“His dog isn’t stupid,” Carter shouts after me. “And why are you acting crazy? He’s a nice man!”
* * *
Little footsteps come up behind me as I grab the corkscrew again and a second set follows them. I turn back to see Carter looking at me with a frown and Mia is mimicking him, with her hands on her little hips.
“I thought I told you two to go watch television,” I say as I turn back to grab the wine from the fridge now that I have what I need to get it open.
“Well, I want to know why you are so mad and why you were so mean to him,” Carter says as he wags his little finger at me. “He has horses too. And even some ducks on a pond. He said he would love us to come over. He has a swimming pool and a big yard to play in and some cows too.”
Pressing the corkscrew into the cork, I feel it push in way too easily then the cork splits into dry pieces and a terrible smell comes from the bottle.
“Crap!” I hold my nose as I pour the sour stuff down the drain in the kitchen sink and feel like throwing a real tantrum. That was all the alcohol I had in the house. And it’s no good and now I have to figure out how to calm down all on my own and I’ve never been so mad in my entire life.
“Um!” Mia says as she shakes her little head. “You not posed to say that word, Aunt Mercy.”
I look at her sweet face with a big old frown on it and the one on Carter’s too and decide I have to do something about myself. “Who wants pizza?”
The frowns turn upside down and they start to cheer. I’ll call a cab to take us because I’m going to have a few beers while they play. I know it’s not a very motherly thing to do but it’s either that or tear the house apart as I throw things around until I feel like I’ve dealt with my anger and frustration.
Just as I pick my phone up it rings with a number I don’t recognize. I put on the professional voice I can bring up any time, any place as I answer it, “Mercy Noland.”
* * *
“Hey, sweetheart, this is Loretta Hurst.”
My heart stops and I know I can’t hang up on this nice lady but damn it I want to. “Look, I know what you want to talk about but it won’t do any good.”
“My son is a mess right now and I feel like I have a hell of a lot to do with that. So could you spare me a moment? Mother to mother, dear?” she asks.
So he’s told them everything I can see. I look at the kids and point them to the living room. “You guys go watch television while we wait. I have to talk to someone about business, okay?”
They nod and walk away as I plop into a chair at the dining room table and prepare myself to hear some shit about how her son is great and I’m an idiot.
“Can you talk now?” she asks me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say as I sit back, kick off my heels, and put my feet up on the table.
“Look, my son has done something inexcusable,” she says.
“Great start,” I say as I’m impressed she can see his faults. “So you understand why I can’t see him anymore.”
“Well, I didn’t say that.” She pauses then says, “He told me about your family and darling, I want to tell you how very sorry I am to hear about that. It’s a terrible tragedy. I know there are no words to help you, I do know that. But I also know that you’ve shut yourself off from people. That’s not good for those kids. And I know you know that deep down.”
“He isn’t the answer either,” I say as I look up at the ceiling and wish this was all a dream and that I had never really met Jude Hurst.
* * *
“I’m not saying he is. All I’m saying is being alone with all this isn’t helping any of you all. Those kids need you, but they need more than just you. What would happen to them if something happened to you?” she asks me, making me take my feet down and sit up straight.
“Please don’t say that. You have no idea how much I’m afraid of that happening.” I can feel the anxiety welling up inside of me.
“I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you. But you need to realize that it’s hurting those kids to keep this up. I’d like to come visit with you and the kids. I’d like to invite you out to our place for Sunday dinner this week. Please tell me you’ll come.”
“It’s not you, Mrs. Hurst,” I say.
She quickly says, “Call me, Loretta.”
“Okay, it’s not you, Loretta. It’s Jude. He went too far.”
“He did. I’m not going to make any excuses for him. What he did was wrong. He’d like to apologize to you and the kids,” she says.
“No!” I say quickly. “I don’t want that and I don’t want to see him. You can tell him that you told me and that I said, thanks for the apology. I forgive him. I knew he was spoiled rotten and it’s all my fault for seeing him in the first place. This is all on me. You can tell him that. I have no hard feelings against him.”
“He’ll be glad to hear some of that,” she says. “But I’d like to say that I doubt you’ll find another man who cares so much for you.”
Her words hurt me to my core. I probably won’t ever find a man who tries so damn hard to get to know me than Jude has. But then again, I never wanted any man to get into my life, anyway.
Jude
“She’s going to need time, son,” Momma tells me.
I shake my head and have to disagree. “Mom, that’s all she’s had is time. It’s been a little over two years since they all died. She’s been alone with this for that long. She needs someone now. Not a month from now. Right now.”
“Well, she doesn’t want to see you. She did say she forgives you if that makes you feel any better.” Mom runs her hand over the back of mine as I sit at the kitchen table and look at the glass of Scotch Dad poured for me.
I can’t touch it, though. Mercy is over there all alone with the kids. Mad as hell at me. And I don’t deserve to be able to get drunk and forget that fact.
“I wonder what she would do if I just showed up over there,” I say as I look at the way the dark liquid makes swirls all on its own.
“She’ll most likely call the cops on you, Jude,” Dad says. “So don’t do that. Give the girl some time. Then maybe go see her at work or something like that.”
My cell phone rings and I see it’s Lester Cofield. “Shit!” I get up and walk away. “I have to take this call.”
Walking out to the back patio, I answer the phone, “Mr. Cofield, how are you doing?”
“I’m kind of confused, Jude. That’s how I’m doing. I called Mercy to see how things went today and she told me you had pulled out of the deal,” he says.
“Oh, she did. I see,” I say as I have no idea what the hell to tell the man.
“That doesn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot, Jude,” he says and waits for more of an explanation.
Only I don’t have one. “Lester, did you know that Mercy is taking care of her dead sister’s kids?”
“What?” he asks with a very high voice. “Since when?”
“For the last two years,” I tell him.
I know she’s going to be pissed at me, but let’s face it, she already is!
“No!” he says then sighs. “How did you find this out?”
“I saw her on her way to work this morning and fell in behind her. When she stopped at a daycare, I saw her drop off a couple of little kids.” I decide to embellish my story a bit so the man doesn’t find out I’m a complete stalker. “It just so happened that I had a box of children’s books my company had given us all to donate to various children’s daycares. You know a little good PR. So I made a quick decision to give my box to that particular daycare.”
“And you found out all of that about our Mercy?” he asks.
“Yes, sir. It seems her sister and brother-in-law were going out on a double date with Mercy’s parents while Mercy watched her then two and a half-year-old nephew and six-month-old niece. They were in a wreck and all four of them died. She took the kids as her own after that,” I tell him.
“My gosh, that’s terrible. I can’t believe she
never told us that,” he says.
“When she came to the daycare to pick the kids up, I was still there. I was reading to her nephew. He’s four now. And she kind of lost her shit. She also doesn’t live at the address she has on file at work. That’s her parents’ home. I’m afraid she’s been hiding the kids to hide the tragedy so no one asks her about it.” I wait to see what he has to say and hope he has some kind of a great answer for me.
“Damn it. I guess we have no choice in the matter do we?” he asks. “I guess we have to fire her.”
“What?” I ask as that was not what I intended at all. “No! No, you can’t do that, Lester! I didn’t mean you to take it like she’s some type of a crazy woman or anything like that. I just wanted you to know she has a lot on her plate, that’s all! God, please don’t fire her!”
I pace around and don’t know what the hell to do. Every fucking thing I’m doing is fucking her world up even more.
“Jude, it’s just good business. Poor Mercy has been lying to us for two years. We can’t have that,” he says.
* * *
Then I hear his wife asking him what’s going on and pray she can talk some sense into him. I hold on as he relays all I’ve said then hear her terrible words, “Oh no, we have to let her go.”
Fuck me!
“No!” I shout again. “Lester, please!”
“Sorry, son. But we can still do our deal,” he says.
“No!” I tell him. “If that’s the way you do business, I want no part in your company. Please rethink things. Please. If you keep her on and never say a word about this, I’ll keep the deal.”
I cross my fingers and hope he takes the offer. But when I hear him clearing his throat I get prepared for the age-old speech about it all being just business, nothing personal.
“Jude, this isn’t personal, son.”
I let it all go and end the call as I fall to my knees on the ground and look up at the darkening sky. “Why, God?”
In some kind of answer to my desperate cry, I hear thunder off in the distance and then the weather alert goes off on my phone. As I look at it, I find there’s a tornado warning for the Dallas area.
Wouldn’t you know it? The suburban areas highlighted in red include the one she lives in.
I put my phone into my pocket and head through the house to the cars. I stop in the living room where Mom and Dad are watching the news. “Oh, son, look at this. There’s a tornado warning,” Mom says as she points at the television that’s hanging on the wall.
“I know,” I say as I make quick strides across the room toward the garage. “Dad, I’m taking your four-wheel drive to get Mercy and the kids and bring them out here.”
“Oh, that’s a bad idea, boy!” he calls out after me. “You’re gonna get yourself thrown into the jail for sure!”
“I hope not. Even if I do, I deserve it. I just managed to get Mercy fired from her job too.”
Mom shrieks, “How the hell did you accomplish that, Jude Hurst!”
I shrug and shout back. “I have no idea.”
* * *
As I get to the truck and hop in, I push the button to open the garage door and can already hear the sounds of sirens going off far away in town. I back out and head out as fast as I can to get to them.
The woman may not want me but I sure as hell won’t be leaving her alone with two little kids during a time like this. I may have completely fucked her world up, but damn it, I’m not leaving them alone to deal with a natural disaster too.
Mercy
So it seems God is completely against me getting any alcohol to help me deal with my anger. A sudden storm has come up and now there’s a tornado warning keeping me trapped inside.
To top off that fun, the kids are clinging to me as sirens go off outside constantly and the electricity has gone off. All I have is the flashlight on my cell phone and my battery was about dead when this all started so I have no idea when we’re going to be left in the complete darkness but I bet it will be pretty soon.
So I have us sitting on the sofa, wrapped together tight in a blanket to make sure they both feel really secure. Well, as secure as one can feel with this kind of shit going on.
The wind is howling so loud it’s hard to hear much else, except the loud sirens that I’m supposing, won’t stop until the tornado or tornadoes are back in the sky and off the ground.
It would be great to know if one was headed our way and about to turn us into Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. But then again, why would anyone want to know such a thing like that?
A pounding at the front door has me looking up and I pick up both kids and carry them on my hips as I go to see who the hell is at the damn door. I suppose it’s most likely a fireman or some other emergency person coming to tell us the tornado is headed our way and we’re about to die.
* * *
As I open the door, a tall man wearing a hooded, yellow raincoat pushes his way in quickly, closing the door behind him then pulls me by the shoulder. “Where’s the bathroom?” he asks with a gruff voice.
“Over here,” I say and point my phone light to the hallway.
He pulls out a big flashlight from his raincoat pocket and shines it down the hallway and pulls us along with him to the bathroom where he closes us all in together. “We’re safer here than anywhere else,” he says then pulls the hood back and I see who our emergency man is.
“Jude!” I shout.
“Not now, Mercy.” He looks at the bathtub and pulls us to it. “We need to get into that.”
So into the tub we go, standing side by side. Carter holds his arms out to Jude. “Mr. Hurts, will you hold me?”
Little traitor!
Jude takes off his wet raincoat and tosses it out onto the floor then takes Carter. “Hide your face against my chest. Mercy you hide her face in your chest.”
I move Mia around so she can hide her face and watch Carter snuggle into Jude’s wide chest then feel one of Jude’s strong arms pull me into him too and he holds us all against the wall. His body shielding us all.
He smells like sweat and rain and I’ve never smelled anything more comforting in my life. His warm breath is stirring my hair as he breathes calmly and steadily. He’s like a rock.
* * *
A sound so loud it sounds as if a train is coming right through the house has both kids covering their little ears. I think they might be screaming but it’s too loud to tell for sure.
I close my eyes as I hear some crashing sounds and feel Jude’s arm tighten around me. His head is pressing down on mine and then the sound fades. Both of our phones’ alerts go off, making us all jump and Jude grabs his, shutting it off then he takes mine out of my hand and turns it off too.
The wind is still raging outside but the crashing sounds and the train sounds are over. I look at him and mouth, “Thank you.”
He says, “You’re welcome, baby.”
My body is trembling as the sounds fade further away and I realize I’m holding Mia way too tightly. I loosen my tight hold and say, “Should we go see what happened?”
“I’ll go,” he says as he hands Carter back to me.
Carter looks at me with the widest I’ve ever seen the kid’s eyes. “What was that, Aunt Mercy?”
“That was a tornado, Carter,” I say as I hug him. “But no matter what, we’re okay, aren’t we?”
He nods and when Jude opens the door I almost fall down. All I see is rain falling in the darkness. The top of a tree isn’t that far from us and there’s a big, brown truck sitting in that tree.
“Dad’s not going to like where his truck ended up,” Jude says as he looks back at me.
I just start crying and hugging the kids. “You saved us. You saved us, Jude! If you hadn’t come at that moment, we’d have been right there on that couch and we’d have been.”
“Don’t!” he says as he closes the bathroom door and comes back to us, stepping back into the bathtub and gathering us back into his strong arms. “Just don’t, Mercy.”
He rocks us back and forth for a minute as I cry and then the kids join me and I know he was sent to us. I know it now. I look up at him and say, “I’m sorry.”
He merely shushes me and places his big hand on the back of my head and pushes it down so I have to bury it in his chest like the kids are doing. I really don’t know why he came here but I’m glad he did.
* * *
A knock comes on the bathroom door and I find myself saying, “Who is it?” Then I immediately feel like a fool.
“Fire department, ma’am. Can we come in?”
Jude smiles at me then kisses my forehead. “Come on in guys.”
The door opens and a bunch of lights shine in our eyes. And in that blinding light, I swear I see my sister standing behind one of the firemen.
“Hope?” I call out. “Hope, is that you?” I move around Jude as I hold the kids and I can’t see her anymore. “Hope?”
Jude wraps his arm around me and kisses the side of my head. “It’s okay, baby.”
I shake my head and blink as he takes Carter from me and we step out of the tub and let the firemen help us get out of the house. It’s still raining only nowhere near as hard.
The lights from the fire trucks and other emergency vehicles light the place up. As we’re led to a police cruiser, I turn back and see the front part of the house is just gone. The back part is there. The four car garage is there.
My purse is hanging from a tree limb so I point at it. “Hey, can somebody get that for me?”
Some nice tall man grabs it and I see it’s still zipped up and since it is leather I can be fairly sure all my important things are still there. Including the keys to all the cars and the motorcycles.
The officer who meets us at the car says, “There’s a shelter open at the high school. That’s where we're taking everyone.”
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