Daisy's Back in Town

by Rachel Gibson

  “Is he yours?”

  Jack nodded.

  “That’s goddamn evil,” Billy said. “She’s a damn evil bitch.”

  For years he’d felt betrayal because his best buddy had married his girlfriend. He hadn’t even known the half of it. It had never even occurred to him that when they’d left, they’d taken his child. It had not occurred to him that their betrayal ran so deep.

  “What are you going to do?”

  He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it from the waistband of his pants. “Talk to Daisy.”

  “Well, don’t start yelling at her first thing.”

  “I thought you just said she was an evil bitch.”

  “She is. I’m not even going to ask you if you want to be a part of Nathan’s life, because I know you. I know how you are. I know that you’re hurt and angry, and you have every damn right to feel that way. But she’s his mama and she could just pack him up and take him away.”

  For years he’d pushed it back and locked it away. He’d walled up all the pain and anger. Since Daisy had been back, it had seeped out a little. But nothing like this morning. This morning the walls he’d built were blown all to hell.

  “Jack, promise you won’t go medieval?”

  He wasn’t promising a damn thing.

  Chapter 12

  Daisy laid Pippen on her mother’s bed and partially closed the door behind her. His little world was chaotic and he’d been so tired and cranky for the past few days. Daisy had taken him to the hospital to see Lily this morning, and he hadn’t wanted to leave. He was scared and upset and had cried all the way home, finally falling asleep as they pulled into the driveway. Her mother was still at the hospital with Lily, waiting for news from the doctors as to when Lily might come home.

  Daisy changed into her dark green tank top and khaki shorts. She swept her hair up off the back of her neck and secured it with a big black claw. She was exhausted and in serious need of caffeine. She might have curled up beside Pippen, but Nathan wasn’t home and she didn’t want to be asleep when he returned.

  She moved down the stairs to the kitchen and grabbed a Coke out of the refrigerator. Nathan had stuck a note to the refrigerator door with a little magnet in the shape of Texas. He wrote that he was out riding his skateboard. The note didn’t say when he’d be back, though. She had wanted to remind him that he needed to estimate when he’d be back, so she wouldn’t worry so much.

  This was Lovett, she reminded herself. There really wasn’t that much to worry about. There weren’t that many places he could get into trouble, but if there was one thing she’d learned from having a boy, it was that if there wasn’t trouble, they’d invent it. If there was a puddle, they’d jump in the middle of it. A rock, they’d throw it. A Coke can, they’d smash it. A bird, they’d pretend to shoot it. A handrail on a set of five or more cement steps, they’d ride it on a skateboard, fall and need stitches.

  The doorbell rang as Daisy popped the top to her Coke. She took a long drink as she moved through the living room. A bowl of glass fruit sat on a wooden end table and she placed the can next to it. She opened the door and half expected to see Nathan playing a silly joke by making her answer the door. He was like that sometimes. Wanting to be treated as an adult, yet at times acting like her little boy. But it wasn’t her son.

  Jack stood on her mother’s porch, sunlight overhead. The shadow of his straw cowboy hat concealed the top half of his face. A little flutter tickled her chest and before she could think better of it, the corners of her lips turned up. “Hey there.”

  “Are you alone?” he asked, and her smile fell at the flat tone in his voice and grim line of his mouth.

  He knows, was her first thought, but just as quickly she dismissed the thought. He couldn’t know. “Pippen’s here but he’s asleep.”

  “Where is Nathan?”

  Oh, God. The fluttering in her chest picked up a notch or two. “He’s riding his skateboard.”

  He didn’t wait for her to invite him in. “No. He’s not,” he said as he walked into the house, bringing with him the scent of a warm Texas morning on his skin. He handed her Nathan’s board as he passed.

  She took it from him and held it against her breasts. A ribbed T-shirt hugged the muscles of Jack’s arms and chest and made him appear bigger and badder than usual. “Where is he?”

  He turned and looked at her for several nerve-racking moments before he said, “I don’t know.”

  “How did you get this?”

  “He came to see me this morning.”

  “He did?” Nathan’s going to the garage wasn’t a coincidence. It was a surprise, but not a real shock. Nathan was the kind of kid who jumped into things first and thought later. A lot like Jack had been.

  “He left the board on his way out.”

  She didn’t think that he’d said anything to Jack about being his biological child. Of course, it hadn’t occurred to her that he’d ever show up at the garage on his own either. “What did he say?”

  “He talked about Steven and about ‘Monster Garage’.”

  Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he was being a hard-ass for a totally different reason. This was Jack, after all. The king of hard-asses. “That’s it?”

  “I think he really came by to get a good look at me.” He pushed up the brim of his straw hat and she got a good look at him. If the glittering rage in his green eyes hadn’t removed all doubt about what he knew or suspected, the next words out of his mouth did. “I read Steven’s letter.”

  Now she was shocked. “How did you get Steven’s letter?”

  “You left it Saturday.”

  Had she? She didn’t remember. A lot had happened Saturday. “You just read it today?”

  “I didn’t want to read it at all.” His voice was deadly calm when he said, “Tell me, Daisy. I want to hear you say it. After all these years.”

  His veneer of calm did not fool her for a second. His anger rolled off him like heat waves rolling across asphalt. Her speeding heart fell right to the pit of her stomach. She’d waited fifteen years for this moment. Knew it had to happen at some point, and there was no other way to say it but, “He’s your son, Jack.”

  His expression didn’t change. “Does he know?”

  “Yes. He’s known most of his life.”

  “So, I’m the only one who wasn’t told.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea,” he said in that same awful calm tone, “what I’d like to do to you?”

  Yes, she had a pretty good idea. She didn’t think Jack would hurt her, but she took a step back. “I was going to tell you.”

  “Is that so?” One brow lifted up his forehead. “When?”

  “The first night I saw you. I came to your house to tell you, but Gina was there. I told you I needed to speak with you about something important. I told you that night and the night of Shay’s wedding, and at the pizza place, and at Slims.” Her face felt hot, and she took another step back and tossed the skateboard on her mother’s blue floral couch. “I came to the garage to tell you Saturday, but then . . . Lily ran her car into Ronnie’s living room. Which is why I guess I forgot all about leaving Steven’s letter.” She pulled the claw from the back of her hair and took a deep breath. He had a right to his anger. She should have told him years ago. She was a coward. “That’s why I’m in town. I’m here to tell you that you have a son.”

  His gaze locked with her. “He’s fifteen.”

  She swept her hair back up, twisted it, and secured it once more. “Yes, he is.”

  “You’re telling me fifteen years too goddamn late. You should have told me when you missed your first period.” He thought a moment then added, “Unless you didn’t know whose it was back then.”

  “I knew.” Now he was just being mean. “You were the first person I was ever with. How could you think such a horrible thing?”

  “Maybe because up until a few days before you married my best friend, you were having sex with me. How do I know that you w
eren’t doing us both at the same time?”

  “You know I wasn’t. You’re just being ugly now.”

  “You don’t know ugly,” he said and his temper finally rose to the surface. He took a step toward her and stared down into her face. His eyes narrowed and the line of his jaw hardened. “You did the lowest thing a woman can do to a man. You had my child and kept him from me. I should have been there when he was born. I should have been there to see him. To see him take his first steps and ride his first bike. I should have been there to hear his first words, but I wasn’t. Steven was, though. Steven got to hear him say Daddy, not me.” He was dead serious when he added, “It’s a good thing you’re not a man, because I’d beat the hell out of you. I’d enjoy it, too.”

  One of the hardest things she’d ever done was stand there toe-to-toe with Jack and not take another step back or look away from his angry eyes. “You have to understand that we never meant to hurt you. We both loved you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “If that’s what you do to people you love, I can’t imagine what you have in store for people you hate.”

  Her head began to pound and she put a hand to her brow, but she didn’t remove her gaze from his. “You have to remember what it was like between you and me back then. We were fighting and making up all the time. That first month, I was so scared, and I told myself I was just late. Then the second month I told myself not to think about it, but by the third month, I had to face it.” She dropped her hand. “Your parents had just died and you were going through such a bad time. The night I came to tell you I was pregnant, you said you needed a break from me. I didn’t think you loved me anymore. I didn’t know what to do.” The backs of her eyes stung but she refused to give in to tears. “I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it but Steven. I went to him and he asked me to marry him. He said he’d take care of me and my baby.”

  “You keep forgetting that the baby was mine. That I should have been told about it before the two of you ran off to Seattle.”

  “We talked about telling you, but we thought that if you knew, you’d want to marry me out of obligation, but Jack, you were in no position to take care of me and a baby. You were only eighteen and already dealing with so much. It seemed like the only solution.”

  “No, it was the easy way out for you. Steven had money and I had nothing.”

  “That’s not why I married him. You know that I always loved Steven. If you weren’t so angry, you’d remember that you loved him too.” She placed her hands on his bare arms. Jack might never forgive her, but she had to make him understand. “I married him because I was scared. You didn’t love me anymore, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  “How did it feel, Daisy?” His voice lowered, got rough and smooth at the same time. “How did it feel to get back at me for not loving you? Did taking my child make you feel good? Did it satisfy your revenge?”

  “It wasn’t about revenge.”

  He grabbed her wrists and removed her hands from his arms. “Did lying with Steven Monroe get me out of your head. Your heart? When you were with him, were you thinking of me?”

  “No!”

  “Remembering how it used to be between us?” His voice lowered even further and he pinned her wrists behind her back. “How good it was.” He pulled her up against his body and said against her temple, “How good it still is.”

  The brim of his hat touched the top of her head. “Stop it, Jack.”

  “All those years, were the two of you laughing it up over what you’d done to me?”

  “No, Jack. It wasn’t like that. No one was laughing.” Her heart knocked in her chest and she swallowed hard. “Believe me. I know I should have told you sooner.”

  His voice got real quiet next to her ear when he asked, “Who’s listed as daddy on that boy’s birth certificate?”

  “Steven.”

  He pulled back far enough to look into her face. “Goddamn you, Daisy.”

  “We thought it would be easier for him in school. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck how sorry you are. Because it’s not half as sorry as you’re going to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He set her back on her heels and slid his hands to her shoulders. “All those years ago when you chose Steven over me because I was just a poor kid with grease on my hands, working in my daddy’s garage—that’s not how things are now. I’m not poor anymore, Daisy. I can afford a real good lawyer, and if I have to, I’ll fight you.”

  “There won’t be a fight.”

  “I want to know my son.”

  “You can get to know him. I want you to. And when we leave—”

  “When you leave,” he interrupted. “He stays.”

  “That’s ridiculous. He’s not staying here with you. His home is with me. In Seattle.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “I know you’re angry. I don’t blame you.”

  “Nice to know you don’t blame me.” He released her and turned to the door.

  “I should have told you about Nathan years ago, but don’t punish him because you’re mad at me.” She followed close behind him to the front porch. “He’s been through so much. He lost his dad and now this.”

  Jack turned around so fast she almost ran into his chest. “He didn’t lose his dad. Steven Monroe wasn’t his father.”

  Daisy wisely didn’t point out that Nathan thought of Steven as his dad and had loved him. “Nathan’s been through a lot in the past few years. He needs a little peace. Some calm in his life.” She didn’t add that she needed it too. “I’ll talk to him. See what he wants to do, and I’ll call you.”

  “I’m not going to wait around for you to call me, Daisy Lee.” He moved down the steps toward his Mustang parked at the curb. “After I talk to Nathan, I’ll tell you how it’s going to be,” he said as he walked away, the morning sun shining down on his straw hat and his wide shoulders.

  “Wait.” She ran down the steps after him. “You can’t talk to him alone. I’m his mother. He doesn’t know you.”

  He walked around the front of the car then stuck his key in the driver’s side door. “Whose fault is that?”

  She looked at him from across the top of the car. “I should be there.”

  He looked back at her and laughed. “Like I should have been there for the past fifteen years?”

  She grabbed the door handle to jump in his car but the door was locked. Then she remembered Pippen and realized she couldn’t go even if she forced her way into his car. “Nathan is my son. You can’t exclude me.”

  “Get used to it.”

  “We can work this out. I know we can.” She didn’t know anything of the sort, but she was determined to keep things from getting too ugly. “I should have told you. I know that, and except for handing over my son, I’ll try and make it up to you.”

  “How? On the trunk of a car?” He unlocked the Mustang’s door. “Not interested.”

  So much for keeping things from getting too ugly.

  Nathan sat with his back against the basketball pole at Lovett High. The backboard and hoop cast an oblong shadow on the court to the free-throw line.

  He gazed across the football field to the tennis courts. He didn’t like it here. He didn’t know what he expected Texas to look like, maybe like Montana. He and his dad had been to Montana once, but Texas wasn’t like that. Texas was flat. And hot. And brown.

  Texas was nothing at all like Seattle.

  He pushed with his feet and slid up the pole until he stood. He adjusted the chain around his neck and glanced at the high school behind him. “High school,” he scoffed. It wasn’t even as big as the grade school he’d gone too. They probably all wore cowboy boots and rode horses to school. Probably all listened to crappy country and western music and chewed tobacco. Probably nobody rode skateboards or listened to Korn or Weezer or played Sniper Fantasy for XBOX.

  Nathan pulled up his pants and h
ardly noticed when they slipped back down his hips. Problems bigger than his baggy pants occupied his thoughts. He’d dropped his skateboard at Jack Parrish’s garage, and then he’d run away like a big scared baby.

  He really wished he hadn’t done that, but the way Jack had grabbed his arm had freaked him out. And the way he’d looked and swore at him, too. One second they’d all been laughing, and in the next, Jack had grabbed him and stared at him so intensely, he’d about capped his pants. Nathan didn’t know if Jack had figured it out in that moment, but by the look on his face, he thought maybe he had. Then before Nathan had even realized what he was doing, he ran away like a little kid.

  Jack probably thought he was a dork.

  With a shrug of his shoulders he told himself he didn’t care. His dad had told him lots of stories about Jack. He made him sound real cool, like someone Nathan would really like. But he didn’t think he liked Jack. He liked Billy, though. Billy watched “Monster Garage.” Billy was cool.

  He picked up a rock and threw it hard against the backboard. It made a satisfying thwack, rebounded and almost hit him in the head. Obviously, his mom hadn’t told Jack yet. Nathan had just assumed that she’d told him already or he never would have walked into that garage today. After all, that’s why she was here. To tell Jack about him. At least, that’s why she’d said she was coming here.

  He moved back across the field toward the opening in the chain link fence. He was pretty mad at his mom, and feeling really stupid. Plus, he had to figure out a way to get his board back. Maybe he’d just let Jack keep it because he really didn’t want to walk back into the garage and ask for it back. Not now.

  The grass beneath his black skater shoes squished and he figured the sprinklers had been on that morning. Water droplets collected on the leather toes of his shoes and he watched them roll off. His mom should be back from the hospital by now. He had to tell her where he’d been. She’d probably get mad at him, but he didn’t really care. The more he thought about it, the madder he got at her. If his mother had told Jack, or at least told Nathan that she hadn’t, he wouldn’t have gone to the garage and made such a dick weed out of himself.