Tarnished

by Erica Chilson

  “I don’t know. It’s your first sleepover,” I drawl, making them wait a bit.

  “Daddy!” Hayden shouts. “Please, we’re big kids now.”

  “Too big,” Willa whispers, getting choked up. I tug her to my side, wrapping an arm around her waist. “You mind Aunt Penny,” she warns. “And don’t go getting into any trouble.”

  “Oh, they’ll mind,” Warren drawls, eyes twinkling. “C’mon, brats. Copper has got to get home to catch a nap before he starts wailing.”

  “I’m proud of you, Penny,” I shout as she leads my kids away. “So proud.”

  “I’ma get you a little ‘I’m proud of you’ sign to put in your back pocket, and every time you wanna say that to someone, you gotta pull it out.” Penny teases me, but she glows from the compliment. “I’ll bring the twins back on Sunday night. Give you two some privacy.”

  “Do we need privacy?” I whisper in Willa’s ear, earning a giggle. “We still have three young men to deal with.”

  “I’m pretty sure two of ‘em will be honeymooning across the street from Penny and War.” She points at Wynn tugging Kade around by his tie. He keeps turning around and kissing Kaden on the lips to piss the townsfolk off.

  Never one who was agile, Kade almost upends by tripping over his large feet. “Little shit, you’re gonna regret that.” Kade catches my eye. “See ya at work on Monday, and not a second sooner.”

  “You two have fun,” I call back.

  Reminding me of a spooked horse, Wynn’s blue eyes bulge from his skull. “Holy shit!” He rotates to catch my gaze while speaking to Kade. “Royce didn’t tell me no.”

  “You’re a man now, remember?” Kaden taunts Wynn. “Git in my truck before I make a bigger fool of myself.”

  “No calling 9-1-1 on us!” Wynn teases me as he lopes across the lawn toward the parking lot.

  “There won’t be a need, ya little shit,” Kade says gruffly. “Wrong graduation.”

  A laugh huffs out of me at the devastated expression that crosses Wynn’s face as he slips into the passenger seat of the Durango. Kade waves at us, visibly amused, and then he’s ducking inside his vehicle.

  “No idea if Kade is joking or not.” I look down at Willa with a bemused expression. “It pains me to say, Kade is patient enough to make Wynn wait, and I feel bad for the kid not getting what he wants. But then I feel grossed out after I remember what the kid wants in the first place. The father in me ought to be happy about waiting. But the man in me understands how Wynn feels.”

  Willa laughs, shaking her head back and forth. “Lord knows with that asshole. My guess is college graduation because Kade is selfish and will want Wynn to wait as long as he had to wait. But if Wynn would just learn to let go and tap into the Gillette in him, Kade wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “Christ.” A shiver works its way along my spine as my eyes cut to the one person who has made me lose my mind.

  Willa smiles sweetly at me– innocently. “Two down, one to go…”

  Face twisted up in agony, Bren is in an embrace with Franny, fingers clutching at the rainbow gown. I can hear Francis laughing through his tears, but Bren just keeps squeezing him tighter and tighter.

  “I ain’t ever stepping foot in this town again, but that doesn’t mean you can’t visit me in California. My sisters have lived there for years with my grandparents. They will welcome you into the fold. I’m sure they miss their living dollbaby.”

  “You know I can’t right now,” Bren’s voice is rough and gritty. “I wish your family wasn’t pulling out of Rusty Knob.”

  “Well, we can still visit. I’m willing to go to Pennsylvania or Ohio, but unless I’m driving through or flying above West Virginia, I’m not stopping.”

  “It won’t be the same,” Bren mumbles into Franny’s shoulder, squeezing him so tightly it has to be leaving a bruise. “We’ve been partners in crime since we were three. You’ve been with me through everything. Skype, texting, and Facebook aren’t enough. Seeing you every few years and noticing how we’ve changed is gonna kill me.”

  “We’re on to bigger and brighter…”

  “Shut up.” Bren’s words don’t hold any weight. “You’re not even upset.”

  Franny’s laughter is contagious, and soon my son is laughing through the tears. Pulling back, we all gasp in shock when Bren plants a big, sloppy kiss on Franny’s parted lips.

  “Holy fuck!” Franny shouts, eyes bulging from his skull. “Had I known leaving would gain me a kiss from you, I would’ve moved sooner. And tried for tongue.”

  Jack walks over with Jessica in tow. He’s smiling ear-to-ear when I was scared he’d be jealous. “Bren’s stingy when it comes to boys, so you better have imprinted that kiss into memory.” They curl into a group hug, saying their final goodbye, knowing they might never see Francis again.

  Franny is the first to pull back, slipping away unnoticed by his friends. His rainbow gown becomes a streak of light as he runs across the schoolyard to his parents’ idling car, already packed and ready for the airport.

  “That’s so sad.” Willa sniffles, pressing closer into my side. “Bigger and brighter, I believe. But it’s still so sad. I’ll never forget the first time I met that kid almost a decade ago. I wish he could have stayed in Rusty Knob. Franny brought life to this place.”

  Jessica is next to pull away. She rests her hand on my son’s back, pausing as if she wants to say something. But she thinks the better of it, and shakes her head no. Then Jesse’s walking off, leaving Bren and Jack embraced, faces buried in the crook of each other’s neck, fingers clenching shoulder muscles.

  “We’ll leave them be.” I take Willa’s hand. “Bren will wander home when he wanders home.”

  Voice thick with barely suppressed tears, “That suspiciously looks like a goodbye, too,” Willa whispers to me as we head to her car.

  Heart breaking for my son, I breathe, “I reckon it is.”

  As I bend down to get into Willa’s car, I catch sight of someone lingering on the edges of the school property. Looking healthy for the first time in nearly a decade, Corbin raises a hesitant hand.

  I hate myself. I hate myself for feeling bipolar. I’m simultaneously furious and relieved that Corbin Gillette looks to be cleaning up his act. Furious, because I wanted him to die a slow and painful death. Relived, because I love his children enough to want them to have a real daddy and because I want this burden of guilt to be lifted from my soul.

  The largest part of me is still reeling from not having any real justice, while a small kernel longs to thank Corbin for carrying around such a large debt– a debt that turned an asshole into a monster in the name of loyalty.

  Unable to stop myself, my chin raises and lowers in acknowledgment, my involuntary way of waving back to Corbin. As I shut the car door, Corbin Gillette slips back into the trees.

  The only way of reclaiming my manhood was to believe stealing all of Corbin’s children from him was an act of revenge. I know it wasn’t Corbin who violated me and left me broken and almost dead. But his act of loyalty took my brother away from me, and I hate him for that. But when I look more closely to my motives, I believe taking care of Corbin’s family was my odd way of saying thank you for defending my honor.

  Are You Wet?

  “Ya want another marshmallow?” Willa blows the flame out, leaving behind a charred blob of sticky sugar. “Mmm…” she groans, eating it right off the stick. It’s my turn to groan when she sucks her fingertips. “They’re best burnt.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t like s’mores.” I grab the stick out of her hand and jab another marshmallow on it. “Who doesn’t like s’mores?” I wait for it to catch fire, and then hand the flaming blob to Willa.

  “The chocolate never melts. It’s like hard.” Willa pulls a face. “We should keep the chocolate bars next to the fire.”

  “Smart woman,” I mutter appreciatively, trying to ignore the signals my body is throwing out. “For the past few years, I’ve been obsessed
with having the kids shoved up my ass… I thought I’d be more upset.”

  Grinning, Willa covers her mouth with her palm, hiding her laughter and the melted marshmallow she’s chewing. She takes a big swallow to clear her mouth. “I thought it’d be weird, just me and you.” She points between us while wearing a funny, little smirk. She distracts us both by grabbing a few Hershey Bars out of the cooler, resting them on a rock next to the roaring fire. “I didn’t like remembering, ya know? I spent a lot of time trying to forget.”

  “I just blocked it out.” It’s my turn to feel odd. I have no problem talking to Willa, but it’s never just the two of us with all the kids running around. This is the first time the house has been empty in over a year. “It hurts to remember, because not only did I lose Donny that day, I lost you, too.”

  Eyes turning glossy, Willa slowly reaches out to cup my cheek. “I wanna remember, Royce. I wanna remember who I was so I can see how far I’ve come.” Her hand drops to her lap, and she stares at it instead of me. “I want you to remember you too. You’re not an old man, no matter how you act now. You should be more than just a daddy and protector of Rusty Knob. You need friends who aren’t your children.” Willa finally meets my eyes, and I can tell she’s been waiting to speak to me about this. “You forgot who you used to be. A bit gruff and surly, but playful too. I miss him, Royce. I miss you.”

  I cover my surprise with a joke. “You saying I acted like Kaden?”

  “Yeah, you did. I miss him. You,” she mutters softly, a world of emotions in her voice. “I loved bickering with you. It’s why I ride Kade’s ass so much. I think it’s what drew you to him in the first place.” Sitting on her heels with her hands in her lap, Willa opens her mouth, and then shuts it. She pulls this routine a few times before she gets the courage to continue. “Did I ever tell you how I was never frightened of you?”

  “Such a strange thing to say.” I release an uncomfortable chuckle. “It makes me sad that girls have to be afraid of men in the first place.” I poke Willa in the knee with the marshmallow stick. “Go on.”

  “Obviously, even when Donny was slapping me around, I was never scared of him. The word prey glowed in my head when I met him. So between Donny and Daddy, I picked Donny. Sean was at the house when we showed up, so I chose the bedroom with Donny over being in the living room with Sean.”

  “Oh, Willamina.” I clench my chest, heart breaking and repairing itself a billion times over. “None of that should have ever happened to you.”

  “And you,” she reminds me. “But it did, and we’ve got to deal with it, so Dr. Cassidy says.” Willa’s tone is filled with the strength of resolve. “I’ve had to work this out in my head to sort through it. Sean reminded me of a beautiful dog. Loyal, cunning, charming. But you could just sense that he didn’t belong to you, that beneath the surface he was waiting to bite your face off. He was the loving pup you raised, and you didn’t realize until it was too late that he was a predator.”

  “I always thought Sean was off. With Corbin, it was in-your-face obvious that he would bite you, but he’d shake your hand afterward and apologize. But Sean, I didn’t realize until I couldn’t stop it.”

  “Daddy can be rotten but he’s harmless. I know that sounds fucked up to say. But after meeting someone like Sean…” Willa takes a deep breath. Neither one of us wants to talk about this, but we have to. We’re never alone, and it’s not the same when Dr. Cassidy forces us.

  “So I’m sitting on the couch with my daddy, and I could tell he was regretting it. Not regretting Donny. I’ve come to terms with the why of that. Daddy picked someone who could take care of me and treat me right but also give a bit back so they didn’t have to struggle so hard. Daddy should have worked, but he was doing what he was taught. So I can’t blame him too harshly.”

  “But we’d only known Sean for a little over a year…”

  “Yeah, I think that’s what Daddy was picking up on. I could sense it immediately, but it probably slowly creeped up on Daddy. So that’s what you walked into… and you walked in, and I–” Willa covers her face with her palms, laughing at herself. “Good God, I took one look atcha and… yeah. I was sitting with a dumb dog, a beaten dog, and a rabid dog, and all I could think of when I first saw ya was siccing them on each other so I could go play with the fox.”

  “Willa?” With a fingertip beneath her chin, I tilt her head into the firelight so I can get a good look at her. “As a Gillette, I know you see yourself as ignorant trash. I see the same mindset in Warren and Wynn, and even Penny being from the hollers. You have no idea how intelligent you truly are.”

  “I ain’t,” she argues with me.

  “You are,” I stress, gripping Willa’s chin tightly between my fingertips. “There’s common sense, and there’s book smarts. But then there’s survival of the fittest. Kade, he’s a fighter and he’s educated, but he ain’t got a lick of sense sometimes. You and Warren, you are the craftiest people I know. Even your daddy. It’s focusing those smarts that makes you unstoppable.”

  Willa perks up a bit. “Like Wynn?”

  “Like Wynn,” I agree. “But that doesn’t have a dang lick to do with diplomas or degrees. You took one look at Sean and recognized the darkness none of us could see.”

  Ashamed, Willa turns away from me, but I can still hear the guilt riding her voice. “But I was too loyal to Donny to tell you, and look where that got us.”

  “That’s the crux of it all, ain’t it? By being loyal– keeping secrets and promises – we’re betraying those we love most.”

  Face whipping around to gaze at me, “I want to remember, Royce,” Willa cries. “I can’t break those promises, even now. But if you remember too, maybe you’ll see what was always in front of your face… and then we can move on.”

  “God,” shudders out on my breath. My eyes slip shut, unable to fathom where to begin. “How do we start?” When I open my eyes, Willa’s gazing at me with an expression that petrifies me. The same expression every Gillette gets just before they steal something from you. In Kade’s and my case, Wynn and Willa usually steal our minds because they already own our hearts. “Oh, fuck!” I scramble backward, my ass hitting a log.

  This girl– this woman only turns into this creature around me. Even when she was broken, screaming when anyone came near her, high out of her mind, I’d wake in the middle of the night to her crawling in my bed, getting on top of me to ride my dick, and she’d steal my mind, my heart, and my seed.

  Terrified.

  Since Willa returned from rehab, this side of her has laid dormant. Prowling toward me, Willa swings her leg over my hip, sitting astride my lap. “Remember the first time I ever sat in your lap?” She wiggles her little, tight ass right on my crotch, just like she did the first time. Groaning, my fists clench and my toes curl against the need rising in me.

  Swiveling her hips in my lap again, “Oh, Jesus. Fuck!” My head jackknifes backward into the log and I see bursts of starlight. “That ain’t a memory I ever forgot. You turned me into a sinner that day, and I haven’t stopped sinning with you ever since.”

  9 years ago

  It’s been three months since I had the freedom to ride around the dirt roads with my music blaring and the windows rolled down. I don’t even care that it’s freezing outside. After a bunch of failed playdates, where someone was always getting sick or Brennan was calling me back immediately because he missed me, I’m free.

  I waited four hours to make sure the little feller didn’t call me right up, begging to come home and snuggle on the couch with me. Donny’s been pestering me just as much as Brennan has, getting clingy and visiting constantly but never bringing his new bride. “Come up to the house,” he’d say. “You forsaking Kennedy land?”

  With my son at Francis Parker’s house reluctantly being painted up like a baby drag queen, I take my time driving all over the hills. The binds of being a daddy slowly unravel so I can enjoy being a man with my brother.

  I crank the wheel to
turn into Donny’s driveway, belting out the wrong lyrics to Mudvayne. Movement catches my eye and has me reaching for the baseball bat I keep tucked behind the seat. I’m out of my truck in a split-second and tearing across the yard.

  “Hey!” I shout, swinging my bat in the air to catch their attention. I want to say more, but terror has taken possession of my tongue.

  Willa’s on the ground, slowly crab-walking backward, her hands getting caught on the hem of her dress. My brother is shielding his wife with his body, and Sean is towering over them both with rage pouring off of him in visible waves.

  My brother’s a small guy, nary a strong muscle on him. Whereas Corbin and I are short but stocky. We can give and take a lot of damage. But Sean– Sean is tall and thin with muscles built from steel pipes. It would take all three of us to bring him to the ground.

  Either not hearing me or ignoring me because I’m no threat, “Hit her, Donald!” Sean bellows into Donny’s face with his fists clenched at the ready at his sides. “Hit her, or I will!”

  “I can’t!” Donny cries, hands coming up to cover his face like he fears being hit instead. “I can’t do it. Willa ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “You lied to me!” Sean’s words are violent and fierce, ringing in my ears. His hand flings back to land a slap, but Donny’s quicker. I miss a step when my brother’s open palm connects with his wife’s face– the force whipping Willa’s head so far to the side her chin passes her shoulder.

  My heart beats out of my chest, rage and confusion fueling it. I can’t get to them in time to stop it. Willa’s to her feet in an instant, glaring up at Donny. She sees me, a split-second later she’s spitting blood in Sean’s face, and then she drops to the ground as I swing.

  “Get the fuck off my land, and don’t come back,” I snarl, giving Sean a warning tap to the back. “Go!”

  “Your precious brother is a fucking liar.” Sean holds his ground, eyeing the bat clutched in both my hands. “I bet I know him better than you do, Roy.”

  “Just go, Sean,” Donny grumbles, looking defeated and exhausted. “Just go.”