“I’ve still got four hours left on the old timeclock.”
“I’ve got it covered,” Bob said, and reached for the pitcher of tea I was holding. “You need some fun. Now go have it.”
Wes pulled his Mercedes onto a grassy hill by the cemetery Charles and Ruth Anne Williams were buried at. I had visited the place once a year since I had been discharged from the foster system and found out Pawpaw had died too.
“This is where Mimi and Pawpaw are buried.”
“I come here about twice a year. I don’t know why; I just feel like I own them. They loved you like you were their own. It’s always bothered me they didn’t have a proper tombstone. I bought them one and had it delivered yesterday. I thought you might want to help me check it out.”
It was hard to envision Wes being the kind of man who gave his only daughter away to strangers, and at times, I had to force myself to remember that detail. Especially when he told me he loved me or even when he honored the people who raised me. It was at those times that my heart surged with a newfound love for him.
I glanced out over the massive graveyard and in the direction of Pawpaw and Mimi’s grave, then saw the image of a black marble tombstone.
Charles and Ruth Anne were of modest means and their closest family members were a few cousins who lived in Little Rock, Arkansas. There was no money or family to purchase them a proper grave-marker. They deserved more than a small metal stand marking their grave, but it was the world they lived in; the world they raised me in.
I scurried out of the car and walked over to their grave site with Wes following close behind me.
Charles Douglas Williams
June 5, 1948 – May 16, 2010
Ruth Anne Williams
December 12, 1950 – May 4, 2010
Together Forever
Pawpaw and Mimi to Annie
Wes held his head down and read over the tombstone. When he finally looked up, our eyes met. His eyes spoke louder than any words. My breath got caught in my throat and I gulped back oxygen to relieve the ache in my chest before falling to the ground and tucking my legs under me.
“Thank you, Dad,” I said, uttering the word Dad for the first time, but the moment called for it. Wes had been visiting their grave for six years and never saw the need to purchase a tombstone before. Wes Carter was trying to make me happy. He did it for me.
“Care to guess what the worst day in my life was?” Wes asked.
I glanced over at Wes, not quite sure where that question came from, and by the look in his eyes, came face to face with a wound, I wasn’t even sure Wes knew was still there.
“The day of the wreck,” I said, sure I had it right.
Wes knelt beside me and placed his hand on my knee.
“That was horrible, but the worst day was the day I knew I was going to have to tell you good-bye. The first two years of your life, I spent most holidays with you, and every Sunday, I took you with me to see Evie,” he said and wiped back a tear. “Then I had my day of reckoning. I was at a small steak house with some lawyers from my dad’s law firm. We were waiting to be seated when the Williams’ and you walked in. You were twenty-three months old, and knew exactly who your daddy was. Your little eyes lit up and you squirmed out of Charles’s arms. Before Charles could catch you, you were standing in front of me with your little arms held up, saying, ‘Daddy’.” Wes looked away, I assumed to regain his composure before continuing. “I reached over to touch one of your curls and smiled, but all I wanted to do was cry as I denied knowing you. I remember those painful words every day, ‘I’m not your daddy, sweetheart, but whoever he is, he is one lucky man because you are such a pretty little girl’.” You looked confused and kept saying, ‘Daddy’.” Charles came over and picked you up. He apologized for bothering us, but you knew you were right, and that look you gave me was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure. I barely made it through that meal. The men I was with, laughed and joked about me being too ugly to have a daughter as pretty as you. I wanted to scream to everyone in that restaurant that you were my little girl, that you were my heart. As I was leaving, I glanced over to the little highchair you were in and you were waving bye to me. You had this big crocodile tear running down your cheek. I cried all that night, and realized I couldn’t keep visiting you every week. I had to give you up. What other choice did I have? Take you with me every Sunday and then tell you how much I love you, but oh, yeah, if you see me anywhere out in public act like you don’t know me?” Wes wiped away a tear I hadn’t even realized was falling down my face. “Jenn couldn’t love Lucas enough, because she was afraid of losing him, and I loved you so much, I almost couldn’t let you go. I’m sorry, Princess. Lucas and you both deserved much more than you got.” Wes looked back at the headstone. “Evie and Miles both would be ashamed of the way we handle things.”
“Mom would be happy you tried keeping me safe.”
Even if you didn’t always keep me safe.
My grip tightened on the shirt I was wearing, taming my nerves. I wanted to run. I also wanted to lean over closer to my daddy. “We can’t change the past, only work on making the future better. Can I ask you for one favor, though?”
“Anything.”
Since the whole truth came out, there was one thing that bothered me.
“Will you remove the tombstone where my mom was supposed to be buried? Your dad is no longer living, and I hate it. She’s not dead; she is very much alive.”
“I didn’t put that gravestone up to fool my father, but to have some concrete proof of the life I was meant to have. It was a reminder that for a few fleeting moments I had it all.”
I pulled down my orange ball cap as a jet-black Honda Gold Wing pulled up alongside my bike. The biggest highlight I’d had in the last two weeks was meeting Miles’s twin brother, Mike. If I had to describe him, I would say imagine me with crow’s feet and you have Mike Blankenship.
Mike killed his engine and leaned up, resting his elbows on the handlebars. “Remember, I’m the king in this joint, but I’ll throw you a few of my leftovers.”
I laughed, and it felt forced. “I’m good. Just here for a buzz.”
“Still holding out for the cute little brunette you’ve been going on and on about?”
“She’s special.”
“They’re only special when they are in your bed for the night,” Mike said.
I took a long, drawn-out breath. At times, I wondered if Mike wasn’t a glimpse into my future without Annie. Mike made it seem like a great life — a great and empty life.
I swung my leg over the seat, and adjusted my package. Mike unfolded the cane he had hidden in the saddlebag on his bike.
Oh, yeah, did I mention the fact Mike had MS too.
When I got my diagnosis, the doctor said it was inherited a majority of the time. I thought I was one of the few who didn’t have it in my family. Boy, was I wrong. My uncle, great-granddaddy, and a great-aunt all had it too.
Mike rattled on about some blonde and redhead he did the last time he was there. He didn’t stop talking until we took our stools at the bar of some dive in Downtown Austin. It was seedier than my usual hangouts, but the main bartender had grown up with Mike and Miles, and loved sharing stories with me from when they were little.
“Buenos días, muchachos,” a lady who was obviously Mexican and appeared to have been rode hard and hung up wet said.
“Hola,” I said with a small salute.
She wiped down the counter before setting a beer in front of both of us. “My niece is working in the back if either one of you fine-looking gentleman need any company tonight.”
I twisted on the bar stool and tossed back a gulp of beer. The last thing I wanted was some harlot, especially with mahogany hair, keeping me company.
The new view didn’t help. Thanks to the growing Hispanic population in Austin, half the customers on the dance floor had the same shade of brown hair I’d dreamed about every night the last two weeks.
Damn, I miss Annie Prieto.
“Mike.” The owner, Bill, held out his hand to shake Mike’s. “Victoria, table two needs some assistance.” Bill shook his head as Victoria walked over to a table of rowdy men. “Dependable, but a little too slutty.”
“Have you heard about her niece?” Mike asked, and immediately threw back his beer bottle.
Didn’t know how or when, but Mike arranged for the beer and whiskey to flow all night. The second I had one finished another one magically appeared in its place until my body was numb.
I started to stand, needing to piss, and couldn’t feel my lower body. It was as if my upper body no longer had a connection to my bottom half.
“Mike,” I said as I fell face first onto the concrete floor.
I woke up in a hospital bed with a killer headache and stitches under my left eye. Carl was snoring in the chair by the window, and Angela was sitting on the foot of the bed.
She took a deep breath and said, “I’ve never been more excited about seeing a pair of blue eyes before.”
I scraped my hand across the stitches on my upper left cheek. “What the hell happened?"
“You’re having a MS flair and the booze didn’t help it any.”
“I guess you’re going to say I’m like my dad again.”
“No, this is all your uncle Mike. The doctor has already started the steroid drip, and said you need to be on it for three days. Just think of it as a mini vacay at Hilton General.” Angela patted my leg. “I want to show you something before Carl wakes from the dead.”
She glanced lovingly over to Carl before standing up to grab a small laptop off of a rolling bedside table.
“Your mother overnighted those tapes of your childhood, and there was one I thought you might want to see,” she said and flipped open the laptop and pressed the spacebar.
The screen flashed with a video of my mother holding me near a Christmas tree; it was my first Christmas; I was somewhere around ten months old. I was clapping my hands and smiling at something or someone. The camera spanned to the left and Wes said somewhere in the background, “Annie, who do you love the most?”
A little girl around a year and a half lit up with the brightest smile. It was Annie. Her head was covered in thick, dark curls and her emerald-green eyes danced in pure joy. “My wub Ucas,” she said and skipped over to where I was sitting to kiss me on top of my head.
“Boy, you’re already stealing the girls’ hearts just like your daddy,” Wes said, still somewhere in the background, I assumed behind the camera. “But Annie is off-limits. She’s not allowed to date ever.”
Then I heard a sound I had only heard a handful of times in my life, my mother genuinely laughing. Even as a baby in the video, I paused to look up at the unfamiliar sound. The camera with janky and wobbled from side to side before landing on a solid surface and evened out. Wes fell down into the camera frame and swooped Annie up in his lap.
“Jenn, I haven’t heard you laugh since the accident.”
“I was thinking about Miles, and how he would be making some snarky remark about his boy already capturing the girls’ attention.” My mom bent down to kiss me only to have Annie push against the top of her head.
“My Ucas,” Annie said with a lisp.
My mom laughed some more, before saying, “Miles would get a kick out of them being so crazy about each other.”
Wes’s eyes glossed over. “I only wish we could keep her. God, I hate not having her here in our lives.”
Jenn reached over and touched Wes’s knee. “Miles will bring her back to us. Something tells me that Miles would have wanted nothing more than to have these two together.”
With a flick of her wrist, Angela closed the computer and the image of Annie and me as babies disappeared. “This is the Annie who you’ve been telling me about?”
I nodded, still too stunned to speak.
“Miles loved your mother. He always believed in true love, and when you find it, you don’t throw it away for any reason. If Miles would’ve known what the future would bring, he still wouldn’t have changed a moment with Jennifer. I wish you could’ve known him, but in a way, you do, because you’re just like him. He used to run too, when he got upset. Be careful when you run, because sometimes you can’t go back.” Angela twisted her hand around to expose a small ring box. “The morning your dad died in that wreck, he called and asked if I would ship him this ring. He was going to ask Jenn to marry him. It was my mother’s. Your great-grandmother’s. He would want you to have it. I’m not saying you found the one, but if you have, don’t lose it because you inherited the Blankenship’s tendency to be hard-headed.” She placed the box in my hand. “Thank you for coming into our lives. You have no idea how happy having you here makes me.”
I heard footsteps and turned to see a nurse come in the room. Angela hopped off the end of the bed and placed the laptop into a small computer bag.
“Someone finally woke up, I see. I need to get your vitals,” the nurse said in a singsong voice.
Pain sliced through my head. I moaned and pinched my forehead with my middle finger and thumb.
“I’ll get you a pain pill for that headache too. Whiskey and MS flairs normally don’t make good bedfellows,” the nurse said in a sarcastic voice.
“No shit, Sherlock,” I wanted to argue with her but I had another more pressing goal on my mind ... Annie.
I felt the blood pressure cuff get tight on my arm. The nurse worked over me, checking each pressure point on my body. I peered off in the corner and saw that Carl had woken up and was mimicking the nurse. If the pain wasn’t so severe, I would’ve laughed.
“I’ll be right back with that pain pill,” the nurse said as she left the room.
I examined the box in my hand. There was only one thing that made sense — I needed Annie.
“Ang, can I borrow your cell?”
“Sure.” Angela bent over and started fumbling in her purse. Carl smacked her butt before rubbing a hand down her thigh.
Damn, I love my new family.
But there was someone missing. Someone I didn’t want to live without.
Angela handed me her phone and I realized I didn’t know Annie’s number. I had programmed it in my old cell phone, but never memorized it. I slammed my head against the pillow. I wouldn’t lie in that bed for another day without telling her how I felt.
I scrolled through the contact list until I came upon the name of the one person I wasn’t ready to talk too. I pushed the name and the phone started ringing. I held it to my ear and heard her say, “Hello.”
“Mom, is Wes around?”
“Lucas, baby, how are you? Ang said you were in the hospital. I miss you, baby.”
Mom sounded panicked, but I didn’t care. I’d find a way to forgive her, and would have her be a part of my life again, but at that moment, I wanted to spend any energy I had on getting Annie back.
“Mom, give Wes the phone, now,” I demanded.
She didn’t say anything, but I heard noise in the background. “Lucas, we miss you,” Wes said into the phone.
“I need Annie’s number.”
“I’ll get it for you.” I heard some more background noise than Wes breathing into the phone. “Got a pen?”
I motioned for a pen and paper on the bedside table. Carl handed it to me. “Shoot.”
“501-7661. Lucas, she misses you, we all do.”
My heart leaped in my chest and the pesky warmth in my chest blazed back to life. I said a simple prayer, and sent a text.
Me: I need you, Love Lucas
I waited and waited for a returned text. The nurse pushed some pain medicine into my IV and I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of a little girl with brown curls, saying, “My wubs Ucas.”
Chapter 38
Annie Prieto
My body forgot what it felt like to be fully rested, and the joy of simply sleeping in. It had been the only day I’d had off in days, and the fog over my life had finally started to lift.
I pushed back the co
vers, aching for a shower. It was early July, and the heat and humidity had my pajamas sticking to my skin.
I had taken my time, letting the water bead down my skin while trying to not think about all life had laid at my feet the last few weeks.
I walked through the house, towel still clung around my body and a turban holding up my wet hair. I reached in a kitchen cabinet for a coffee mug when on the counter, I spotted the cellphone flashing. I picked it up to see four missed messages.
Two were from Wes.
Wes: Lucas has passed out. The ambulance is taking him to the hospital. I will let you know when I hear something. Love you.
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