by Tim Yingling
The shock finally left Sara’s face.
“Debbie isn’t going to be the only person who I teach how to shoot as we travel to Indiana. You, Tayvon, Linny, and Ernie will learn as well. No more argument on the matter.”
Sara opened her mouth to say something, but Debbie spoke first. “Mom, just stop. I want to learn how to protect myself anyway. If that involves dad teaching me how to shoot, then so be it.”
Sara turned on Debbie so quick it made Debbie flinch back. I have seen the look before. It was the look of someone who has been beaten most of their lives. Of course, there was no way I could prove this, but the look didn’t seem that far off.
“You stay out of this.”
Before she could say anything else, I said, “It’s final, Sara. Now, before things get out of hand here, I suggest we all get some food in us and then get some sleep. No lights in the house, though. I don’t want whoever was out there to see them and come looking for us in here.”
Kate asked, “Do you think any of them followed you?”
I shook my head as Tayvon said, “Not a chance. We made sure no one was outside as we came back here. Even if one of them had seen us crossing Hal Greer they would have lost us as we passed behind the bank.”
That seemed to be the end of the arguing. Sara took Debbie by the hand and led her to the kitchen. As they passed me, I said to Sara, “And I’m not screwing Kate. I have never cheated on anyone my entire life. That is to include you, whether you want to believe it or not.”
Sara shot me a look of hate. All she wanted from me was protection it seemed. She would try to put on a face for Debbie; one that said she would cooperate for the time being, but when it came to breaking away she would. She played the rest of us pretty good. I don’t think Debbie knows what her mother is doing just yet, but when she does find out Sara will have hell to pay. Debbie is a Yames. We like to get our revenge sooner rather than later.
Everybody left the room except for Kate. She stood behind and to the left of me, watching. I looked over my shoulder at her. She wanted to talk, but it would have to wait. I wanted to get everyone else asleep before we talked.
We ate quickly. None of us cared about the trash. It would hold until this whole thing blew over, if that ever happens. Sara took Tayvon and Debbie up to the third floor to sleep. There wasn’t a bed, but I don’t think she gave a shit. She just wants to be away from the rest of us. Debbie did argue that she didn’t want to sleep all the way up there, but her argument fell on a deaf ear. Her mother would have none of it.
Tayvon, on the other hand, knew not to argue. He slinked up the stairs behind the two of them.
Phil took up residence in the living room with Linny and Ernie. It was most likely going to be the same place Kate and I slept, but we stayed in the kitchen. There were things we still had to discuss, and they mostly involved my ex-wife.
“She is going to get some of us killed if she continues to act the way she does,” Kate said.
I nodded. There was no need for me to talk.
“You have to be the one to make sure she understands there are more people here than herself, her dumbass boyfriend, and your daughter.”
“I know this, Kate. There is just one problem. She doesn’t listen to anyone. She is the type of person who thinks she knows more than everyone else in the world. There is no getting through to her. The only way I can think of to do so would be to put her in a no-win situation and then move in to get her out of it. Unfortunately, if we do that there is no guarantee she will survive the outcome. Not to mention, she won’t let Debbie out of her sight. And I ain’t about to put my daughter in a situation like that.”
“I’m not saying for you to do that. I just want her to understand that I’m not going to continue to take her shit.”
I knew where this was going. I don’t blame Kate for doing so. If it wasn’t for Debbie, I would do the same thing. But I still couldn’t allow it to get that far.
“You wait for me to give you permission to do that, you understand?”
Kate sighed, heavily. She didn’t like my stipulation, but she would accept it.
“I will let you handle it until she gets completely out of control. It’s bound to happen, but I will not wait until you give me permission. She puts anyone’s life in danger, then I end hers. That’s all there is.”
It seemed we came to an agreement without coming to an agreement. She was thinking about her niece and nephew while I was thinking about my daughter. There was no way of getting around the dilemma we were in. I could bring in more people, but that would complicate things even further. The main problem between us is just the fact Sara likes to think she is always the person in charge of everything, even if she doesn’t fully understand the situation. Even if she is proven wrong, she will still try to be the one in charge. Then there’s Kate. She’ll never be a leader, always a natural follower. There is nothing wrong with that. That is until someone comes along that tries to alter the course of how things are going. And here I am stuck in between these two women for various reasons.
Kate looked exhausted. I’m sure I did too.
“Why don’t you go get some sleep?” I said to her.
She smiled at me and said, “As long as you do too. It’s still pretty early, but I want to get up early to check on the horses.”
I locked the back door before the two of us exited the kitchen. I didn’t need to worry about the side or front door. We didn’t bother with those two since we’d entered the house.
* * * *
Wednesday, 6 July 2016 (Morning)
Commerce, WV
308 Miles to Pilgrim, Indiana
My internal clock woke me at two in the morning again. There was something I had to do, and I didn’t want anyone else to come with me. This was a personal mission. One that I hadn’t planned on doing in the first place. It just came to me during the night.
I laid there, on the floor of my old living room, thinking about my past while in Commerce. One thing came back to me: an ex-girlfriend. One that I was going to marry, but ended up not marrying. Sara was the person who planted the thought in my head when she said I cheated on her before. When I said I never cheated on anyone that was nothing but the truth.
The whole thing ended with Erin and me rather abruptly. One day she got it into her head she couldn’t marry me because she believed that Sara would try to make it so Debbie hated her (Erin). I tried to explain it didn’t matter what Sara did, but Erin wouldn’t hear it. Naturally, I believed she was calling the wedding off. It seemed that wasn’t so. I didn’t talk to her for a few weeks after she told me about the problem with trying to be a mother for Debbie. When she finally got a hold of me again, we got into an argument about what she meant and then went our separate ways with crying happening on both ends.
In the end, I can’t say I was too upset about what happened. It did turn out she went on to have a successful career as a pediatrician while I went on to marry Hannah and have two more children.
Do I still love Erin? Yes, I do. Nothing will ever change that. Will things ever go back to the way they were even if she is alive? Most likely not.
All I had to do was put my boots on. It gets a little old sleeping in the same clothes for days on end, but you get used to it quickly if you are military. Shit, there was one time I went about a whole month without showering or changing my clothes. That was on my first or second deployment (they pretty much run together in my mind). I stayed as silent as I could as I exited the house. But the person who followed me out didn’t stay as silent.
I could hear whoever it was open the door quickly and slam it shut. My first instinct was to pull my pistol (I had left my rifle in the house). I didn’t though. The person was coming out of the house, not going in. That meant the person was part of my group.
The front of the house offered steps up to the patio lined with a brick wall on either side of the steps. I ducked behind the wall waiting for the person to follow me. She had no idea where I went as she
came around the house. Of course, I couldn’t be too upset with her, I hadn’t been around to teach her how to follow someone effectively. Debbie wouldn’t have been trained in the ways of being covert by her mother, either. So, when she walked out to the street to see which way I had gone, I stepped out from the shadows to confront her.
“What are you doing out here, Debbie?” I asked. I didn’t do it in a mean or overtly startling manner, but it still made her jump.
The scream she let out was deafening even on the open street. It also did one other thing that I didn’t like. Even if there wasn’t anyone on the streets in earshot of that scream, they would be able to find us. I had to get her out of there as fast as possible without letting them know where everyone else was hiding. One way would be to get two of the horses. That option was not going to happen. Firstly, it would take too damn long to get one out of the garage, let alone two. Secondly, the horse’s shoes would make too much noise on the cobblestone of the streets (to include the one we were standing on) we had to travel down.
The only option I could see is running through the yards of the houses around us. I was planning on doing that in the first, but now I had to move quickly.
I took Debbie by the hand and booked it across the street to the west. We went in between two houses, having to jump over a fence, and then cut through the yards of my old neighborhood. We passed one house that used to belong to a good friend of mine, another house that I partied at a lot, and there was another house of a girl I used to know physically. Going through all these places brought back some fond memories of my friends, especially Erin. These are memories I didn’t want to be thinking about. They would only hinder me from doing what I needed to do. Plus, a part of me wanted to check those houses to make sure my old friends weren’t in there. But my military mind told me there was no tactical outcome to checking.
Most of the people from the Commerce area weren’t like me. They didn’t believe in the military regime of the country. They actually protested the wars. For the life of me, I couldn’t even figure out why they were the way they were. None of them knew anything about the military when I did live in the town, and when I tried to explain to them they were wrong in thinking the military and government were at fault for what happened during the wars, no one wanted to listen. That still didn’t stop these people from being my friends. Nor did it stop Sara from trying to get with me. One drunken night at the party house is how it happened. She took full advantage of me, and Debbie was the outcome. There is no way I am at all pissed about that. I love my little girl more than anything; all my kids. But that still didn’t give Sara the right to do what she is doing with my ragtag group.
We emerged on 12th Street, across from Ritter Park. If my memory served me correctly about that park, the path around it was close to a mile long. That meant traveling across it, which was the best way to go about getting to my destination, was about half a mile. That was a half-mile I didn’t want to travel. Ritter Park was nothing but opened land. If the people who tried to attack Tayvon and myself were out there like I thought they were, then they would be able to see us moving along out there.
I wasn’t going to put Debbie in that dangerous type of situation.
No, there was a better way of getting around Ritter Park than having to go to the north and travel through the yards.
A creek ran through the middle of the park. One that offered a six-foot slope on either side of the water; a good three inches taller than I was so I didn’t have to duck to get through it. Last I remembered, it was just a creek bed with little to no water in it. Even if there was water, we would be able to manage our way through just as easily. The best part was that the creek also ran to the house I needed to get to. The house was only a block north of the creek. Of course, it was still another seven blocks west of the park.
Debbie followed me. She hadn’t said a word to me since her scream. I haven’t said anything to her since we left the house. There was no need to further give our position away.
She took my hand to allow me to lower her into the creek bed. I was right in the fact there was little to no water. It had dried out to all but an inch. I didn’t know it at the time, but the city had put in a new drainage system not too far east of the park to try and mitigate how much water went into the park. Not smart thinking in my opinion.
We walked along the creek the entirety of the park. Once we were on the other side, and the sides of the creek were slowly lowering, I finally said something.
“You have to be more careful on how you follow someone. I heard you coming from upstairs long before you even decided to follow me.”
Debbie didn’t seem bothered by my mild scolding of her. She seemed relieved.
“I’m sorry, dad. But I wanted to see what you were doing.”
“I’m going to someone’s house. I just want to make sure she isn’t there.”
“Are you talking about Erin?”
“What do you know about her?”
Debbie didn’t hesitate. To me, it sounded like she had this next part ingrained in her head long before I even got back here.
“She’s the reason you and mom are no longer together.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t in the sense of saying “no,” which is the true case; but in the sense of disgust toward my ex.
“You may not need to hear this at such a young age, but I think you need to hear my side of the story. Your mom will deny what I am going to tell you to the fullest extent, and she probably said the same thing about me denying what she said…”
“She did.”
“I am Jack’s lack of surprise.”
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s from a movie.” I did hesitate. I didn’t want to have this conversation with my daughter ever, but she needed to hear my side. Whether she believed me or not didn’t matter. I was going to put it out there. “Your mom and I didn’t get a divorce because of Erin. Your mom and I didn’t get a divorce because of anyone else besides your mom and I. The two of us are two completely different people. Plain and simple.”
“I don’t think it is as plain and simple as you want it to be, dad. There has to be more there.”
She’s pushing it. No doubt about that. If she wants to hear what I have to say, then so be it.
“Okay, you want my whole side then?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Your mom is what some people would have called hippies back in the seventies. Hell, I still kind of call them that nowadays, but I usually put the word ‘fucking’ in front of it. There was one night, shortly after we got married – you had to be about a year old, so you didn’t travel with your ma down to Hood – that she came down to visit me. You two were going to move down a little later after she finished her first year of college. But she came down and one night I get this call that one of my soldiers was in the hospital. I spent the night in the hospital with him and your mother didn’t believe that’s where I was. She thought I was out with another woman. I wasn’t. Well, to put things in perspective, she wasn’t too happy with the fact she couldn’t control what I did. She told me to get out of the Army as fast as I could. That is the reason we got a divorce.”
“Was Erin even involved in anything?”
“Debbie, you need to stop pushing this Erin thing. At the time, I wasn’t even talking to her. We had a fight because I was trying to do the right thing and ended up marrying your mother.”
“Hold up.” She even stopped. “What do you mean by the right thing?”
“I wanted to be a father to you. So I married her thinking everything would be okay. It wasn’t. It turned out we were complete opposites of each other. And we collided. You obviously know how your mom likes to be the one in charge of every situation…”
“Yeah.”
“…and if she can’t be the one in charge, then she makes it hard for the person who is in charge. Honestly, I think it was your grandmother who was at fault there. Now, I am not here to bad mouth your mom’s side of the family
, that is to include your mom. What you need to understand is that no one is to blame for your mother and I getting a divorce besides the two of us. If she says any different, just roll with the punches.”
We hadn’t moved since Debbie stopped. I finally looked up from her to see how much further we had to go. In truth, we had passed the street I needed to turn down.
“Come on, it’s getting late in the morning, and I still have to check the house.”
“Where is it?”
I pointed to the next street east of us. “Just up the road there.”
She followed me to the street. I easily saw up and down the road we had to cross. There was no danger anywhere. I jumped out, immediately turning around to help Debbie out. We crossed the street and went north one more block. Erin’s house was on the corner. Much like my house, it too was a three-story monster. Clearing it would take forever.
Standing outside of it didn’t offer anything that could help me in determining if it was clear or not. I told Debbie to stay put as I ascended the steps. The door was locked to the completely dark house. I could have broken the window and just walked in, but I wasn’t going to. Had too many fond memories in this house.
We walked to the back of the house instead. The back door was locked as well. The garage was empty. It seemed to me the family had vacated the premises. I wouldn’t get my answer on where Erin could possibly be.
Debbie took my hand with both of hers. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
I offered a wane smile. Even that was painful. I don’t know why it hurt that I couldn’t get an answer on Erin, but it did. It was probably just our history. Either way, she wasn’t there and I had things to do.