by Avery Flynn
Her gut declared that her daddy was hiding something. Not totally out of the realm of possibility. William was always one step ahead of Savannah, quietly making sure to protect her from any harm the world might seek to show her.
Savannah knew better than to ask, though. If she were to find out, it would have to be through a bit of sleuthing. Nothing she wasn't fully capable of, and patient enough to wait out.
She let her daddy play the role of a proper host, asking about her week and telling her about his. He dropped the names of a couple young lawyers showing a potential son-in-law quality he admired. Meaning they were not only good looking young men but showed promise as an upstanding member of the community.
His subtle nudges didn’t phase her in the least; these were all par for the course. One she had no intention of following. She smiled politely when the moment called for it, laughed on all the right cues, and asked all the appropriate questions to keep the conversation going.
Meanwhile, she found her mind wondering to Cooper’s hazel eyes glittering like the clearest water under a cloudless sky. The feel of his hand wrapped formally around hers in a way that didn’t want to let go. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted him to let go.
Three years had given his touch a newness she hadn’t expected. It had both terrified and awoken her from a cold dream. She’d never stopped loving him, and that fact would be her undoing. As strong as she believed she was, given the time, she’d lose the battle to resist him. She couldn’t go through that heartbreak again. She had to do whatever it took to stay away from him.
After thirty minutes, she received a reprieve from her private thoughts with the call to dinner. William’s mood had swung back to the one she’d greeted him with. He was gently buoyed by their conversation and appropriately flushed by his two martinis. Whatever it was that Cooper’s mention had done to rock his sturdy psyche had long vanished.
Savannah just wanted to enjoy a meal with her daddy, then go home and hopefully find some spark of inspiration that would push her to finish writing the lyrics that had been eluding her for more than two weeks.
Those goals flew right out of her head the second her gaze fell on the third place setting at the table. “Momma’s joining us?” she asked, trying to control the disappointment in her tone.
William set a hand on her shoulder and smiled indulgently down his nose at her. “She’s good today. I promise. In fact, it was her idea to invite you for dinner.”
That was a lie, and they both knew it, but Savannah refused to break the code they'd silently laid the groundwork for over the years. Helena couldn't think past her next drink or pain pill, let alone consider inviting her daughter to dinner.
The grandfather clock in the sitting room began it’s gentle tinny gongs, sounding the supper hour, and Savannah’s shoulders stiffened. Her stomach sank into dark depths. William pulled out her chair, and while she sat, she kept her attention on the dining room entrance with dread slowing her blood. Her mother was bound to enter any second. Drunk or not, she’d be on time for dinner, even if she had to do it on Kirk’s bent arm.
Of course, there was a small chance that Savannah was overreacting. Helena wasn't always bad. Sometimes she even believed her mother loved her. She had to, didn't she? Wasn't that the law of nature? A parent loved their children, and Savannah had been the child Helena couldn't have. The miracle baby. Unexpected, but wanted more than anything. At least, that's what her daddy used to tell her.
Helena entered just as William had Savannah pushed up to the table. She did indeed lean on Kirk for support, blond hair in an up-do that had probably looked perfect that morning. Thick strands hung slack on the back of her neck, and around her face. Eyeliner smudged the undersides of her blue eyes.
Savannah's mother seemed to have aged another ten years, or was the shocking arrangement of wrinkles something she conveniently forgot after every visit? Years of pills for every ailment known to man on top of her regular gin intake was swinging Helena Scott swiftly into old age long before it was time.
William took his wife, kissed her cheek with a thin smile, and led her to the seat at the head of the table on Savannah's left. For a moment she believed she saw a couple who loved each other deeply. And the part of her that she usually shielded in the dark recesses of her heart loved them just as immensely. They were her parents, which meant that no matter their faults, she'd hold onto hope that their jagged pieces would finally fall into place.
Helena slid her eyes over to her daughter as she arranged the cream cloth napkin in her lap. Her arms worked in stiff automation-like gestures, rail thin and spidery-veined. Pale as if her skin hadn't seen the sun in months. A total contrast to Savannah's sun-kissed coloring.
“You look beautiful, Momma,” Savannah said, her gaze lowering from Helena’s hard stare to the sleeveless pink blouse her mother wore. “How are you?”
Helena put on a practiced smile that didn't meet her eyes and threw her attention across the table to where William was in the process of sitting. "Living the American dream. Your father is very good to me, as usual."
The corners of William’s mouth dipped slightly below level just as Savannah’s heart dropped hard toward her stomach.
Silence gathered stormily around the small family as salads were placed, bright with ripe strawberries and almonds. The sweet tang of vinaigrette swathed Savannah in a contradictory sense to the one keeping her on edge: the silent tick tick tick of Helena Scott.
William swallowed his first bite and smiled at Savannah. “Our daughter’s bi-yearly review is approaching. They’re considering her for a promotion to analyst. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Helena reached for her fresh gin on the rocks and didn't look up. "It's a wonder they bother with the formality of a review at all. All she has to do is bat her lashes, and she gets anything she wants."
“That isn’t true, Momma,” she said, instantly regretting the reactionary response. It would only make matters worse.
“Savannah works very hard,” William said, infuriatingly calm. “She always has.”
Helena snorted into her glass, coating the inside in a humid fog. “Of course she has.”
Savannah sensed already where this was headed. Subtle insults from her mother through salads, her daddy answering to some protective call through the main course, and she biting her tongue over an untouched dessert. These things only gave Helena cause to stir the argument further down the dry and deep well of darkness.
"Things came easily to me once," Helena said, pushing her untouched salad forward. "I got everything I wanted. The perfect husband, the beautiful home"—she flung an arm up in a stumbling arc that ended in a flop in her lap—"the status envied by every woman in town. They wanted to be me.”
Helena slung her gaze toward Savannah. “You don’t even have to try, do you? Picture perfect beautiful. Picture perfect daughter. Picture perfect little belle of society, aren’t you? All the men want you, and all the women want to be you.”
Savannah had heard these things a million times. Felt the pedestal her daddy put her on. Felt the shots lobbed skyward by her mother. And all she wanted was to scoot off the edge, fall the incredible distance, and hobble brokenly away from it all. She hated her job and couldn’t care less about the review. More work for a little more money. Just another thing to sidetrack her from writing music and, one day, getting an agent.
But she couldn’t tell her parents this. If there was one thing she hated more than anything, it was unnecessarily disappointing her daddy. Second only to giving her mother ammunition to use against her family, which this would be.
Later when Savannah’s dreams became a reality? That was a different story. That was a success her daddy couldn’t deny, and she would be too happy to care what her mother had to say. That was the hope, anyway.
William’s dangerously composed voice caught Savannah’s attention. “Not tonight, Helena. I’m warning you.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You’ve
had too much to drink,” he said, tone growing harsh. “Look at Savannah. Only a few minutes with you and she already looks—”
“Daddy, don’t.” She was horrified at the turn this was already taking. Why couldn’t they just get through dinner?
Helena gave a cackling laugh. “Am I ruining the perfect image you had for a perfect evening with your perfect daughter?”
Every "perfect" struck like a bullet but were at least shared between herself and William. The "your" was more intentional and felt by Savannah alone. Why couldn't her mother simply love her and be proud of her?
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting a nice family dinner,” William nearly shouted. His control was slipping.
Straight-faced, Helena reached for her salad plate and tugged it toward her. Once her eyebrows began to rise in a dare, Savannah braced herself. Helena held the plate over the floor for a full five seconds, holding Williams gaze, before letting it drop. The explosive shattering made Savannah jump.
William slammed a fist on the table, and forks rattled on china. Ice clinked in glasses. “Enough!”
More than enough.
Savannah set her napkin on the table and stood, blinking furiously at her burning eyes. “I’m so sorry, Daddy, but I seem to have forgotten another engagement. Good night.”
She barely heard his words releasing her from her place at his table. Barely heard her mother’s drunken chortle and jab at Savannah’s show of weakness. The proof that she didn’t have the backbone to earn the things she wanted in life. Not like Helena had.
Well, if deciding not to sit for more than five minutes putting up with her mother’s behavior was weak, then so be it.
By the time Savannah dropped into her car, the tears burst free of their dam despite all internal arguments against it. The outside world, pink and purple with sunset, blurred like a watercolor. Somehow she got the car started and onto the road. Taking turns and stops on automatic, while her mind spun with yet another cruel experience with her mother. She wished she could hate her. Maybe if she did, she wouldn't be hurt so easily.
Maybe Helena was right; Savannah just wasn’t cut out for the world as it is. She was stupid to think she’d go anywhere with her music, and that anyone of any worth would see it’s potential. She should marry one of those lawyers with potential, make her daddy happy, and do the one thing she knew she could do well: wife, socialite, and one day, mother.
Savannah sobbed into her hand, and her tears thickened to the point of near blindness. She took the next corner with barely a glance for oncoming traffic and even less for what was in front of her. The bright red color moving into the street in her path shocked her out of her stupor, and one hard blink washed the tears away just long enough to reveal the young blond girl on her bike. The child she was about to kill with her car.
She slammed both feet on the brake and barely heard the squeal of tires over her prayers.
3
It felt weird to knock on his own front door, but that’s exactly what Cooper did. The ice, the game, the weight of his hockey gear and the solidity of his stick… Those things gave him confidence and made him calm. Nothing about the game he loved shocked him. He could depend on it, in fact.
Joshua Banks? Total mystery. A mystery bound in a mystery hidden under lock and key, wrapped in chains.
The door swung wide to a foyer empty of furnishings. The air carried the scent of sawdust and plaster and varnish onto the expansive porch. Cooper could see all the way past the foyer, down a hall, and through a second door open to the bright green back yard.
Josh folded his arms and planted his feet far apart. He looked like total shit. Not the thrown all good sense away and become a fat lazy slob kind of shit. Rugged and work torn kind of shit. Beat up jeans covered in careless white splashes. T-shirt worn thin and dust smeared. Beard on it’s third or fourth day. Dark hair standing on so many ends it probably didn’t know which way was up. He looked like he earned those muscles straining the shoulders and arms of his shirt and then some.
“Guess you found yourself a ride,” Josh said.
“Guess so.”
Josh reached for the door and prepared to swing it shut again. “Guess that means you can find a ride to the hotel too.”
Cooper leaped forward and stuck a foot up against the door like a stopper. "If that's what you want, you'll have to drive me yourself."
His brother weighed the ultimatum with narrowed eyes, then finally sighed and released the door. “Hell if I’m going out of my way for you.” He stood aside to allow Cooper inside. “Besides, I’m too busy to mess with you right now.”
Cooper dropped his bags and glanced around, searching for any sign that his childhood remained in these rooms. Drop cloths covered all the furniture, which were originally purchased by his grandfather. Other than that, the walls had been stripped of all color. Pictures and mirrors were gone. The molding was new, as was the banister winding up the staircase outfitted in polished hardwood. He stood on a white, dusty subfloor speckled in paint.
“Is my bedroom still intact,” Cooper asked, “or should I expect to sleep on a spare carpet square?”
Josh rolled his eyes, turned his back, and strolled away. His response carried down the hall behind him. "I haven't started on the bedrooms yet. If you want to keep any of your old stuff, I suggest you deal with it while you're here. Otherwise, it's going to the dump."
Cooper followed Josh into a fully remodeled and working kitchen. He pulled to a surprised halt and gaped at the modern style and stainless steel. A brand new island with four stools sat in the middle under a hanging pot rack. The counters and sink were clean of clutter. There was even a little row of potted flowers growing on a window sill behind the double sinks.
Josh sat in front of a partially eaten PB&J on a paper towel, a glass of milk, and a yellow family size bag of potato chips. “Don’t expect me to serve you. If you’re hungry, fend for yourself. I expect you to replace whatever you eat, too. I’m on a tight budget.”
“What the actual hell is going on around here, Josh? You’re tearing apart Dad’s house? Our house. I didn’t get so much as a consult.”
"Yeah, you did."
Coop laughed. “No, I think I’d remember that.”
“I asked you to sell me your half, didn’t I?”
He eyed him from under the bridge of his eyebrows. “That’s not the same thing, and you know it, bro.”
Josh wiped his fingertips with a paper napkin. “I have plans, and I can’t just put them on hold while you screw around on a block of ice.” He stood and opened a drawer under the counter by a double door refrigerator. “We both know you’re going to sell…” He pulled out a check with Cooper’s name on the Pay To line. “Just needs a date on it.”
The fact that there was already a check written and waiting was as much an insult as Josh's certainty that Cooper selling was a done deal. Not that Cooper had any plans of fighting over the property. He was a reasonable guy, and as much as he loved the home he grew up in, he also knew he wasn't suited for this lifestyle.
He was much more likely to find a small home with a couple of bedrooms, but only when he decided to retire. Preferably with Savannah to come home to. Maybe he'd open a rink and coach young kids. Host local games. Maybe have free skate nights. He couldn't play professional hockey his entire life, and that sounded like as good a plan as any. For now, anyway. Josh could keep the house and his money, but only if he kept his damn insults too.
“Well,” Cooper started, hooking hands to his hips, “it’s good to know you’ve been practicing your dickhead skills while I was gone. I’d hate to see those get rusty. You’re such a natural.”
Josh threw his hands up and started out of the kitchen. “I don’t have to put up with this.”
“Put up with what?” He spun around the corner after his brother. “A response to your typical big brother bullying tactics? I’m not a kid, Josh. You can’t just force me into a corner and pound the shit out of my face anymore.”
“This isn’t me bullying you.” Josh snatched Cooper’s bags off the ground and swung the door open. “This is just how it’s going to be.”
Cooper flew down the porch steps on Josh’s heels, head spinning with anger and desperation. A part of him wanted this fight. It was past due and then some. But damn it, he came here to make amends. He wanted his brother back. So the other part of him searched for a way to cool things down. Get Josh to sit and have an adult conversation.
“Put my bags down,” Cooper said. “It doesn’t have to be like this, bro. We can talk this out.”
“You’re wrong,” Josh threw over his shoulder. He headed past the truck and down the driveway, confusing Cooper who squinted into the setting sunlight through the cypress trees. “It does need to be like this. There won’t be any more talking. No more what Cooper wants Cooper gets. Someone has to think about me and what I want for once, and it sure as hell hasn’t been you.”
Cooper watched Josh throw his first bag into the street, and he broke into a run. “What’s the matter with you? C’mon. What would Dad say if he could see this?”
He never made it to the street to save his bag. Josh dropped the second one where he stood, spun on Cooper, and swung a right hook at his jaw that made his teeth clack together, and stars appear in his eyes. He stumbled and fell to the not-as-soft-as-it-looked lawn, pain zinging up his tailbone.
Josh bent over Cooper, hazel eyes bright with fury, aiming a stabbing finger in his face. “Don’t you dare use the dad card. You of all people. You were a complete and utter failure as his son.”
Cooper saw red. He lunged forward and tackled his brother. The two of them returned to the ground and rolled off the lawn into the driveway. The concrete scraped exposed elbows and knees, but that didn't stop them. Punches were thrown awkwardly on both sides, landing sloppily. Elbows hit with better power and aim. Somehow they got to their feet near the street, and Cooper got his first good uppercut in. Josh stumbled into the street, regained his balance, and came after Cooper like a wild animal, face flushed.