“I’m calling the police,” I say with a calmness I didn’t know I possessed. “If you stay on my property and try to fight for her, it’s attempted kidnapping. You both need to leave,” I say to Gaye and her husband.
“You’ve been a failure as a mother, Faye, just like I always told you. It’s nice to actually witness it blowing up in your face.”
“Kind of like how it blew up on you when I left you?” I fire back.
Preston takes mom’s arm and begins urging her toward the opened door behind them. After a moment, she willingly follows and they move onto the porch, Gaye turns to face me with her mouth opened, but I slam the door before she can get a word out. My heart’s pounding and I feel like I don’t know what to do. My hands shake as I call the clubhouse looking for Sven. He doesn’t answer, but Rocket does and tells me he’ll give him the message as soon as he can.
I go up to Kendall’s room once I get the little ones settled with PB&J sandwiches in the kitchen. “Mad About You” by Belinda Carlisle is coming from behind the door so I don’t know if she could hear me knock, so I slowly open the door.
“What?” she yells at me.
“Hello, what do you mean what? What the hell do you think I’d possibly want to talk about, Kendall?”
“Ugh, I fucking hate it here! Why can’t you just let me leave? You have Dornan now and Maven’s like your adopted kid.”
“That’s not fair Kendall!” I lash out, pointing my index finger at her. “If something happened to me I’d want to know someone was taking care of you.”
She laughs with zero humor. “Like when you were a drug addict? Someone did have to take care of me. And not fair? My whole life’s been ‘not fair’,” she air quotes. “You’ve never fucking cared about me, not one second.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yell, opening my arms.
“No,” she says calmly, “I’m not kidding you.”
“I’ve always done everything for you. Yes, I fucked up and used drugs and I did terrible shit…I’m sorry. When you get older you’ll maybe understand all this better.”
“Do you even know what happened to me?” she says, looking at me with hardened eyes.
My jaw tightens, “No, you know I don’t and part of that is because you won’t tell me! You hang it over my head and use it all against me instead of talking to me and working things out. I love you, Kendall, even though you think I don’t. I pray every day that I wake up and you finally wanna talk to me and we can move on. This resentment, this is what it was like growing up with Gaye, and I don’t want that with us.”
“You used to shoot up in front of me, pass out, leave me in the bathtub for hours, forget to feed me, leave me with strangers…”
My heart drops and my eyes close, because it’s hard to hear your sins and the wrong things you’ve done, but at least she’s talking to me.
“Does that make you feel bad?” she asks.
“Worse than bad Kendall, it devastates me,” I reply instantly, opening my eyes.
Hers are still impenetrable and looking at me with such hardness that it breaks my heart.
“Good,” she states, turning her back on me.
We stand in the silence, my mind racing with all the things I want to say, but my voice not able to come out.
“I’m miserable here…” she whispers, her voice pausing as she shakes her head. “Sometimes…sometimes I wish you’d never stopped using and you just left us and disappeared,” she adds.
I swallow the sob as my eyes water and her words cut me like a knife.
“Then go with your grandmother,” I sniffle. “Go and be happy with her. I hope she can make you happy and give you what I can’t.”
I don’t wait for her to reply or to even look at me before leaving the room.
It feels like I’ve paced the foyer for hours, listening for any signs that Kendall’s gonna come stomping down the steps to leave, but she doesn’t. Gaye and her husband left not long after they realized no one was coming outside for them. Finally, Sven shows up, the rumble of his bike engine has me feeling I can get a grip of what’s happening. Inhaling deeply, I try to calm myself as I watch Sven ruffle Dornan’s hair as the kids play tag out front. His boots stomp on the steps as he pulls open the creaking screen door and sees me. He’s here because I called the clubhouse, so he knows somethings wrong. But his concerned eyes have me closing mine, because he’s looking at me like he did when we were in therapy together at drug rehab, and I don’t ever want him to look at me like that again.
“Gaye was here. She and Kendall have been communicating with the help of Ida. They made arrangements for Kendall to go with her for the summer.”
He stands there, looking at me and I can’t read his expression. It’s changed from concern to confusion.
“Did she leave with her?” he asks.
“No, I sent them on their way and Kendall to her room,” I tell him, putting my hands on my hips.
“You don’t want her to go?”
My brows raise as I feel like maybe I’ve been transported to space or something.
“Why would I?”
“Why not, if that’s what she wants to do-”
“She’s seventeen, for one. For two, do you even know where Gaye lives? I don’t. Three, Gaye’s got a new husband who could be a child rapist for all we know-”
“Missy, I think you’re being a little extreme.”
“Extreme?” I look at him, then slowly, realization dawns on me. “Oh, I see…you still think she’d be better off with Gaye and not me.”
“Missy,” he sighs, and there’s my answer right there.
“No, I get it. I haven’t done one good thing for that girl.
“Missy,” he repeats.
“Fuck off, Sven,” I whisper as the tears I held back in Kendall’s room threaten again.
“Does it really surprise you that she wanted to talk to Gaye?”
I don’t answer him as I turn and head toward the kitchen, grabbing my purse and walking out the back door. I drive to Bannister and see Dr. Hastings. I need to talk out how I feel and not have Sven reminding me I’m a bad mother and why Kendall hates me. I just want someone to listen to me, not judge me and throw in my face as to why Kendall would do this. Just listen. Just let me be hurt and understand why. Kendall makes me feel invisible and maybe that, the not acknowledging me as a person helps her deal with what happened to her.
After talking to him, I do feel marginally better and like my feelings are justified. When I get home, I notice the lights upstairs are off and know I missed Dornan’s bedtime. I’ve made a promise to always be there for him, even for bedtime routines and I sit in the driver’s side of the car reminding myself that missing one bedtime doesn’t make me the worst mom in the world. Ambrosia’s “Biggest Part of Me” is playing on the radio and I let the music relax me. Along with my words, I feel better and finally emerge from the car.
Sven’s sitting on the porch, he must’ve come out sometime after I pulled up. He’s sitting on the swing and watches as I walk up and onto the decking. Because I need to close the physical and emotional distance, I sit down beside him on the swing. His arm goes behind me as he looks over, his bare feet slowly beginning to rock us.
“Do you know Gaye told me my dad died? I think that’s what bothers me most about what happened earlier. I thought I didn’t care, but…” I stop and look out at the yard before us.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“I went to see Dr. Hastings.”
“I'd like you to talk to me too, when you need to talk.”
“Don’t worry, I'm not gonna use.”
Although I was a forced addict, I can’t erase how good the high ever was and how the high would help me ease all the pain.
“I do worry, all the time, not just now,” he admits.
I inhale and look over at him, my hand reaching out to run my fingers down along his beard and I rest my head on his shoulder as his hand pulls me into his body.
“
You know for a long time, Gaye accused that my dad was the father of Kendall. I never believed it, obviously, because I knew it wasn't true. But she tried so hard to put things into my head. I always loved my dad and she turned that into something wrong and evil. She robbed me of just loving him and turned it into every time he did anything nice for me, that it was because he wanted me. Do you know how fucked up thinking that is?”
Sven’s hand strokes my bare shoulder and rests his cheek on the top of my head.
“But today, Gaye hit me with reality. He just left us here, no looking back or checking on our welfare. I needed him, and he just left us like we were nothing to him. And that outrages me. And talking to Hastings, I realize I've done the same to Kendall.”
“No, you haven't,” he says firmly.
“I would do anything for her, but my actions show otherwise and now she feels like when people say they love her it’s selfish and means nothing. I did that to her!”
“Missy, that’s hardly the same thing,” Sven says. “Kendall’s just…she’s confused and doesn’t understand some things. Nothing you or I can say will make her understand. That’s something that comes with time and maturity. You had one bad year. The time around that makes up for any wrong doing you think you did.”
Robbie Dupree’s “Steal Away” plays from the radio in the kitchen and wafts out through the open windows. Rubbing my eyes with my hands. My brain hurts, I’m overloaded and confused and I just can’t think anymore.
“I just want it to end. I know I don’t deserve for her to forgive me completely, but when do I get forgiveness? When do I get a pardon?”
“I don’t know,” he finally says. “I don’t know.”
**
That night, I’m awoken suddenly, my heart racing as I wake though nothing outright seems to be wrong. A breeze blowing through the open windows has the sheers dancing lazily, Sven’s breathing rhythmically beside me and I think maybe the wind knocked something over. But then I hear something coming from downstairs and Kendall’s voice. I can’t decipher what she said, just her voice. I get out of bed slowly to not disrupt Sven and make my way out of our room, noticing Kendall’s bedroom door is open. More racket comes from downstairs and I recognize it’s coming from the kitchen as I make my way closer. The lights are on, and I not only hear Kendall giggling, but also another giggle accompanies hers.
“What the fuck is going on?” I state, watching Kendall and the neighbor girl, Sofia, both drinking from Jack Daniels bottles.
They both startle and Sofia drops her bottle onto the floor.
“Shit, Sof,” Kendall snaps as they both move aside to avoid getting the spilled alcohol on them.
Sofia, who’s much older than Kendall, is dressed provocatively in a short dress and high heels, and I see too that my daughters dressed similarly. Stomping over, I swipe the bottle from Kendall’s hand and she looks at me like a deer in headlights.
“It’s my fault-” Sofia begins.
“Good night,” I cut her off as my focus remains on Kendall.
Listening to Sofia’s heels quickly clap on the hardwood floor, the front door opening and then closing, my eyes never leave Kendall. She’s not looking shocked anymore but has fixed that mask of disdain she has for me firmly into place.
“Don’t even start to lecture me,” she begins.
“Talk to me,” I demand.
“No,” she scoffs.
“Yes,” I bite out, grabbing her bicep as she attempts to move past me.
“No!”
“I’m done with this, Kendall. I’m not going to give you the right to hate me until you tell me why.”
“You know why,” she growls as she tries pulling her arm free.
“That’s not good enough, I’m sick of this, sick of you treating me this way, sick of having this tension between us, sick of you being miserable here.”
“You never wanted to know before.”
“Well I do now.”
“Takes someone else giving a shit about me for you to finally want to know,” she sneers.
“No, it took people like your dad telling me to move on with my life and not give you the attention. I can’t do that, I can’t be like this with you. Not you, Kendall.”
I see her nostrils flare as her eyes begin to brim with tears, her jaw tightening as she tries to pull her arm away from me again.
“Tell me.”
“You left me with strangers, what do you think happened?!” she shouts.
Her words have me staggering back a step, my hip colliding with the countertop. I know she’s told me I left her places before, but it all finally clicks. In this moment I realize that my worst fears for her had happened and it didn’t occur to me until now what she was trying to tell me without really telling me.
“Who?” I ask after a long moment, my voice barely a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Jasper?” I rush out.
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeats, her voice breaking as the tears fall.
Inhaling deeply as I feel my own tears begin to fall down my face, I pull her against me, hugging her so tight I can barely breathe. In that moment, I feel vindicated for what we did to Jasper.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeat as we both cry and I kiss the top of her hair.
I feel like it’s been years since she’s let me hold her, touch her, comfort her and I bask in the closeness, never wanting it to end. But only moments later, she’s pulling free and taking off for the front door. “Kendall!” I call after her, but the screen door claps shut.
I stand there, my emotions wrung out. What happened to her was the worst I’d ever imagined. How do I even begin helping her? She won’t talk to Dr. Hastings, she won’t talk to me or Sven. Maybe Ida?
**
The next morning, I knock on Kendall’s door. I’d stayed awake in bed listening for her and she finally snuck back into the house through her bedroom window a few hours after leaving.
“Come in,” she says groggily on the other side of the door.
Opening it, I step in and move to sit on the side of her bed. Her curtains are drawn and she’s burrowed under her pastel pink comforter.
“I’m leaving this doctors number by the phone,” I tell her, sliding the slip of paper under the pink phone on her white wicker bedside stand. “He’s a specialist who works with kids and teenagers. He won’t talk to me or Sven about anything you discuss unless he thinks you might harm yourself, but we’ll drive you to your appointments, whenever or how many times you wanna go, we’ll take you.”
Before she can protest, I get up and leave her as she was. It took a few days, but she finally asked Sven for a ride to her first appointment and I knew my little girl was going to be okay, and I knew that regardless of whether she stayed mad at me forever or not, I knew she at least had a chance at a normal life now.
33
SVEN
I’m walking into Ivan’s office in the clubhouse, Owen beside me as we face his father sitting at the dark wood desk. I have no idea what this is about, only that Owen came to my office at the strip club and asked me to go with him for a meeting with Ivan.
“I’m just gonna cut to the chase,” Ivan begins. “I’m retiring soon and both Owen and I feel like maybe he shouldn’t be president. We think you’d be a more fitting leader.” Ivan says to me.
My brows furrow. I know Owen’s been a fucking disaster since Shine died, but I can’t help but fear that Owen had no say in this.
“Whose decision was this really?” I ask, looking between the two men.
“Mine,” Owen tells me confidently.
I face him, brows still pulled down as I think about what’s being asked of me. The responsibility is massive, the honor great. But I know that accepting this will mean a lot will change and I can’t just make that decision.
“You’ve showed intelligence in your decisions when it comes to the club. You’re smart and fearless. Owen understands he’s not cut out for that responsi
bility. Maven needs to be his number one priority. Maybe in time, between the two of you, something can be worked out and Owen could take over…I don’t know. But I feel you’re the best choice to lead the MC right now.
When I get home, I wait until we’re in bed for the night to talk to Missy about it. She helps me weigh the pros and cons and just listens. Just talking it out, I know my answer before I finish and know that it’s not just me who’s taking on responsibility.
“You’re gonna be a mom to a lot of these guys, you’ll have to deal with me not here all the time. You need to be willing to take this on with me.”
With a nod, she leans over to kiss me, answering my question. The next day, I take Dornan aside and talk to him about it.
“I’m not saying that because I’ll be president that you’ll have to follow my footsteps or some shit. My old man wanted me in the club no matter what and I’d never want you to do something you don’t want.”
He’s young, but I know he understands me and I want him to know, even now that he can do anything he wants with his life. I never want him to feel like I expect this or that from him.
“Okay dad,” he says after a long moment. “You happy?” he adds.
I give him a small smile and rough the top of his head with my hand. Always wise this little boy of mine.
“Yes, I’m happy,” I tell him, leaning down to kiss his temple and pull him into my side.
His words and seal of approval have me remembering how I longed for this relationship with my old man. How different I always promised things would be with my own kids. That I meant nothing to my parents, yet my kids mean the world to me, I just hope they know it.
MISSY
I find myself going to the clubhouse, looking for Owen and finding him in his apartment. It reeks inside the small room, and shits piled in the corners. Fleetwood Mac is playing on a record player, a record I know was Shine’s favorite. Owen’s laying on the bed, sweaty and shirtless, a bandana across his forehead and tied at the back of his greasy haired head. Shine’s stones and crystals are tossed haphazardly on the dresser, her precious tarot cards are there too, and I notice some of her clothes are strewn under him on the bed. He’s got a bottle of tequila in one hand and a photo of her in the other. Sitting down on the end of the bed, I look at his face, seeing tear tracks on both cheeks as he looks back at me with watery eyes.
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