Infinite Loop

by Meghan O'Brien

  Regan touched her thigh, and pressed a light kiss to her cheek. “Are you sure you’re up for this, baby? It’s been a hell of a last few weeks.”

  “I think I have to be up for this,” Mel said, and gave Regan a brave smile.

  Regan brushed dark hair away from Mel’s face. “Maybe that’s why we ended up on this trip, in Oklahoma.”

  “Maybe,” Mel agreed. She hoped so.

  “Where does he live?”

  “Only a couple of miles from here.” She shifted the truck into reverse, keeping her foot on the brake. “Look, I don’t expect you to go with me, don’t worry. You can stay in a hotel room or something, or drop me off—”

  “Would you rather I not go?” Regan asked. “Because I’d like to be there for you, if you’ll let me.”

  Mel felt a cold clutch of fear in her gut at the suggestion, even as she was warmed by the fierce loyalty in Regan’s eyes. She wanted Regan to stay with her so badly, but the thought of taking her home to her father was absolutely terrifying. She couldn’t predict how he would react.

  Or how Regan would react.

  “I’m not Mike, baby,” Regan said, as if she could read her thoughts. “Or Lauren. He can’t scare me away. I promise.”

  Mel stared at Regan, thinking about every conversation they’d had, every time they’d made love, every moment spent studying her, unnoticed, with adoring eyes. And she believed her.

  In that instant she knew. “I trust you.” And I think I love you.

  “Thank you,” Regan said. “I won’t let you down.”

  “Even if he’s the biggest asshole you’ve ever met?” Mel asked with a nervous chuckle. She wiped the back of her hand over her eyes, then shifted the truck into reverse.

  “Bring him on. Let him do his worst.”

  Mel pulled out on to the street, sparing Regan a sad smile. “You don’t want to see him at his worst, baby. Trust me.”

  Regan was quiet for a moment, then said, “Tell me about his worst?”

  Breathe in, breathe out, turn left on Maple Road. “You don’t want to hear about that.”

  “I do if you want to talk about it.”

  The last time she’d spoken about the abuse, she was lying on her bed with Lauren. She was seventeen then, and it had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

  It shocked her, how easily the words came now.

  “Like dinner, you know? We were supposed to have dinner on the table when he got home from work.” Mel flexed her fingers on the steering wheel as she spoke. “I remember always listening for the sound of his car pulling in the driveway after school. God, that sound terrified me. My heart would start pounding until I’d want to throw up. And that was even when we had dinner ready. Those few times we didn’t were the worst, but even if we did, if he didn’t like it or something—”

  “It must have been terrible,” Regan said.

  “One time when I was fourteen, I got held up after school tutoring a kid for a math test. Mikey was ten then, and when he realized I was late coming home, he panicked because he was afraid dinner wouldn’t be ready for Dad.” Her voice was calmer than she would have expected. “Mike wasn’t much of a cook, so he was freaking out. Anyway, by the time I got home the food was burnt and he’d made this huge mess in the kitchen.”

  “Shit.”

  “I remember standing there in the kitchen, just frozen, when we heard Dad’s car pull into the driveway.” She felt the fear lance through her belly, just as it had that day. Remembering was tough.

  Regan rested a warm hand on her thigh.

  “God, we freaked out. I grabbed Mikey’s hand and just started running. I dragged him upstairs with me until I got him to his bedroom.” Mel turned and gave Regan a sad smile. “It was my fault, you know, for not watching the clock. I was older. I knew better.”

  “So you went back downstairs,” Regan said.

  Mel nodded. “He was in the kitchen. I could see right away that he’d had a bad day, and he was already pulling his belt off and winding it around his fist.”

  “I have to admit, I’m going to have a hard time looking that bastard in the face,” Regan said. She gave Mel’s thigh a gentle squeeze.

  “That’s okay. So will I.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll walk in there and you’ll look at him and you’ll see that you deserve to be happy. You’ll see that he has no power over you now.”

  Determined, Mel nodded in agreement. “We’re almost there.” After a silent moment, she gave Regan a sidelong glance. “You know the scar below my collarbone?” she asked, and traced her finger over the area in question. “Right here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Burned food and dirty pans.” She managed a humorless chuckle, which died in her throat as they approached a familiar street. “Here we are.”

  Regan reached out and covered the scar Mel had pointed out with the palm of her hand. “I’ll do anything to make sure he never hurts you again.”

  “Just be with me,” Mel said. She pulled up to the curb outside her childhood home and parked the truck. “That’s all I need.”

  “You got it,” Regan said. She followed Mel’s gaze over to the small house. “Are you ready?”

  Mel’s lips stretched into a pained grimace. “I’m trying not to throw up,” she admitted. “I never thought I’d be back here again.”

  “Tell you what,” Regan said, giving Mel’s earlobe a gentle tug. “The sooner we get through this part, the sooner we can go on to the rest of this trip. We have so much ahead of us, no matter what happens tonight.”

  Maybe it was that simple. After all, she’d been on her own for years now, and she had people she cared about who had nothing to do with her father. She could walk away from today and still have someplace to go.

  Mel curled her fingers around the back of Regan’s neck and pulled her into a gentle kiss. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mel plodded up the old concrete walkway that led to her father’s house, eyes glued to her feet. She took deliberate steps, trying to slow her journey to the front door. Step on a crack, and you’ll break your mother’s back. This very walkway had inspired her to that sing-song rhyme many times in childhood, up until the day her mother passed away.

  Regan matched her slow pace, offering quiet support beside her. “Just remember,” she said in a low voice, “you’re an adult now. He can’t hurt you. And I’m here with you, okay? We can leave whenever you want.”

  Mel nodded and looked up at her father’s house. It was just as she remembered it: ugly red brick, heavy wooden door, crumbling front porch surrounded by a rusted black metal railing. The path beneath her feet was overgrown with weeds. She reached the porch steps, and found herself at the front door.

  She knocked hard three times. It was automatic, just like going to a domestic. She bit back a nervous grin at the memory of Hansen’s “three-knock theory” for potentially dangerous situations. Three knocks, I’m telling you, Raines. One knock, maybe you slipped or something. Two, sounds like you don’t have the balls to make a point. Four? Overanxious. Three knocks. Three knocks shows you mean business.

  Her grim amusement quickly turned to nausea as she realized what she was doing. The urge to turn and flee was strong, and she peered in the front window, hoping for a reason to turn away. The curtains were drawn, no lights. Either he wasn’t home or he was passed out already.

  She turned to voice her hopes to Regan. But before she could utter a word, a light flicked on inside the house and footfalls approached. Her heart sped up as she heard the clumsy racket of locks being disengaged.

  I never want you to come back here again. Mel remembered his face, contorted as he shouted at her. He had been standing on the same crumbling front porch. Disgusting queer bitch.

  She flinched when the door opened, and took an involuntary step backward at the sight of her father. She zeroed in on his eyes first; cold steel blue, the same eyes that had narrowed at her countless times, ic
y in their anger. She felt hyper-aware, inhaling in acute fear when she saw his pupils dilate as he looked upon her.

  “Hell, Laney.” His voice was soft and a little awed, but she could hear in his deep timbre the angry refrains of her childhood. The smell of alcohol on his breath sent a shudder through her body, and for a moment she felt like she might pass out. But the discreet presence of Regan’s small hand pressing against her lower back seemed to anchor her to the self that had threatened to slip away the moment she saw her dad. All at once she no longer felt like a child, but like the woman she had become.

  “Dad.” Looking at him with calmer eyes, she was shocked by what she saw. Jesus, he was an old man.

  That towering, menacing specter from her childhood now stood before her, looking every one of his fifty-odd years. He studied her in shocked silence. Although he still stood several inches taller than she, his once-broad shoulders were slumped and he looked weary with age and sickness. His eyes, once cold and hard, were dull and lifeless, and his face was rough with overgrown stubble. He looked sallow and drained and, most of all, entirely unthreatening.

  “Christ, Laney.” A trembling hand reached for her cheek, and Mel moved back to avoid his touch. “You look just like her.”

  Tears stung her eyes unbidden, and Mel fought for control with a will summoned from the bottom of her soul. She would never let him see her cry again. “It’s been a long time,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment, and then he reached out and grabbed her arms, pulling her tightly against him. “Give your old man a hug, girl. It’s good to see you.”

  Mel stiffened in his embrace, hot anger surging through her veins. He was acting like nothing had ever happened. She stepped back, and his hands dropped to his sides.

  “We can’t stay long,” she told him. “We’re supposed to be in New Mexico tomorrow.”

  Martin Raines looked over and took in Regan with a dismissive gaze. “We, huh?” His voice took on a definite chill, giving Mel her first glimpse at the hateful man she remembered.

  “This is my girlfriend, Regan.”

  The shock on her father’s face at the introduction was only slightly surpassed by Mel’s own surprise at having made it. She reached out and wrapped an arm around Regan’s waist, pulling her close. This is my life, Dad. Fuck you.

  “I see,” he said in a flat voice. He stared at the two of them for a moment before visibly relaxing, a wide smile overtaking his face. “Well, come on in. You might as well have something to drink before you have to leave.”

  He turned and walked inside, leaving Mel and Regan to follow behind. Mel turned to Regan, expecting to see her lover freaked out over meeting someone like him.

  Amazingly, Regan seemed at ease. With a warm smile and a tender gaze, she mouthed, You okay?

  Mel thought for a moment. He’s an old man now. He can’t hurt me, and I can do this. She flashed Regan a confident grin and mouthed, Yeah.

  “Beer, Laney?” her father asked from the kitchen doorway.

  “No, thanks. I’m not much of a drinker.”

  “How about your little friend?”

  Mel glared at him. Rude bastard.

  “No thanks, Mr. Raines,” Regan answered. “I don’t drink, either.”

  “Not water or anything, huh?” he snapped.

  Mel turned and fixed her father with hard eyes. “We’re fine.”

  At that he turned away with a shrug, disappearing into the kitchen and leaving them alone for a moment. Mel looked around at the faded fabric couches she remembered so well from when she was a child. She shook her head at the rifles mounted on display at one end of the room.

  “This place looks exactly the same as it did when I left,” she murmured. Everywhere she looked triggered flashes of memory.

  She dropped her eyes to the threadbare brown carpeting, and ran a distracted hand over the worn arm of the couch, the site of one of the most humiliating experiences of her young life. She was twelve years old and she’d received the brutal spanking without shedding a tear, though she’d bit her lower lip so hard that warm blood ran down her chin. “I don’t think he’s changed a thing,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Regan stood so close that Mel could feel the heat from her body.

  Mel straightened up, taking a deep breath. He was old now, and she wasn’t scared of him anymore. She started to smile at Regan, but faltered when she spotted an old patchwork quilt folded at one end of the couch.

  “You ready to hide with me, Melly-belly?”

  Mel looked up into her mother’s laughing gray eyes, giving her a too-wide grin. “It’s dark under there,” she said, pointing at the quilt her mother had draped over her head.

  Elizabeth Raines chuckled at the four-year-old, pulling the quilt up and over both of them. Mel crawled into her mother’s lap, giggling at the silly game, and burrowed into a warm embrace.

  “Yeah, but you’re my brave girl, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine,” Mel said. It was the truth. She gazed around for another moment and then tugged Regan down to sit on the couch beside her. From the kitchen she heard the telltale sounds of glass and bottle clinking together; her father was fixing a drink. “Great,” she muttered in a soft voice. “Prepare for him to turn up the charm.”

  “Super,” Regan whispered. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

  “I’m finding that I don’t much care about what he likes and doesn’t like,” Mel said. “He’s…God, it doesn’t matter now, you know?”

  “See?” Regan murmured, smiling. “I knew you could do this.”

  Mel was grinning at that when her father returned to the living room, a glass of amber liquid in his right hand.

  “How’ve you been?” he asked, settling in his favorite chair with a low groan. “I was hoping you would come by, but I figured you’d be too busy to see your old man.”

  “I thought the doctors told you to stop drinking, Dad.” Mel blinked in surprise at her own bold words.

  His response was to glower in her direction, which sent a brief ripple of fear through her body at the familiarity of it all. “Who told you that?”

  The fear vanished when her father took a defiant sip of his beer, smacking his lips for emphasis. He really is pathetic. For Mel the realization was sudden and complete, and it altered her in ways she couldn’t yet define. Why have I let him make me so miserable for so long?

  “I saw Mike today,” she told him. “He mentioned that you’d been diagnosed with liver disease.”

  “Kid should worry about his own life and keep out of mine.” He took a deep, rasping breath. “Don’t you worry about me, young lady…Besides, it’s a special occasion. My beautiful daughter home again after all these years.”

  Who was he channeling? Mel tried to keep her voice steady. “I am worried about Mike.”

  “He’s not doing shit with his life. Fucking shame.”

  “And what a surprise, too.” Mel avoided looking at her father with the fury she knew was in her eyes.

  “You, on the other hand…” He gave her a leering smile and raised his glass in a mock toast. “Looks like you’re doing well for yourself.”

  Mel’s eyes were cold. “We’re talking about Mike right now, Dad,” she said. “Aren’t you concerned about him? Or have you been as supportive of him as you were of me?”

  They seemed to share a moment of shocked silence at her naked sarcasm. Her father recovered first, giving her a blank look. “What are you trying to say? I’ve done everything I could for that boy.”

  “Except believe in him,” Mel said. “Dad, you know you’ve never made him feel like he was worth a damn. Maybe if he didn’t think he was such a hopeless loser, he’d have the will to turn his life around.” It was something she’d wanted to say to her father for years, and she felt a great weight lifted from her soul as the words left her mouth.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her father took an absent-minded swig of his drink
. “Mike wouldn’t have problems if he’d been more like you—motivated, always working toward your goals.”

  Mel worked her jaw in silence. Was he really this stupid? Did he think she wouldn’t remember how it was? “I find it hard to believe that you have much idea about how I’ve really turned out.”

  “You’re on the beat,” her father said, raising his glass again. “I know that much.”

  “I’m quitting,” Mel said. She suppressed a smirk at the mute shock in his eyes. “I’m actually going to hand in my resignation when I get home from this trip.”

  Blue eyes grew cold and angry. His expression mingled disapproval and disbelief, and it was almost comical in its exaggeration. “What?”

  She gave him a calm smile. “I don’t want to be a cop anymore.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” her father snarled. “What do you think you’re going to do now?”

  “I haven’t exactly decided yet,” Mel answered. She flicked a small sideways smile at Regan. “Maybe something in art.”

  Her father dropped his face into one hand and shook his head. “Both of my kids are fucking idiots.” When he looked up at her again, his eyes were full of dark challenge. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  You’re a stupid little girl for wasting your time with this bullshit. She had been fourteen years old when her father destroyed most of her drawings and supplies in a drunken rage. His anger and disdain had banished art to a very private and personal corner of her mind, never shared with anyone again. Now she wanted it back.

  Mel shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s my dumb thing.”

  “How are you going to take care of yourself? You have responsibilities.”

  “What responsibilities?” Mel could see where this was going.

  “Don’t you understand, Laney? I’m sick. One faggot doctor tells me—” Her father stopped speaking, hissed out a breath through clenched teeth, then set his glass down on the coffee table. He pinned her with pleading eyes. “Listen, I can’t depend on Mike. I’m counting on you to help me out.”