drinking and never raised a hand to me until . . .”
“Until?” Kyle urged.
“Until I gave birth and Jimmy realized I hadn’t given him the boy he had hoped for,” she choked out. “It all went to hell after that.” Tucking her curls behind her ear, she said, “He took pleasure in beating me regularly, in forcing me sexually . . . in stripping me of every scrap of dignity and pride I had left . . .”
“Jesus fucking Christ, stop,” Kyle blurted out, his tone agitated. Jerking out of his chair, I rolled my eyes as Kyle paced the floor. “Where do Ted and Mora come into all of this?” Swinging around to face us, his blue eyes locked on my mother. “Having your address? Helping you leave him? Explain that to me.”
“I thought all my Christmases had come when Ted and Mora moved into the house next door to us shortly after Jimmy and I were married,” Tracy said quietly, as she fidgeted with a loose curl. “Although, I must admit, I was surprised to see they were married with a child.”
“Surprised?” I shook my head. “Why were you surprised?”
“Because I knew them,” she replied with a smile. “They were from my hometown. Mora Jenkins lived on the same street as my parent’s house. We were friends as children and I hadn’t known she’d gotten engaged to Ted Frey . . .” Tracy’s voice trailed off as she gazed off dreamily, a reluctant smile spreading across her face. “I’d always thought she would marry Freddy Skinner—varsity receiver and all round heartthrob.” Shaking her head, Tracy sighed and added, “She informed me they married shortly after I moved away and . . .” Tracy exhaled and smiled sadly. “It hurt me to have missed so much from my old life. It was hard to see her so happy and in love with her husband, when I was so miserable and afraid of mine.”
“But they were good to you?” Kyle asked in a gruff tone, breaking the silence as he came to sit beside me again. “Ted and Mora, I mean.”
“Yes,” she choked out. “Ted protected me from Jimmy’s fists more times than I can bear to remember, and Mora kept Lia for me on the nights I knew it wasn’t safe for her to be at home.” Tracy’s eyes locked on mine. “You have to know, Lia . . . you have to know I did everything in my power to get you out of there,” she sobbed. “I tried to run with you, but he always dragged me back. I tried to hide, but he always found us . . . and when he got me home, the beatings were harder, the threats became more real and the fear I felt became too much.
“The day I left was the day he found my birth control pills.” Smiling sadly, she added, “I went on birth control as soon as Lia was born. Jimmy wanted more children—a son—and I knew I couldn’t bring another child into that house.” She shuddered violently. “It didn’t matter what I wanted though. He would have his son whether I was willing or not.” I tightened my fingers around hers in sympathy.
“He went into such a fit of rage that day,” she whispered. “He went through all of my things and when he noticed most of our clothes were missing, I had to admit I’d been planning to leave him and was taking you with me. He called me all sorts of names, flushed my pills down the drain, took his belt to me and when I was close to passing out, he stormed outside . . . he came back inside the house about an hour later and took Lia out of my arms, threw a twenty dollar bill in my face and ordered me to drive into town to buy his whiskey,” she sobbed.
“I was about a mile down the road when I realized something was wrong,” she whimpered. “I couldn’t control the steering wheel, the brake pedal wouldn’t work and I crashed into the Benny’s bridge . . . the car nosedived into the creek.”
“Oh my god,” I cried, furiously blinking back my tears as my heart broke for the woman in front of me.
“I can’t swim,” she choked out. “I nearly drowned. I would have drowned if Ted hadn’t pulled me out of the creek–he saved my life. He told me to run. To go before Jimmy realized I’d made it out.” Her voice rose and my heartbeat quickened as words of pain spilled from her mouth. “I’d taken enough. I’d had enough, but I was frantic. I knew I had to take you with me. I couldn’t leave you behind. But I had nothing to offer you and he would have never let me have you. I was barely nineteen with no money, no job. Nothing,” she confessed, her eyes begging me for forgiveness. “In the end I had to make a choice,” she whispered. “And
I chose wrong.”
“I . . .” I paused, unsure of what to say. A huge part of me wanted to throw my arms around the terrified woman in front of me and tell her it was all right–that I forgave her for her choices—but something held me back.
“Ted opened the door of his car for me, offered me a way out, a life-line,” she choked out. “And in taking that life-line, I severed yours . . .”
“Tracy . . .” Kyle said in a soft tone as he covered our joined hands with his. “You were barely more than a kid.” Glancing nervously at me, he continued to say, “It was a matter of life or death.”
“Ted drove me to Denver and set me up in the cottage, made sure I had enough money. I changed my name and buried my past,” she said, ignoring Kyle’s words, keeping her eyes locked on mine. “And I survived. I lived. I was safe. But I quickly learned that what I’d sacrificed in order to survive—the hole in my heart from your absence—I knew then I’d have been better off dead. I never stopped regretting that choice, Lia, and I never will.”
“Why didn’t you go back for her?” Kyle asked, his tone laced with pain. “I’m not judging you, Tracy, god knows I’m not, but why didn’t you go back and get her out of there? Or send someone else to get her?” Shaking his head, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and I could feel him trembling. “That’s the part I have a hard time swallowing.”
I stared blankly at Kyle’s face for a moment, stunned by his admission. He’d always seemed so accepting of my mother. I hadn’t known he’d wondered about the same things I had. A huge swell of warmth and comfort flushed through me, prickling my skin. He got it. He finally understood . . .
“I wish I had a good enough answer for you, Kyle, but I don’t,” Tracy whispered. “My self-esteem was non-existent and I forced myself to believe that she was better off without me—that she was safe.”
Squeezing my hand gently, she proceeded to say, “I had the naive belief that I was the one Jimmy despised, and that he would never harm you. He never once laid a finger on you when I was there . . . his anger was solely directed at me and I pretended to myself that he would have no reason to . . .” her voice caught and she took a deep choking breath before continuing. “Oh god, I have no excuses,” she sobbed. “I was a coward.”
“Your hand looks like mine,” I whispered, ignoring her pleas, my eyes locked on the frail sun-kissed skin of my mother’s hand. “I always wondered.”
Looking up, her eyes burned into mine and I watched as a number of different emotions churned around in her brown eyes. “I made a terrible, selfish mistake, Lia, and I’m so, so sorry,” she wept. “I know it doesn’t change anything. I can’t take the past back. I can’t rewrite the time that has passed. But I love you and I’m so proud of the woman in front of me . . .” Inhaling deeply, she clutched my hand and said, “I would have gladly given you every organ in my body. When I saw you lying in that hospital bed . . .” Her voice warbled, her emotions spilling over. “I would have given you the skin off my bones . . .”
“I always wondered what you would feel like.” Tentatively I moved my thumb over her hand and sighed. “I never felt softness,” I admitted. “Your hand touching mine, right now, is the softest touch I’ve ever felt from my parents.”
I heard Kyle’s breathing hitch. His knee bobbed restlessly beside mine, and I guessed he was having a hard time trying to keep himself from pulling me into his arms. This hurt him. He had never felt much tenderness from his parents, but he hadn’t suffered beatings.
Not like I had.
Not like she had.
“What was it like for you?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “What . . . w-what did that man do to you?”
“I thought I would die,” I confessed, not waiting for comfort or an apology. The urge I had inside of me to lay myself bare was overwhelming. I wasn’t telling her this to hurt her. I was telling her because I felt if I didn’t get it out I would burst. The look in her eyes told me she understood my words. She could hear my pain. She could feel my fear. “Most nights, I went to bed thinking I would never wake up.” Shuddering violently, I concentrated on keeping my voice even. “That this is the night he will snap. I used to pray he’d do it with mercy. A pillow to my face. Or snap my neck. Something quick and painless.”
“Did he . . . did he touch you, Lia?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Not in the way you’re thinking, but as I got older he would . . .” I stopped to think of how best to phrase my words. Looking directly into my mother’s eyes, I said, “Sometimes he would look at me with this hungry gleam in his eyes. That look was worse than the physical pain.” I shook my head and sighed. “It made night-time even more terrifying because I wasn’t just fearing his fists . . .”
“Stop,” Kyle croaked as he jerked out of his chair and backed away to the kitchen door. “I can’t hear this, baby.”
“It’s okay, Kyle,” I whispered as I watched him retreat from the room.
Turning to face my mother, I said, “He suffers when I speak about my childhood. Sometimes I think he’s reliving my past as I speak it.”
“You’re so incredibly brave,” she gushed. “I don’t know where you get it from when both of your parents are such cowards . . .”
“I get my courage from Kyle,” I said immediately and without shame. “He makes me strong.”
“You’re very much in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I don’t think I could work right without him.” I thought about what I was saying and shrugged. “At least not in any way that matters.”
“He confuses me,” Tracy blurted out. She looked at me apologetically before smiling. “The way he speaks, his body language, his whole demeanor . . . everything about him screams danger, yet I’ve never been shown such kindness and compassion from a man.”
“That’s Kyle for you,” I joked half-heartedly. “He’s as unpredictable as a hurricane. He’s an enigma wrapped up in a conundrum wrapped up in a riddle.”
“Can you forgive me?” she asked bluntly, her lip wobbling, her eyes wide and braced for rejection. “In time . . . ever?”
“I’ll never forget,” I said quietly. It was the truth. “I can’t. Too many incidents and scars . . .” Inhaling deeply, I squeezed my mother’s hand and allowed the words that would change the course of my future to spill from my lips. “But I can try to move on from this point. I would like to talk to you again.” Shrugging awkwardly, I forced myself to smile. “I understand your choices. They’re not the choices I would have made, but I can see why you did what you did . . . That’s about as much as I can offer right now.”
“Then I’ll take it,” Tracy said quickly with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I will take whatever you offer . . .”
“Do you think he’s coming?” I blurted out, voicing a deep-seated worry.
“Yes,” she replied shakily.
I nodded slowly, appreciating her honesty and absorbing what her answer meant. Locking eyes with her, I asked, “Do you think he’s coming for me or for you . . .”
Tracy didn’t get the chance to answer me because the kitchen door flew open and Kyle stalked back into the room. He paced the length of the kitchen twice, muttered a half dozen swear words to himself, before coming to an abrupt halt in front of us. “I have a house on Thirteenth Street that you can stay in. It’s safer than where you’ve been staying,” he said steadily, eyes locked on my mother. “If Lee agrees, I’ll have a locksmith install something more secure on the windows and doors.”
Taking my hand, Kyle pulled me to my feet and tucked me into his side. “But you shouldn’t feel guilty for severing your daughter’s life-line,” he said in a gruff tone, tightening his hold on my waist. “Because if you’d have stayed there you would’ve severed mine.”
“See,” I mouthed with a smirk, my eyes locked on my mother’s shocked looking face. “Unpredictable.”
Leaning against the doorframe of our bedroom, I watched in amusement as
Lee made our bed with her usual pristine perfection. Every pillow had to be fluffed out, no crease could be left on the duvet and no sheets lasted longer than twenty-four hours on any bed in this house. She looked damn cute and tiny as she stalked our California King, her eyes narrowed in scrutiny as she examined her immaculate work. It didn’t make sense to me as to why women were so implicit about bed-making . . . Then again, maybe it wasn’t all women, just this particular one. Cam had never ironed her bed sheets, not once in the almost four years I’d lived with her.
Clearing my throat so I didn’t frighten her, I tapped the door lightly before stepping inside. “Hey Princess.”
She still jumped like a flailing bird, but composed herself quickly. “Hey Kyle.”
I hadn’t had a chance to speak to Lee about her mother—or about the trial date. As soon as I’d turned my back Lee had retreated upstairs and I’d hung back to make sure Derek behaved himself. He was by no means a fan of Lee’s mother and liked to voice that every chance he got. I could only pray that Hope’s presence made him tone it down. I’d left the three of them in the kitchen and the last I’d seen, Hope was munching away happily in her highchair and Tracy was dutifully ignoring Derek’s glacial stare . . .”Big shock with your mom, huh?” Big shock? God, I was so fucking stupid. “Some hell of a twenty-four hours we’ve had . . .” Much better, asshole . . .
“You were right about her,” Lee said, her wide gray eyes locked on mine. Beating a pillow between her small hands, Lee blew a curl out of her eyes and worried her bottom lip. “She’s so lonely and frightened, Kyle. I feel bad for her. Life’s been so hard on her.”
“It hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses for you either, baby,” I said carefully. Lee had made huge progress and I sure as hell wasn’t going to knock her back by saying I told you so about her mom. “But yeah, it couldn’t have been easy to make the decisions your mom had to make,” I added, hoping I was being tactful.