If I were lucky he simply wouldn’t speak to me, middle of the road I would receive a lecture. I really hoped it would be either of those things. To be sure, Sunday dinner would be an uncomfortable one. Not that it was ever filled with the warmth I found at Dray’s table with Everett. I bowed my head in prayer with the rest of my father’s congregation, going through all of the motions as a dutiful pastor’s daughter. Meanwhile, the inside of my head, the inside of my heart, was a raging tempest of emotions and ‘what if’s’.
What if he asked me why I was late? What would I say? Gee, I apologize Dad, I spent the night on the couch with a tattooed heathen biker who I’m pretty sure has never set foot in a traditional church. What? Oh, no. We haven’t had sex, I’m still a virgin. No Daddy, I’m not a whore! I grimaced. I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t already, that would be the point I would get a taste of the back of his hand. Whether it would be for what I had done with Zander or for disagreeing with him would be up in the air. I squeezed my mother’s hand and she squeezed mine back twice with both of hers.
She smiled pleasantly at me and I smiled serenely back even if I were sick with wondering, with fear at what my daddy’s reaction would be. There was really nothing I could do but wait and see how he would handle things. He was such an exacting man, everything had to be just so and appearances, well appearances meant everything. I had long since given up hope of ever pleasing him. Of ever having my father be proud of me for anything. No. The only reason I came back here, the only reason I continued to silently endure, was gripping my hand with both of hers until her knuckles became mottled and they shook, trembling in my grasp.
We rose together and sang the selected hymn. Voices strong and unwavering and I felt so incredibly tired despite what a warm, safe and good night’s sleep I had had the night before. I flashed back to the hospital waiting room, the morning Everett had been shot while my father preached about doing good works, about selfless acts of kindness. I’d gotten to the hospital as soon as I could. I’d left my parent’s home, my old room, in the wee hours of the morning. My father had been upset about being woken, but I’d like to believe that at his very heart, he was still a decent man in some ways, just not exactly where his family was concerned.
I’d told him and my mother it was Everett, that the hospital had called and that she was in the emergency department. Everett had signed papers when she’d made me her emergency contact after her father had died telling the hospital that it was alright to tell me what she had been admitted for so when I’d told them it was a gunshot wound, my mother had cried out in dismay, and hugged me and my father, well he had held my coat for me to shrug in to. It was the nicest thing I think I can probably ever remember him doing.
I’d arrived and spilled through the emergency room doors and straight into a hulking pile of biker muscle in the form of most of the Sacred Hearts local charter. Zander had stepped out of the crowd in his black denim vest, and the look of raw sympathy flashing in the chocolate caramel depths of his eyes, drove me dodging around the lot of them and towards the back where I called for my best friend. I’d found her tearstained and bloody in a hospital bed, Dray hovering at her side like an angry dark shadow. An avenging angel if I’d ever seen one and I felt the fear constricting my heart ease. She was out of it but she was alive and seeing her let me know she would be okay.
Zander’s hands had descended on my shoulders and I’d startled, but their weight was a comforting thing as he’d gently pulled me back, steering me towards the waiting room. He’d taken care of me. Been a comforting presence at my side and someone solid that I could lean on while the implications of what could have happened sunk in. I’d almost lost the only person I could ever count on. My rock in an otherwise storm swept sea. Everett had been shot. She could have died and I would have been left cast adrift without anything or anyone to anchor me like she had since we were kids.
A paper cup of hot coffee had been thrust into my hands, murmuring voices had filled my head but Zander hadn’t wavered. Hadn’t moved from my side. He’d sat beside me, a hand on my knee, the other rubbing up and down my back for as long as I had needed him to stay. That had been the second to last time I had felt anything like that until last night.
The congregation rose and I followed suit, just a touch behind the rest, so lost was I to the memory. I stole a glance at my father who hadn’t noticed my day dreaming, thank goodness, and looked over my mother’s shoulder at her hymnal to find the right page in my own. Mrs. Patterson began to play the old electric organ and our voices rose in an old favorite of my mother’s which made me smile. We sang, voices lilting, retaking our seats after my father asked us to be seated. He gave his closing thoughts and the final prayer and we rose. A short time later, we took our places at the front door to shake hands and well wish as his flock left the sanctuary and eventually the church to enjoy the rest of their day.
Only a bit longer and my mother and I would find out what kind of mood my father would be in. We waved goodbye to the last of the congregation as they pulled out of the lot and my father turned, I flinched but all he did was affix me with a steely gaze, mouth compressed into a thin line of displeasure, before he marched back into the church. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My mother fixed me with a worried gaze.
“What happened, Baby?” she asked me.
“I slept through my alarm,” I said miserably. Which was the truth, she didn’t need to know the why of it. Neither of them did. I was too afraid of disappointing them both. My mother took my hand and tucked it into the crook of her arm while we waited for my dad to come back out and lock up. She and I murmured back and forth about dinner plans and some baking she wanted to accomplish before Thanksgiving. We both fell silent as my dad locked the front door. He turned, gave me death’s own glare and stalked to the car without a word. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and my mother did too. It was to be the silent treatment then. No cutting remarks, no verbal flogging, no slaps or cuffs or hits.
“I’ll see you at the house baby girl.” My mother hugged me and dashed towards my father’s car getting into the passenger side. He looked at her and barked something and my mother shrank in on herself. I huddled miserably in on myself and made for my car. He pulled out of the lot and I got into my little Focus and followed. I pulled up to the curb in front of my parent’s little two story bungalow style house and joined my mother on the front walk. My father stalked inside without a single backwards glance and I figured it was fifty-fifty on if the silent treatment would endure or on if I would receive a dinner time lecture on what it means to be on time or about appearances.
Well, there was a third option too, now that I was contemplating it as I moved about my old familiar kitchen with my mother, he might go the passive aggressive route and just make some sort of cutting remark during the meal time prayer. Those were always fun. Usually, it was something snarky that if I looked at him or made a defensive remark would just get me back handed, which was sometimes preferable to the seething anger or crushing hurt those remarks left behind, making me feeling three inches tall.
It was a wonder I hadn’t gone completely homicidal or suicidal by now where my father was concerned. I think that was mostly due to Everett. She was the glue that held me fast when my father was hell bent on tearing me down or apart depending on his mood for the day.
“So!” my mother smiled and murmured briskly when we heard the television turn on to whatever football game happened to be going on that day. My father was a die-hard Patriot’s fan. I looked at her and she smiled guiltily and captured her bottom lip between her teeth, shrugging her shoulders. I smiled conspiratorially and went for my purse.
“So I tried making Nanna’s white chocolate, pumpkin spice filled maple leaves this time.” I murmured and brought out the tiny box my mother peeked into the living room and I handed her one and took one myself. We both popped them in our mouth at the same time. Her eyes rolled up in bliss and she nodded rapidly.
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��You did it m’girl!” she whisper-cried. We knew better than to disturb daddy’s football game.
“Melinda!” he called. My mom quickly chewed and swallowed the rest of her chocolate and called back.
“Yes dear!?”
“Bring me a root beer!” he called.
“I’ve got it Daddy!” I called.
He shouted back, “Is your name Melinda!?” I bit my lips together and my mother sighed softly and gave me a sad smile. I nodded and handed her a root beer from the fridge, the good kind, in the bottle. My mother opened it and took it and a glass out to my dad.
“I don’t want that!” he said irritably and my mother returned with the glass.
I swallowed, mouth dry, and we set to work fixing dinner. If my dad knew about the chocolates before dinner… Holy crap. He would have gone off. My father, in addition to being a pastor, had this antiquated notion about how things should be in his home. No sweets before dinner, dinner always served by six, homework done by seven and everyone in bed by eight. It’s how it had always been. Exceptions rarely, if ever, made.
My mother and I set to work in earnest fixing a decadent Sunday dinner of glazed ham, biscuits, salad, green beans and mashed potatoes. We always, always, ate at the dining room table. Television off. Table must be set precisely one half hour before any food came out. Not a thing out of place, the house immaculately kept to the point it looked as if it came from a magazine spread.
We all took our places at the table that would normally seat six. My father at the head, my mother to his right and me to his left. We bowed our heads and my father began the meal time prayer.
“Dear Heavenly Father, we would like to give thanks this evening for the food we are about to eat, for the health of our family and for my congregation. Thank you Father, for gifting me with eloquence and allowing me to speak your word to so many this morning,” he paused and I thought to myself, here it comes and sure enough, “Father, I would ask that you teach my willful daughter obedience, so that she may attract a proper husband, and gift her with the intelligence to read and understand time, so that she may not be late in the future to partake in your teachings. Amen.”
I cringed inwardly and squashed my inner voice, which for the moment sounded a lot like Everett screaming, Why don’t you just trade me for six goats and a cow while you’re at it Dad!? I bit the inside of my cheek and clenched my jaw firmly shut on the notion of saying any such thing to my temperamental father and instead quietly said ‘amen’ and unfolded my napkin in my lap.
“Why were you late Autumn?” he asked. I swallowed hard and rolled my lips together, smoothing them and suddenly wished for some lip balm. Which was crazy, I had to answer him, my thoughts just didn’t want to. I decided on the truth, which was rarely if ever a good idea, but I tried valiantly to do as my father bid me, and he bid me constantly to be honest.
“I slept through my alarm Daddy. I apologize, it won’t happen again.” Short and sweet, I didn’t even try to argue my case. There was no saying anything about long hours in the shop I shared with Everett, nothing about staying hours after closing to perfect this or that recipe, or to make sure there were enough chocolates to stock the display case for the upcoming holidays. My daddy was an exacting man and with a hard twist in the center of my chest, I painfully realized just how much I missed Mr. Moran, Everett’s dad. It broke my heart that my father couldn’t or wouldn’t love me like Mr. Moran loved Everett and even me.
“Sloth is one of the severest sins. The church is holding a fundraiser just before the holidays. I expect you there to help,” he said.
“Yes, Daddy,” I nodded and he banged a fist on the table top causing the flatware to jump, myself and my mother along with it.
“Don’t use that sullen tone with me girl!” he raised his voice.
“I apologize, I didn’t mean for it to sound that way, I just meant that of course I would be there to help!” I stared at my father wide eyed, and held still. He stared at me with an unfriendly gaze and my mother interjected quietly.
“Jim, darling, I’m sure our Mandy-girl didn’t mean for it…” my dad’s hand flashed out and caught my mother in the mouth in an open handed slap. My mother cried out and pressed both of her small hands over the red print left behind and pressed her lips together, her shoulders hunching, eyes downcast and subservient, I did the same, casting my eyes to my plate. The silence was the loudest I had ever heard it. All of us tense.
“Eat your dinner. The both of you,” my father ordered and with shaking hands my mother and I automatically began to shovel small bites of food into our mouths. There were no tears. We didn’t cry. My father had no use for tears and all they did was make him come unglued even harder. We finished the meal in tense silence and waited patiently for daddy to get up and go back to his football game. As soon as he did my mother and I travelled wraithlike between the dining room and kitchen, clearing the plates.
I was on the final trip from the dining table to the kitchen when I caught my mother at the kitchen sink. She gripped the edge as one side of the two basin sink filled with hot sudsy water. Her fingers turning white from her death grip on the counter. She bowed her head and her shoulders shook with silent sobs. I went to her and hugged her from behind. My mother always tried to draw his ire off of me, sometimes, like today, it worked. Other times, not so much. I hugged her from behind and Everett’s words from two weekends ago echoed back to me.
For the first time ever, I contemplated it. I really did. I wondered what the look on my father’s face would be if he opened the front door to see Dray or even Zander standing on the stoop with vengeance in their hearts. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes as my mother sobbed at our kitchen sink. I prayed really hard for forgiveness and that my father would realize what a bastard he was and would come to his senses, would seek out some help… I’d been praying for these things for as long as I could remember and they hadn’t happened yet.
“Why do you stay with him?” I whispered and my mother patted my hand with hers.
“You wouldn’t understand Mandy-girl, you wouldn’t understand.” She sniffed and wiped beneath her eyes and thrust her hands into the hot water filling the sink. She was right, I didn’t understand. I don’t think there was anything that would ever make me understand.
She washed, I dried. It was how it had always been. Our kitchen didn’t have a dishwasher. When everything was in its place, and everything sparkled and looked perfect as it should, I gathered my purse from the kitchen chair under the wall-mounted telephone. Another testament to my father’s outdated and antiquated way of thinking. The house had a land line and he wouldn’t hear anything of carrying a cellphone.
“I love you, Mom,” I murmured and hugged her close.
“Oh, I love you too Mandy-girl,” she hugged me tightly.
“Daddy! I’m leaving!” I called.
“Drive safe, Autumn,” he grumbled from the living room, but don’t mistake it for being a sweet gesture, no. He just didn’t want to pay higher insurance premiums or for any damage done to my car. I’d been amazed that my mom and dad had bought it for me in the first place upon graduation but had later found out that Mr. DelBene, a congregant who owned a dealership had suggested it and that he had given them an incredible deal on the car. My father never missed an opportunity to look good, like an upstanding pillar of the community or like a doting and loving father. He believed in leading his flock by example. If only his flock knew what an utter farce his examples were.
I left quietly and drove home. My mood, as always after a Sunday spent with my family, was sullen and borderline morose. I pulled up to the curb in front of the house I shared with Everett and Dray in our quiet little neighborhood and just felt mentally and emotionally drained. Like I had no energy whatsoever. I dragged myself up the front steps and let myself into the house and found Dray slouched down low on the couch.
“Hey,” he said, dark eyes sweeping from my booted feet to my face where his dark eyes stopped cold and his eyeb
rows came down in a crushing frown.
“C’mere,” he ordered struggling to sit up. I sighed and complied dropping onto the couch a cushion away. I knew Dray was a sweetheart deep down inside by the way he looked at my best friend, by the way he treated her and yes even me, but he was still a deep and dark and brooding soul on a good day and intimidating as could be.
“Talk to me,” he leveled me with that dark and thoughtful gaze of his.
“Nothing to really talk about, had a nice visit with my folks…” he snorted cutting me off.
“That’s bullshit!” he called me out. I bit my lips together. He looked me over thoughtfully.
“Where’s Everett?” I asked.
“Dance studio. Don’t change the subject. You go over there every Sunday and come home looking like someone just kicked your favorite puppy.”
I flinched inwardly and hoped like heck it didn’t show on the outside. I fixed Dray with my best wide eyed innocent look, which pretty much doubled as my deer in the headlights look which is really how I was feeling right now. He sighed out and raked his fingers through his hair, pulling it back from his face when I’d been silent too long.
“You gonna make me ask?” he demanded and gave me a hard flinty look. I nodded mutely and his mouth cracked wide into a grin.
“You can be a royal pain in the ass just like Em you know that?” he demanded and my shoulders dropped.
“You guys have an argument?” I asked. He gave a shrug that could mean nothing and could mean everything, his face impassive. I sighed and got to my feet.
Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V Page 6