by Jessie Cooke
Gabe sighed and Chance knew there was more to it even before he said, “She’s not saying it’s your fault he disappeared any longer...but now she’s saying she thinks you killed him.”
An hour later Chance stood in front of the hotel room door at the French Market Inn. Gabe had seen her close to the hotel earlier in the day, and it was usually where she stayed. Chance knew the girl at the desk well; he’d gone to school with her most of his life. As soon as he walked in, she had smiled and asked, “Are you here to see your sister?”
He’d smiled back and told her he was and then casually said, “Sorry, what room was she in again?” Without sounding suspicious at all, that she might have any inkling that Chance was probably the last person Poppy wanted to see, she’d looked at the computer and said:
“She’s in 208.” Chance thanked her and headed for the elevator. He was almost there when the girl said, “Hey, Chance, how’s Sharon? When’s she due?” Chance swallowed the huge lump in his throat and forced another smile.
“She’s good. Not due for a couple months.”
“Well, tell her I’m thinking about her. I’d love to see the baby when he’s born. I’ll bet the two of you make one hell of a beautiful kid.” Chance had to turn his back on her then. He couldn’t even force it. Hoping his voice didn’t give him away, he pushed the up button on the elevator and said:
“Thanks, Candace, I’ll tell her.”
Now he stood outside room 208, willing himself to knock on the door. Blackheart was going to be pissed if he found out that Chance had left, but after Gabe told him why his sister was there this time, he couldn’t just leave it alone. It hurt him to think that she could actually believe he would hurt Bubba...and after what had happened with Sharon that morning he was beginning to wonder what he’d done to all of them, to make them believe he was a monster that went around killing children. He’d been round and round with Poppy about Bubba more times than he could count over the past five years, both on the phone and in person...he couldn’t think of anything new to say, but he had to convince her somehow that he didn’t hurt...much less kill...their brother.
He finally lifted his hand and the door was pulled open before his knuckles contacted it. Poppy was staring at him with one hand on her hip, like she’d been expecting him. His little sister was still beautiful, and now that she was beginning to look more like a woman and less like a girl, even more so. She had darker hair than his, a chestnut brown color, and it was naturally curly. It lay in spiral waves across her shoulders and down her back. The green eyes looking at him belonged first to their mother, but she’d given them to both him and his sister. Poppy’s were surrounded by much longer lashes than his were and her lips were fuller, but otherwise he could see what he saw in the mirror most days when he looked at her. There was no denying they were related. It had been different with Bubba. Bubba had been the spitting image of his son-of-a-bitch father, the stepfather both Chance and Poppy had loathed.
“Hi, sis.” She continued to stare at him, like she was searching his face for something. Finally, she stepped back from the door and said:
“Come on in, we may as well get this over with.”
That wasn’t promising, but at least she was letting him inside. Maybe, just this once, she’d really listen to what he had to say. Chance stepped inside the small room and she closed the door behind him. Walking over to the bed, she sat down and folded her arms across her chest, almost protectively, and said, “I guess Gabriel told you I was here?”
Chance nodded. “I’m glad he did...”
“Took you long enough to get here.”
“I was...I kind of had a shitty day. I had to deal with some things before I could get here. Poppy...” He sat down in a rocking chair near the foot of the bed and looked into his sister’s eyes. “Gabe says that you’re saying you think I killed Bubba.” She didn’t answer him, and the expression on her face didn’t change, but she seemed to hug herself even tighter. “I can’t believe you would even consider that as a possibility.”
“Oh really? Our brother has been gone...disappeared off the face of the earth...five years ago. You tell me how a kid that wasn’t even quite twelve years old yet just vanishes?”
“I don’t know, Poppy. I’ve been telling you that for years. After he ran away, I looked for him. I went and talked to Mom, the woman who was still screaming at the police for not arresting me for murder, and I kept looking for him for days and then weeks and months...”
“I know. I’ve heard that sob story many times. I was a kid myself, Poppy. What was I supposed to do?” Chance cringed at her impersonation of him and wondered when his little sister had decided that she hated him. Growing up, they had all been close. All they’d really had was each other.
“I was seventeen years old...”
“You were old enough to kill Bubba’s father, weren’t you? Maybe you decided it would be better to get rid of Bubba too, so he wouldn’t cramp your lifestyle.”
“You’re insane. You know why I killed James...” He felt himself tearing up. He fought the tears back and with a quiver in his voice he said, “I tried to go get Bubba that night when the police finally let me go, and they had already sent him to that group home. They said Mom...”
“She gave up her right to be called ‘mom’ a long time ago.”
Chance sighed again. No matter what he said to his sister, unless he suddenly produced Bubba, it was going to be wrong. “Don’t you think I know that? I was the one who was there that night, remember? You had already left all of us. I didn’t even know where you were yet, or if you were okay and yet here you are acting like you have no responsibility for what happened to our little brother. You abandoned him first!” Chance hadn’t meant to be so harsh, and when he saw the look on his sister’s face and the tears swimming in her eyes he said, “Poppy, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that, I...”
“Don’t. Don’t say you understand why I took off, because never in a million years could you understand. You were fortunate enough to be born a man. You weren’t his type, and if you had been you would have been strong enough to fight him off.”
Chance felt sick again. Softly he said, “You’re right. I’m so sorry, Poppy. I’m sorry for what he did to you and I’m sorry I didn’t protect you...”
“I forgave you for that a long time ago. But the one thing I asked, the only thing, was that you protected Bubba, and look how that turned out.”
Chance had already cried like a baby earlier that day over Sharon and the baby...he wasn’t going to show that much weakness in front of his sister. He had to remind himself that she wasn’t the sweet, shy girl that had left home five years earlier to escape the horrors that he hadn’t even known were happening behind the closed door of her bedroom late at night. When he did find out, the night everything came to a head...he’d killed the old man. He was lucky he wasn’t behind bars for the rest of his life, but social services had been involved with that family so many times over the years that the abuse they all endured was well-documented. The old man had been beating on their mother that night. Chance had given up trying to protect her years before when he realized in the end she’d take the old man’s side and turn against him every time. But something different happened that night. He’d walked in on their fight and he’d heard his mother telling the old man that he needed to “go find himself a young girl,” because “it isn’t my problem you’ve been horny since Poppy left home.”
Chance had started beating him, with his bare hands. He’d gone into some kind of zone that he couldn’t pull himself out of. The only thing that stopped him was his little brother’s voice. Bubba was begging him to stop...but by that time it was too late. Their worthless mother had pushed for the DA to charge him. Instead, he was mandated to take anger management classes, have intensive therapy, and report to a probation officer weekly until he was twenty-one years old. The worst part was, though, that he and Bubba were separated. He was thankful they took his brother from their crazy, jun
kie mother...but they put the two boys into separate group homes and Chance was held up for a week in juvenile detention before they sent him to his. Then more time had passed before he was able to escape and find out where they’d put Bubba...and by that time, he was too late. He was told Bubba ran away. The police took a report and talked to their mother, who they were told had shown up to the group home twice, demanding to see her son. She told them she was never able to see the boy and had no idea where he’d gone.
Chance was devastated, and he’d spent most of the next three years of his life looking for his brother. He checked in weekly with the Sheriff’s office, driving them crazy. He put up fliers, searched the swamp near the group home, and then further out...and he even tracked down their mother. That bitch knew something, he knew it, but whatever she knew she wasn’t telling him, and she swore to the police she had no idea where her youngest son had gone. Bubba was two months shy of his twelfth birthday. He left without anything, not a dime to his name. Chance couldn’t imagine the naive, sweet kid had survived alone on the streets for five years...and Poppy would never stop blaming him no matter what Chance did to try and prove to her that he loved and missed his little brother as much as she did.
Poppy had left home three months before any of that ever happened. She hadn’t even told Chance she was leaving. She just stole off in the middle of the night, leaving him a letter telling him she’d get in touch with him when she knew where she was going, and that she loved him. She also told him to take care of Bubba, and when he turned eighteen, he could get custody of their brother and then they could all be together, leaving “the swamp people,” as she referred to James and Marlene, behind.
She didn’t mention the sexual abuse in her letter, and she had never told him about it before either. He got one more letter from her saying she’d settled in California and she’d stay in touch. A week before everything in the basin went all bad, she’d called to tell him she’d landed a modeling job, and she had a place to live. Chance was six months from his eighteenth birthday, and they had talked about his plans for applying for guardianship of their little brother as soon as he could. Chance was sure he could find a job in Hollywood as easily as his sister had. But then he’d killed his stepfather, and Bubba had disappeared, and Chance had never left the swamp. He could never bring himself to leave the last place he’d seen his brother alive, and a day never went by that he didn’t think about his brother. But life had made Poppy so hard and cold that she wasn’t even willing to consider that he was hurting as much as she was.
He stood up and said, “It doesn’t matter what I say to you, you’ve already made up your mind about me. I’m gonna go, Poppy. I wish you’d go home and forget about all of this. Bubba’s not here, and no matter how hard we look, we’re not going to find him. I think you’re right, and he’s dead. If he wasn’t, we would have found him by now. But I didn’t kill him. I don’t know what you plan on doing now, taking your theory to the police or whatever...but I’m asking as the brother that you used to love that you don’t do that. I have a family now...and some bad things have happened to us recently and my old lady, she wouldn’t be able to handle one more thing...”
Poppy stood up too. Without a word she walked over and pulled open the door to the room. When Chance didn’t advance toward it, she said, “Go, Chauncey. You go back to your new family. But me, I’m going to stay right here, until I find out what happened to mine.”
4
Chance didn’t go back to the club after leaving Poppy. Instead he went to his house, his and Sharon’s house. She was still in the hospital, and going by here while she wasn’t home wouldn’t violate the order of protection the cops told him about. He walked in through the front door and the first thing he saw was a drop of blood on the floor. It was barely visible, probably dripped out of the IV the EMTs had started on her once they’d gotten her out of the bathroom and onto the gurney, but just the sight of it finally stirred up everything he’d been holding back all day. The wave of nausea that hit him was intense; it clawed at his throat and he tried to force down the bile...but it was too late. He wasn’t going to make it to the bathroom so he ran into the kitchen and bending over the sink he relieved his stomach of the acid, bile, and the few remnants that were left of the breakfast that Sharon had made him over twelve hours before. He stood there coughing and gasping and trying not to breathe in the smell that only made him want to vomit again. Hot tears flowed down his cheeks and his entire body shook. When his stomach finally stopped contracting, he put his back up against the counter and let his body slide down to the floor. Sitting there, head down on his knees, he let everything come to the surface. Not just what happened with Sharon, but everything. That night, killing his stepfather as his mother screamed at him to stop and clawed at his arms and face. Bubba crying and begging him to stop, and ultimately his own mother calling the police and begging them to arrest him.
The whole time Chance was held in custody, all he thought about was Bubba. He was going straight to get him as soon as he got out, and he was taking him out of Louisiana, and no one was going to stop him. But a week passed, and then he was sent to a group home and more time passed. It wasn’t easy getting out of there since all the doors and windows were alarmed, but he’d seduced one of the young women working the night shift and made it back to the trailer park at last. He had no idea where to look for Bubba, so he planned to start there, with his mother. But, by the time he got there, the place had been cleaned out, not that they had many belongings to begin with. Everything was gone, except for his stuff, and whatever Poppy had left behind. It took him three more days to find someone at the group home willing to help him. They finally found out the name of the one that Bubba had been sent to. Chance headed straight over there, but only to find out that he’d already taken off. Another week passed while he looked for his mother, finally finding her holed up in a rent-by-the-hour motel outside of New Orleans. She was high when he found her, and she’d said horrible things to him, but the only part he cared about was that she claimed to have no idea where Bubba was. He hadn’t believed her, but he spent the better part of two years watching her movements after that, and there’d been no sign of Bubba. It was only after his confrontation with his mother that he finally called Poppy and told her what happened. She was angry, and devastated, and home the next day on the first flight she could get. Chance was confused about why she was so angry with him...but his therapist said something that made sense...the people Poppy blamed for her horrendous life were no longer available, so Chance had become the target of all of her angst. Still, it hurt him deeply that the best relationship he’d ever had in his life...the only good one...was suddenly fraught with turmoil, accusations and innuendos.
After Chance patched into the Jokers, Blackheart hired a PI, and they had spent another year looking for Bubba. Like Chance, the PI was suspicious that their mother knew something...but she wasn’t talking and as far as Bubba went, there was no trace of him anywhere. To save his own sanity, Chance finally had to admit that he would never see his brother again...but Poppy refused, and their relationship only grew more strained with each passing year. He hated it, but the harder he tried to get her to accept facts, the more she seemed to hate him.
Chance sat there on the kitchen floor and sobbed into his knees, soaking his jeans with his tears until there was nothing left inside of him. He’d let them all down. Bubba, and Poppy...and now Sharon, the twins, and that poor baby. Sharon was only seven and a half months pregnant, Chance couldn’t imagine the baby had survived. He blamed himself if it didn’t, although he knew he hadn’t done anything on purpose to hurt either of them. But on purpose or not...it had been his job to protect them all, and he hadn’t done his job.
Tired of the pity party at last, but even further from liking himself than he had been before, he put his hands down on the floor and pushed himself up. He was exhausted, and weak from not eating anything all day, and wracked with emotional pain. His knees buckled and he had to hol
d himself up against the counter until his legs stopped shaking. Then the usually strong, agile young man had to hold onto the walls with both hands as he made his way down the hallway. He knew he should just leave, but Sharon would probably be home in the morning and there was one thing that he could do for her.
Slowly, he made his way to the end of the hall, to the bathroom doorway. The door that he’d broken down was still hanging in pieces off the hinges, and the large chunk of wood that had landed underneath him and on top of Sharon still lay in a puddle of dried blood on the floor. He felt nauseated again but fought it down...and then for the next hour and a half he used bleach and anything else he could find, to clean every drop of blood off that bathroom floor, and out of the tub. Then he finished taking the door off its hinges and he carried all the pieces of the door out to the dumpster in the back. He’d get to the hardware store as soon as the sun came up and get her a new door. Hopefully he could have everything at least looking normal before she and the twins came home.
At the thought of the twins, his stomach began to hurt again. They’d been so excited about the baby. They had no idea it wasn’t Chance’s baby and he and Sharon had agreed not to tell them. They had helped her decorate the nursery...and that thought reminded him...she was a mother coming home from the hospital without a child. He was sure the baby was dead...and the nursery that she’d so carefully decorated would still be there, as a reminder of what she had lost. He swallowed another lump of bile in his throat and turned and opened the door across the hallway from the bathroom. Another wave of grief assaulted him as soon as he saw it...the crib he’d put together, the rocking chair she’d found at an antique store and refurbished, the blue and yellow curtains the twins had picked out for their little brother, and the big, white teddy bear that Chance had found when he’d gone to Alabama with Blackheart and Le Singe to meet with a club they were looking to do some business with. He had ridden the entire three hundred miles home with the bear in his lap and taken thirty kinds of shit from the guys over it. But it had made Sharon smile, so it was worth it. It tore at his heart, all of it, and he could only imagine what Sharon would feel like if she had to come home and put it all away.