by Jessie Cooke
“Stop looking at him and talk to me!” Marlene yelled at him. The sound of her shrill voice when she was pissed off hadn’t changed and it sent a shudder ripping through Chance’s body. It was that sound he usually heard before James took over and began beating him with whatever makeshift weapon was closest at hand. He’d thought he was past all of that, but for just a few seconds he felt like that scared little boy again, staring up at that violent, vile man, waiting for the pain to start. Slowly, Chance let his eyes leave Charles’ face, and when they landed on his mother’s, he saw her visibly wince. His rage must have been showing through them because she even took a step back before saying, “Charles, call the police. This man is a murderer. I watched him murder my husband with his own two hands…”
“Yeah…the husband that beat your boys, and raped your daughter,” Poppy said.
“Liar!” she spat at Poppy. Chance clenched his fists at his sides. He’d never wanted to hit a woman as badly as he wanted to hit her…but he wasn’t about to sink to James’ level. Instead he looked at Charles and said:
“Go ahead, call the police. Maybe we can all sit down and get to the bottom of this.”
“She doesn’t know where your brother is,” Charles said, almost meekly. “She promised me…”
“You’re a fool!” Poppy said to him. To their mother she said, “Is he in North Carolina?” Chance watched Marlene’s face closely, but she was such a practiced liar that her expression didn’t change. She held her hand out to Charles and said:
“If you’re not going to call the police, give me your phone and I will. I want them out of here.”
“You might not believe she was evil enough to sell her own son,” Chance said to him, “but think about this…why wouldn’t she have even told you about him? What mother wouldn’t still be looking if she didn’t know what happened to him? Did you ask her that?” He looked back at Marlene and said, “Can you answer that? Why stop looking for him? If you truly believed he was a runaway, what mother on earth would just let the case go cold?”
“It hurt me too much! I lost him because of you! Because of what you did,” she said. She looked at Poppy then and said, “And because of your lies…” Poppy reached for her and Chance almost didn’t get between them in time. He got punched in the chest for his trouble and changing tactics he said:
“It’s okay, Poppy. We don’t need her to tell us anything. We’ll just go to North Carolina and find him ourselves.”
“She didn’t sell your brother. She met those people while she was in rehab…”
“Shut up, Charles!” Chance turned back to Charles and the older man went on:
“She didn’t get an insurance settlement. The Bissets gave her that money, but because she helped that woman. She was so depressed and strung out on drugs because…”
“Charles! Shut up!” Marlene shrieked. Then what happened next shocked Chance. Poppy pulled a small-caliber handgun out of her purse and pointed it at Marlene, who shrieked again at someone, anyone, to call the police. Charles’ employees were all looking at him, but when he didn’t issue any orders, they all stayed put.
“Walk over to that truck,” Poppy said.
“Fuck you…” Poppy slid back the chamber on top of the gun and Marlene’s eyes widened. Chance wasn’t sure what his sister was going to do, but he had a feeling that interfering would only make it worse.
“I said walk!” Marlene looked at Charles again. He was looking at the ground, refusing to make eye contact with her. She started walking, and Poppy followed her, giving Chance a glance over her shoulder that he hoped meant she was only keeping the crazy woman out of the way so Charles could talk. When Charles looked back up at Chance he said:
“She met Joan Bisset in rehab. Joan told her that her son had died, and Marlene shared her story. They bonded over that. Marshall Bisset said that when Joan got out of rehab that she was better than he’d seen her in years, happier. He wanted to give Marlene something for helping her…”
“Thirty thousand dollars?” Chance asked, with a roll of his eyes. “Again, are you really that stupid?”
“No,” he said, swallowing hard. “I mean, they didn’t give her thirty thousand dollars just like that. That’s why she made those deposits a little at a time. Marshall Bisset paid Marlene for being kind of a pseudo therapist for his wife. When she got really depressed, he’d call, and Marlene would go and stay with them in North Carolina until she was feeling better…”
“So, when you acted surprised about that money, you really knew it was there all along?”
He swallowed again. “No. I knew about the Bissets, her friendship with them. But I didn’t know they’d been giving her money. She said she didn’t touch it all these years because she felt guilty about taking it, and she planned on giving it back, or if they didn’t take it, she’d put it in a college fund for Oliver…our son.”
“She’s good,” Chance said. “A much better liar now that her brain isn’t pickled with drugs. But she’s lying to you, Charles. She knew those people before rehab…their son, the one who died…he was just about the same age and the spitting image of my little brother Bubba.”
Charles glanced across the yard at his wife, who was sitting on the edge of the U-Haul truck with Poppy’s gun trained on her. She was glaring back at him. He looked back up at Chance, this time with tears in his eyes and he said, “She said if I try to leave, she’ll tell the cops I abused Ollie and I’ll never see him again. I can’t lose my son.”
“If she did this, Charles...if she sold my brother…she will go to prison for a very long time and she won’t have any say about who raises Oliver. Think about this, I wasn’t just talking before. If she sold one of her children, what would stop her from selling another?”
A fat tear rolled down his face and in a shaky voice he said, “What do you need me to do?”
“We need to keep her here, until we know for sure if Bubba is in North Carolina or not. We have someone on the way there now, but I don’t want this bitch getting away…with another one of my brothers...in the meantime.”
Charles nodded again. He finally looked at the three men waiting for him to tell them what to do and said, “Go home. This is a family matter. I’ll call you all tomorrow and tell you where to report to work.” Chance and Charles stood quietly while the men left. Charles looked over at Poppy then and said, “Can you get her to not bring that gun in the house around my son…no offense, but she doesn’t seem too stable.”
Chance smiled and said, “No offense, but your wife made her that way.”
16
Chance talked Poppy into putting the gun away, but first she reminded Marlene that she wouldn’t hesitate to use it if she needed to. Once inside, Charles sent Brandon home and Poppy sat down on the floor cross-legged and started playing Legos with Oliver. Chance collected Marlene’s and Charles’ cell phones and disconnected their landline and then sent a text to Forrest, letting him know what was going on. They planned on staying in that house and making sure that Marlene didn’t go anywhere until Maddox made it to North Carolina and to the Bisset house. According to Forrest, he was already on a plane, so they hoped it wouldn’t be much longer. Chance also sent a text to Blackheart to check in, and one to Sharon. He downplayed the situation to her; the last thing he wanted to do was give her more to worry about. Once that was all done, he sat down at the dining room table with Charles and looked over at Marlene. She was sitting in a chair in the attached living room, glaring at her daughter, who was smiling from ear to ear as she played with the little boy on the floor.
“Is she good to him?” Chance asked.
Charles looked at his wife, and his son, and said, “She is. She’s been nothing but a good wife and mother…that’s why what you’re saying is so hard for me to believe.”
“You believe us though. I can see it in your face.”
“Maybe some of it,” he said. “I know that drugs do awful things to people and she told me how abusive your stepfather was to her…
”
“But she never mentioned her children?”
Charles swallowed hard and shook his head. “No. I guess that’s the part that’s the hardest for me, and what makes me believe there’s some validity to what you’re saying.”
“Everything Poppy and I have told you is true.” Chance pulled up Google on his phone and he Googled his stepfather’s name. The article in the New Orleans newspaper was a small one, but it pretty much gave all the details, except for Chance’s name, since he was a minor when it all happened. He handed the phone to Charles, who took it, reluctantly. Chance watched his face as he read the story. Chance had read it dozens of times when he was younger, every time he felt guilty for what he’d done. His therapist said it was a form of self-punishment, because he’d always worried that he had gotten off too lightly. It described the act…that Chance had bludgeoned James to death with his bare hands, and it even mentioned that there were allegations that James had not only been physically but sexually abusive to the children. Charles frowned as he read it, and when he finished, he handed it back to Chance. Chance then drew up the article they’d written about Bubba’s disappearance and handed it back to him. He looked even more reluctant but took it again. Chance could see what his mother liked about Charles. He was so mild-mannered that she probably steamrolled right over him. It was definitely not something she’d ever been able to do with James…the two men were like night and day. This time as Charles read there looked to be real pain in his eyes. There was a picture of Bubba, his 4th grade school picture. He had that big, goofy grin he always wore on his face, brown hair flopping down over one eye and a spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose. His eyes had been brown too, and huge like a baby doe’s. Charles stared at it for a long time and when he handed it back to Chance he said:
“I hope she didn’t have anything to do with him being missing…and you’re right, I just can’t imagine why she stopped looking for him.”
“I can,” Chance said. “Because she’s known where he was all along.” Charles didn’t answer that, but Chance thought the quiet older man was finally having to face that he was married to a woman he didn’t even know…and that had to be scarier than shit.
The time passed slowly. Marlene eventually got up and went into the kitchen to make dinner for Oliver. Chance stood in there and watched her, not wanting her to abscond out the back door. She didn’t speak to as she fried up some ham and made macaroni and cheese. Chance tried to remember ever seeing her cook for them when they were kids, but he couldn’t. Part of him was glad that at least one of his siblings had a mother, the other part of him was pissed that she was willing to do it for Oliver but hadn’t been willing to do it for them. Once she made the boy’s plate, she made one for Charles too and then looked at Chance with disgust and said, “If you’re hungry, you can make something for yourself, and that sister of yours.”
Chance smiled at her and said, “We’ve been doing that since we were Ollie’s age, so it won’t be a problem.”
She shot daggers at him out of her eyes before taking the plates out to her husband and son. Chance started rummaging through the refrigerator and was surprised when she walked back into the kitchen. “You know that woman you hate so much is not who I am anymore.”
Chance stood up straight, closed the refrigerator door, and turned to face her. “Really?” he said. “Because I always thought part of sobriety was making amends. When did you ever look any of us up to say you were sorry? We were kids. You were supposed to care for us and protect us…instead you let that monster hurt us, daily. You let us go hungry. You let us figure out everything for ourselves…and most of all, what you let him do to Poppy…” She actually winced and he said, “What was that? Is there actually a bit of a conscience in there?”
“I didn’t know what he was doing…”
“Don’t. Do not even talk if you’re going to lie.”
“If you would let me finish…I didn’t know, for a long time. I confronted him when I figured it out. He nearly beat me to death over it.”
“So,” Chance said, not falling for it. “Any other mother would have taken her kids and ran the second he went to sleep. But you didn’t. You stayed because he supplied you with your drugs and that’s all you cared about. The abuse was just the price you paid…and the price you forced your kids to pay for it.”
“I could talk ’til I was blue in the face and you’d never understand. I was fifteen years old when you were born. You think I wanted to have sex and get pregnant when I was fourteen? You think any of that was my choice? Then again at fifteen? I was alone and scared to death until I met James, and yeah, I used drugs to help ease the pain of all I went through….” She’d never talked to them about their father, or fathers. Chance and Poppy weren’t even sure if they had the same one. But all it sounded like to him now was her making excuses for her bad behavior.
“You’re right,” he said, “because you were raised the way we were…and you want to know the difference? You didn’t even try to break the cycle. Poppy and me, we’re doing okay now, not because of you at all, but despite you. When we have a family...” He did not want her to know he already did. He did not want her to know anything about him, other than that he wasn’t like her. “...we are going to be good parents, at least we’re going to try. We’re not going to stay numb, so we don’t have to face it, and we’re not going to fail to protect our kids.”
“I’m doing it right with Ollie,” she said. “He’s my second chance…and you two show up here spouting all this nonsense. You could make me lose him. How would that make you feel?”
Chance heard Poppy before he saw her in the doorway. “That would probably be the best thing that ever happened to him,” she said, “because no matter how much you’ve been pretending the past four years, your heart and soul are still black…and that little boy deserves so much more than that.”
Marlene opened her mouth, but the sound of Chance’s phone ringing stopped her. He didn’t recognize the number, but he had anxiety in his chest, thinking it was probably Maddox. “This is Chance.”
“Hey, Chance, it’s Maddox.”
“Hey…” He was almost afraid to ask. “Did you find…anything?”
Maddox hesitated, which wasn’t good in Chance’s opinion. But he heard his phone beep and then Maddox said, “I just sent you a photo.”
Chance’s hand was shaking as he pulled the phone down where he could see the face and looked at it. It was a picture of a teenage boy, getting into a light blue Mustang. The boy had shoulder-length brown hair. It was curly, and it fell across one of his giant brown eyes. It was from too far away to see if the freckles were there, but if this kid wasn’t Bubba, he was his doppelganger. Poppy was watching him with wide eyes. He turned the phone so she could see it, and she gasped and covered her mouth. When he put the phone back to his ear, she was looking at their mother with murder in her eyes. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. I haven’t gone in. I wanted you to tell me if you think it’s him, and then I need to call the authorities. If I go in on my own, there’s a good chance of screwing up the legalities of all of this or giving them enough notice to run. Do you think it’s him?”
Chance looked at Poppy, who was looking at him again now, nodding, and then he looked at Marlene. The terror-stricken look on her face told him all he needed to know. “It’s him,” Chance said. “Call whoever you need to call; Poppy and I are on our way.”
He ended the call but before saying anything to his sister, he dialed Blackheart’s number. Walking out through the door that led through the garage, he told Blackheart what Maddox sent him and said, “Poppy and I would like to be there, if it’s okay with you that I leave?”
“Of course. What do you want to do about your mother?”
“Honestly, I’d like to see her finally have to face some consequences, but I can’t sit here and watch her when I know what’s about to happen in North Carolina.”
“Tell Forrest to stay on them. I’m s
ending Gabe and Gray out…they can sit with them until you’re ready to get the cops involved.”
“Thank you,” Chance said, trying to hold back the tears of anger, or relief, or pure sadness at all of the years they’d missed with their brother…and gratitude, because without Blackheart’s help, they might never have found him.
“It’s what we do,” Blackheart said. Chance ended the call and sent Sharon a brief text that just said:
“I think we found him. Poppy and I have to go to North Carolina. Are you okay? Is little Bubba alright?” Seconds later she texted back:
“We’re okay, babe. We love you. Be safe…and bring your brother home.”
He told her he loved her too and then he pulled himself together before going back inside. The last thing he would ever do was let that bitch who called herself a mother see a tear in his eye.
17
It was almost midnight when Chance’s and Poppy’s plane landed in Asheville. The house where Maddox had found Bubba…or his look-alike...was just outside of the city. Maddox had sent Chance a text telling them to meet him at the police station. They took an Uber from the airport and arrived just after 1 a.m. Maddox met them in the lobby and introduced them to a detective that he’d been talking to. The detective took Chance into one interview room, and Poppy into another. He asked Chance to start from the beginning and tell him the story of what led up to Bubba’s disappearance. Chance was anxious, worried that Bubba would disappear again before they got to him, but he did his best to tell the full story, not leaving anything out, even that he’d killed their stepfather. He told them about finding his mother and hiring an investigator who found out about the money. He told them what Charles had told him, that she’d only met the Bissets while she was pregnant with Ollie, over a year after Bubba went missing…but he didn’t believe that. She knew that woman before, probably when her son died…and somehow, they’d arranged between them for her to sell her own son.