by Ann Minnett
“A huge fucking tattoo,” Rob said, and they all looked at him. All except the girl. He could swear he said, "Hey, no!"
Smoking Dude said, "You'll get a turn."
"No, you can't do this." Rob was pretty sure he said it. Anyway, he fell again, and someone slugged him. It could have been his cheek hitting the ground. He couldn’t remember what happened after that.
Later, he told people at the party, "Bad shit happening in the bushes," but friends just laughed. They repeated “bat shit,” thinking that’s what he had said. Even called him Bat Shit the rest of the night.
Someone handed him a beer, and he blacked out after a while.
Rob thought he’d dreamed it. He went home after graduation, never seeing any of those people again. His only clear recollection had been the huge tattoo on the girl's leg. Maybe she was a student, too. Maybe not. Hard to find a tattoo in a student body of thirty-five thousand. And he was too drunk at the time to break up a gang-rape. What could one man do against three guys except maybe get knifed or killed?
She drank too much. Overdosed. She should have been more careful. She probably went into the woods to have it on anyway. Likely not with three of us, I mean them, but still…
His truth? It was her fault.
CHAPTER 18
Lark stood in the street until Rob's truck had turned safely out of sight. What in the hell had happened to her small, predictable life? She didn’t jostle out of the funk until a car pulled into the space he’d vacated.
The driver rolled down his window. "I'm Katie's dad." He smiled, not bothering to give his name.
She waved and summoned as friendly a face as possible under the circumstances. Approaching his open window, she said, “I’m Lark, Zane’s mom.”
“Mike Mathissen.”
She started, “Katie’s a—“
“Zane’s a good kid,” he said. “My wife says they’re cute together.” His warm expression made Lark smile. “But I wouldn’t go that far.”
“He’s at your house so often, I hope you aren’t getting tired of him.”
“No. Like I said, he’s a good kid. I think Sharon likes him because he eats anything she fixes. You must have huge grocery bills.”
“You got that right.” Lark wondered how her son acted when she wasn’t around. "Send him home when you get tired of him.”
“Oh, I do.”
“I'll go get her." She walked into the condo as Katie was leaving.
"Goodbye, Lark.”
Lark patted Katie’s shoulder, waved to her dad, and went inside. “Her dad seems like a nice man,” she said to Zane.
“Mr. Mathissen kind of scares me. Katie says he’s okay, but he doesn’t talk to me much.”
“You’re his little girl’s boyfriend.” Lark thought that pretty much said it all. “Katie probably thinks we live in continuous drama.”
Zane cocked his head to one side. "What's going on, Mom?"
"Boss, there are some things I just can't talk about. Maybe one day but not now."
She hung her jacket on the hall tree and flopped onto the couch, emotionally shaken. She had to talk to Dee and Nora about Rob's story and those horrible details.
"I'm old enough to know. You’d be surprised what I’ve seen."
"Oh, Zane." Her forearm blocked her eyes from his.
Zane loomed over her. "Cut the crap. Is he my father?"
"What? No!" She fought to standing. "He is not your father. One of my greatest faults is that I don't know who is your father. Honest." She placed both hands on his wide shoulders, forcing him onto the couch. Finally, he gave in and sat.
"I know it's horrible for you, but I sort of fell apart after leaving the university. A group of us just bummed around, and I honestly don't know. I'm so sorry." She had stuck with this suitable-for-framing story of Zane's start in life since his birth. It made her look bad in its own way, but the truth would be worse for him.
"That's bullshit, and you know it." Zane's snarling lips almost smiled when she recoiled from him.
The three friends had been so full of themselves. They should have known their fantasy would fall apart once Zane started asking adult questions. And now Lark couldn't even give him a fictitious dad.
For the first time since her little brother died, life’s circumstances ground her down. Her good intentions—a sham, if not harmful. A bit of determination snapped in her spine. The physical sensation of losing a moral compass shocked her.
"What's with him—Rob?" Zane nodded toward the front window.
"Rob is someone I met at college. He was a creep then, and he's worse now."
"That's not what you said at first…"
"I don't care what I said." Her finger shook like an old woman at her naive son. "Don't have anything to do with him."
His chest bowed out. "Tell me what's going on, or I'll ask him."
She had vowed never to subject Zane to the stigma of a rapist father, but Lark hadn't devised Plan B beyond the initial cover story in which she took the blame for shitty behavior. The Bimbettes’ cover story. She assumed responsibility because all agreed she could take the scrutiny. Such a strong person, they said.
What a joke.
"No, you can't do that." She rummaged through her bag for cigarettes and went to the patio door. Think. Stall. Her hands trembled lighting the cigarette on a third try.
Zane sprang from the couch. "I'll find out for myself." He thrust a bare foot into his boot by the door and grabbed his sweatshirt from the coat rack. "Where’s my other…"
"Zane, stop it." Lark flipped her lit cigarette onto the patio and ran toward him. Her sore hand yanked at his shirt tail. It hurt like hell when he jerked away.
He found his other boot under the table.
"Don't talk to him, Zane."
"Get out of my way."
"He'll hurt you."
Zane stopped, stared curiously into her face. "Did he hurt you?"
She hesitated, unsure of an answer.
Zane clutched her shoulders and stooped into her line of sight. "What did he do?"
She winced. "Nothing. Or almost nothing." Her legs locked, she wavered, but Zane steadied her. "I don't know what he did." Her son walked her backwards into a chair.
"What does that mean?" When she didn't respond, he jostled her. "What?"
Her hands clenched and unclenched and clenched again, unable to hold still.
Anger gained on Zane's careful patience. His eyes appeared concerned, yet flinty. Again, he shook her, but harder this time.
"There was a rape," she mumbled.
"What did you say?" He knelt on one knee beside her at eye-level.
"I said, there was a rape." The muscles in her shoulders and neck twisted. A bubbling growl rose from her cramped abdomen.
A tiny muscle under his right eye twitched.
"The… rape… affected a lot of people." She looked away from his whisker-speckled cheek, his pained frown, to the frayed hole in the knee of his jeans. His favorite pair. Her middle finger skimmed his exposed skin there. "We have loved you from the first, no matter what."
"No matter what?" Zane spun away and loomed over her. "He raped you?"
"No!"
"He raped you, and you got me."
Lark reached for his dangling arm and said, "That isn't what happened."
He easily shook her off and pawed through her purse. Grasping her car keys, he let the bag drop to the floor and ran out the door without looking back. Lark threw open the door to see Zane slip and slide across the snow-covered lawn toward her Subaru.
"I'll call the police." She scooted down the icy walkway in stocking feet. Her old Subaru's trusty engine fired up.
"Zane!"
He ground the gearbox and backed away from her outstretched arms.
"You've got it all wrong!"
He drove in reverse to the far end of the block and disappeared left, driving the wrong way on the one-way street by the tracks. She had to prevent him from confronting Rob.
Lark stumbled inside to call Dee and Nora but couldn't find her cell phone. With a sinking heart, she remembered leaving it in the cup holder of her car, her flimsy protection against Rob the Rapist.
She scrambled for her parka and the boots which sported vile curly laces, and she ran for the hair salon catty corner from her condo. Her toe caught on an ice clod, propelling her hands-first into the slushy gutter. Icy bracken seeped up past her wrists and into her sleeves, masking any pain in her injured right hand, but her jeans and sweater were soaked. She pushed herself up and wiped freezing hands on her coat. Moisture had splattered in both eyes, so she backhanded her forehead and wiped grit from her cheeks.
The disapproving salon owner peeked beneath fake eyelashes at Lark's loud entrance. Without looking up again, the shrew said, “Dee left early. Sick.” Reddened fingers returned to the foil wrappers of a hair color.
Screw you, Lark thought. She whirled out the door and staggered at a fast pace toward Dee's cottage across the viaduct. Her sopping socks rubbed uncomfortably on both heels in her stiff boots. Her right big toe hurt, too. She should have changed her socks, but already dark, and no time to lose. Her fingers had numbed, making it impossible to grasp the zipper of her coat against the wind on her wet clothes.
Her breath came in short gasps. "Damn cigarettes," she shouted into the cutting wind. Her breath clouded her vision in the haze of the viaduct's street lamps. Gasping, chest aching, Lark slowed to a stagger and wished she had hidden a pack in her pocket. And had changed her socks.
No. She wished she had lied to Zane.
Wherever Zane went, he'd had time to arrive by now. He probably drove to Katie's house. No, he sometimes fled to Dee's when he was upset. He'd be safe there, but Lark didn't want him talking to Dee until she knew the whole story. Lark quickened her pace down the viaduct slope, despite raw spots forming on her heels and frigid air stabbing her damaged lungs.
Just three blocks from Dee's, she picked up the pace. She chanted her steps, urging heavy legs to hustle. Rob's sanguine face came to mind. "Your fault." She rasped. "Your damn fault." But her words dissipated in the fog. A tremor of fear jolted her awkward shuffling.
What if Zane found Rob?
* * *
The ticking rumble of a passing train muddled Zane's cascading thoughts. He pulled to the side of the road paralleling the tracks to wipe his eyes and runny nose on his sleeve. The single good thing in his life was Katie, but how do you tell your girlfriend you got your start in life by rape? His fist pounded the steering wheel, the battered console, the faded dashboard. His rage spasmed in the confines of the shitty Subaru until a man walked out of his trailer up ahead and shined a spotlight into Zane's face. Zane waved and drove off, certain the cops would cruise by shortly.
He couldn't let Katie see him like this.
He punched a button on his cell phone. "Come on, come on." He slapped the steering wheel to hasten the pickup. Something glinted on the floorboard—his mother's cell phone. That's why she hasn't called me, he thought, as his call finally connected.
Mason whispered, "What are you doing, calling me?"
"Hey. I need a favor. Is your brother still locked up?"
"Yep," Mason said louder, probably for the benefit of nearby parents.
Zane told his friend what he needed, and, despite Mason's objections, they arranged to meet in the Super1 parking lot in half an hour. He parked the Subaru between two monster trucks near the grocery store and strolled to wait near the garish menu board at McDonalds drive-thru.
Now what? Rob was probably short for Robert, but Zane didn't know his last name or where he lived. How would he find the man? If he called Lulu or Aunt DeeDee, they'd rat him out. Think! Ozzy had sales records. So did Patty, and hers were sorted alphabetically by dog's name. Rob's dog's name also started with R.
Zane growled, "R-r-r-r-r-r," wracking his memory for the black dog's name. His phone showed 6:34 p.m. Ozzy's store closed at 6:00.
A rider on a dirt bike wobbled toward him on the sidewalk around seven, through ice patches and against the quickening wind. Mason remained silent until he stopped the bike not a foot from Zane's legs. "Man, you can't do this."
Zane nudged his friend's belly. "I'm just going to scare him. Give it." He held out his hand.
"Who? Scare who?"
"My dad." Zane’s words, drowned out by chicken nuggets and large Coke crackling through the McDonald’s drive-thru speakers. "Now give it."
Mason extracted a small revolver from his sweatshirt pouch. He wiped the fleece lining over the cylinder, slender barrel and handle. "You gotta give it back before Mick gets out. He'd kill me if he knew I had it." Mason started to push off but thought better of it. "Hold on. Who's your dad?"
"Some dude named Rob," Zane released the cylinder to find four bullets and two empty chambers. He secreted the revolver into his jeans pocket. "He raped my mom."
"What? When?"
"About sixteen and a half years ago, moron." Zane felt stronger for saying it out loud, although his voice quivered. Mason probably heard it.
"Raped your mom?" Mason's chin sunk inside his jacket collar so that his sharp nose and round eyes emerged like a frog in the water.
"Dude's been giving her money? That's the bastard."
No, Zane thought, who's the bastard here?
Mason nodded, still straddling his bike and hiding his lower face. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to get some answers. Want to come?"
"Sure." Mason was like that, ready for anything as long as his old man didn’t find out.
Zane jiggled car keys toward the grocery store. "I got Mom’s car."
"Well then." Mason hid his bike in the juniper bushes separating the drive-thru from the parking lot.
"Then again, I might blow his face off."
Mason grabbed Zane's arm.
"Aw, come on." Zane forced a smile. "Probably not."
Zane sometimes closed the shop for Patty. He knew her alarm code, and luckily her client list wasn't computerized. His grandmother was strictly old-school. Her records consisted of index cards kept in a metal box under her counter. He rehearsed a speech if anyone asked: We aren't breaking in. I work here, for gods sakes.
Door open, 1954 code disarmed the alarm, and Zane flipped on all the lights. He went immediately to the “Rs” in her file. Raven, black shepherd mix, was first. A phone number and address were printed in pencil. Zane entered the address and Whitefish MT into Google Maps to pinpoint his father's location. His father! The red balloon hovered near Logan Creek where Star Meadow Road crossed over. He and Uncle Sky had fished there a hundred times.
Mason craned his neck to see, but Zane cut off the image.
"He's up by Tally Lake, a ways out of town." Zane stuffed the index card into his pocket and replaced the card box. "You still game?"
"Give me a sec," Mason said, pulling out two drawers under the grooming table. He held up pointed shears in one hand and a straight razor in the other. "Now I am." He pocketed the weapons.
"My grandmother will need those back."
Zane glanced around the small space that smelled of wet dog and sage and found nothing out of place. He shoved Mason by the narrow shoulders out the door, and set the alarm code. As an afterthought, he grabbed two Tootsie Pops from Patty's basket before dousing the lights and leaving.
Half an hour later, Zane turned right under crossed timbers displaying 441. The farm gate gaped open, its lower rungs buried in two or more feet of snow and not going anyplace until spring thaw. Zane turned off the headlights and allowed the old Subaru to coast downhill in neutral.
Mason peered forward into the windshield. "Moron, the parking lights are still on."
"I know."
Zane coasted about fifty yards and stopped his mom's car when Rob’s house came into view. Despite fancy timber framing in the eaves, the small cabin didn’t belong to some hotshot rich guy.
"Does he drive a dark Tundra?" Mason asked, pointing toward the open
bay of a shed. A tailgate stuck out a foot.
"That's it."
"What now?" Mason said. His saucer eyes showed his fear.
"I'm going in," Zane said, but in truth he didn't know what he'd say. He turned off the engine. "Stay here if you want." He pushed the barrel of the revolver into his waistband, considered where it pointed, and stuck it into his sweatshirt pouch instead. He would leave one hand in the pocket to support the gun's obvious weight, just in case. An element of surprise was crucial.
Mason opened his door and flashed the primitive weapons he had nabbed from Patty.
"Leave those in the car," Zane said. "We won't get medieval on his ass. I just want to scare him." His long legs stepped out onto the snow-scraped courtyard. He whispered across the car's roof, "On second thought, bring them."
Mason nodded.
Rob bellowed from the porch. "Lark, is 'at you?"
Zane nearly fainted. They hadn't seen him there. "No. It's Zane," he shouted, approaching the porch.
"You? Didn't know you could drive." Rob's silhouette swayed in the open door's light. Hands shoved deep in his jean pockets, he abruptly straightened when he lost his balance. Drunk? Could the dark man framed in the doorway be his dad? His mom's rapist?
"I want to talk to you." Zane resisted the urge to see if Mason followed. "Mom won't tell me, so I figured you would." He stepped up the shoveled steps and stopped two feet from Rob.
The barefooted man hadn't budged. The difference in their relative heights made by Zane's hiking boots increased his confidence. Side by side, Zane stood three or four inches taller. He might be able to whip this guy's ass and get him to tell the truth. Maybe. But his entire body quivered, and his throat tightened.
"Your mama know you're here?" Rob smelled like beer.
Zane clenched a fist to deck the old guy right there but simply shook his head, no.
"You boys come on inside." Rob waved them in with exaggerated hospitality. "C'mon. C'mon." He ambled to a couch across the room and retrieved a pair of thick socks stuffed between cushions. The boys hesitated at the open door. He waved them into the house, kicking the coffee table and knocking over empty beer bottles like bowling pins. "Your mama's going to be pissed." He chuckled. "Call her. Tell her where you are." Rob gleefully landed in a rocking chair beside the wood stove to put on the socks.