Chapter 2
Anika
“Oh, Kim…”
The shiner from earlier this week is fading, taking on a yellowish hue, but today she is sporting a split lip. She’s been dodging my attempts to pin her down for a chat, but that’s ending today.
Good thing she showed up early this morning, because that chat is happening now.
“I fell in the shower,” she volunteers, lying through her teeth.
I call her out. “Bullshit. You’ve been showing up with mystery injuries for weeks now. Tripping over shoes, falling down stairs, running into a cupboard door, and now you want me to believe you fell in the shower?”
“I can’t help I’m clumsy,” she snips defensively.
“If you’re that clumsy, maybe you shouldn’t be wielding scissors all day.”
It flies from my mouth without thinking, and I instantly feel guilty when her face crumples and she bursts out in tears.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Kim. Come here.”
I fold her in a hug, feeling her stiffen when I squeeze a little too hard. When I see the front door open and Landon walk in, I quickly hustle Kim into my office and close the door.
That should be enough of a warning for the rest of the gang to give us a little privacy, since I rarely ever have that door shut.
I gently coax a weeping Kim to sit down in my desk chair, while I grab the rolling stool, I sometimes use to prop my feet up on, and sit down in front of her. I reach over my desk for the box of tissues and place it on her lap.
“Where else are you hurt, honey?” I inquire gently. “Should we get you to a doctor?”
“It’s just bruises.”
I’m letting that slide for now, focusing instead on getting her talking.
“What is happening, Kim?”
She slaps her hands over her face and shakes her head.
“I don’t know. My life is falling apart,” she wails.
That doesn’t tell me much, but twenty minutes later—when Monique knocks on my door to let me know my first customer is here—I have a pretty good idea.
I grab a key from my desk drawer and press it in Kim’s hand.
“Go upstairs, there should be bottled water in the fridge and I left my old couch there. Take as long as you need. We’ll cover your clients.”
She can slip out the rear door to the stairway up to the second-floor apartment to avoid curious eyes.
I check to make sure the coast is clear before ushering her to the back.
“I’ll check on you in a bit.”
It’ll give me a chance to process what she just shared.
Chris—the man she’d married straight out of high school—has gone off the rails. I only met him a few times over the years and he always struck me as a bit boring. Not someone I would’ve thought as abusive which, as it turns out, he is. According to Kim, it was limited to verbal abuse and only recently has become physical.
Work stress, Kim tried to explain. Chris is an air traffic controller. Six months ago, this was apparently compounded by yet another failed attempt to get pregnant, something I didn’t know they were trying. Fertility treatments had strapped them financially, and that had made Chris’s drinking worse.
Then three months ago he was discovered drinking at work when his impairment caused a near crash on the runway. He was fired on the spot and has been taking out his misery on Kim ever since.
She’s scared of him. Terrified of the consequences if she goes to the police, which I suggested she do immediately. She’s going to need a bit more convincing.
“Everything all right?” Monique mumbles when I walk into the salon.
“No. I can’t explain now, but if for whatever reason Chris Cooper shows up, you have no idea where Kim is.”
“Her husband?”
Monique’s eyebrows are up in her hairline.
“Yeah. Oh, and I’ll be tweaking the schedule today. Between us we’re going to have to absorb Kim’s clients. Brace yourself, it’s about to get busy.”
Then I greet my customer, get her seated at my station, and head to the back to mix her color while motioning Molly to follow me.
“Does Kim have a full schedule today?”
“Two simple wash and cuts and one highlights and cut this morning. The first one at ten.”
“Good. After you get Debra a coffee, I want you to contact Kim’s clients for this afternoon and see who you can move to next week with apologies and an offer of twenty-five percent off their next appointment. When her ten o’clock comes in, let me know.” I grab the bowl of dye I was mixing and start out of the supply room. “Oh, and I’ll need you to wash hair and blow-dry this morning. Are you up for it?”
It’s almostnine when I finally walk into my house, carrying a poke bowl I picked up on my way home.
What a day.
By the time I had a moment to check in on Kim in the apartment upstairs, it was already past lunchtime. She’d been dozing on the couch and had some cooking show playing on the old TV I left up there.
The good news was, she was done being Chris’s punching bag. The bad news was, she was not ready to report him to the police, which she felt would only aggravate Chris more. Nothing I said could change her mind on that, and she outright refused to go to a shelter.
With her safety in mind, I finally offered her to stay in the apartment. The building has good security, which both my dad and my brother insisted on when I bought it. I figure it would probably be the safest place for her.
After my last customer left at seven thirty, I took Kim’s car, drove it to the Durango Town Square parking lot, picked up a few things for her at the City Market, and hauled the bags three blocks back to the salon. Making sure she was comfortable for the night, I got in my car, stopped to grab dinner, and headed home.
I’m toast. My entire body is one big throbbing sore. That’s what happens when I don’t take my breaks during the day, my body immediately revolts. Everything hurts in a way I know will linger for a couple of days.
I groan when I kick my shoes off and hobble barefoot to the kitchen. There, I fill a glass of water, grab my pill bottles from the cupboard over the fridge, and take my meds. Not that I have any illusions relief will come that easily.
That will require a bit of self-care, something I’m not particularly good at.
Hog
“I think it’s time to get Petunia inside, Boss.”
I follow his line of sight to the sow, munching on the corn my foreman, Franco, just put out.
“Any signs she’s ready?” I want to know.
“She’s getting restless. A little snippy with the others. I think a day or two.”
“Is the pen ready?”
“Yeah, it’s clean.”
Petunia was my mother’s favorite pig—the last one she named—but the sow is getting up there at eight years old. She’s a good breeder and has been producing two litters a year for us, but I think it’s time for her to slow down a little.
The hog farm has been in my father’s family for three generations. I’m technically the fourth one in line, but it’ll end with me. I was an only child, so I have no siblings to hand it over to, and I’ve already dedicated too much of my life to the farm.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the pigs, but farming was never my dream. It was my father’s. Mine was the fire department, which Dad resented from the moment I joined. I stuck around at the farm though, but only because of my mother.
My father was a tyrant, and his father before him. Spare the rod and spoil the child, that was his style of parenting. When I was too young to stand up for myself, my mother would jump in, and Dad wouldn’t hesitate to beat her instead.
By the time I was fifteen though, I was already towering over my father and I could sense the power started shifting. My father was a bully, but also a coward. I never touched him, but I made sure he knew I wouldn’t hesitate if he even tried to lay a finger on Mom or me ever again.
It’s what kept me here long after I should’ve started my own life. Mom refused to leave, sticking to the vows of her marriage, even when my father became ill twenty years ago, and she spent the next eight of them looking after him.
The day he died twelve years ago, it was like a heavy cloud lifted. Still, I stayed, looking after the pigs Mom loved so well, although I did put my own stamp on it by reducing the number of pigs and converted the farm to a free-range operation. I was able to accomplish that with the help of Franco Ayalo, a young Colorado State graduate who majored in animal sciences with hopes and dreams of an enlightened way of farming.
When my mother passed away quite unexpectedly five years ago, I sat down with Franco. I wanted to sell and he made it clear he wanted to buy the farm but lacked the funds. We hammered out an agreement that allowed Franco to buy into the farm.
Right now, he lives in a trailer behind the farmhouse so he has no overhead and takes only a minimal salary to survive, in lieu of a growing stake in the property. He started growing vegetables, added four milk goats and a dozen hens, so we’re almost completely self-sustained in terms of food.
Franco makes goat cheese and sells it at a few farmers’ markets in the region, along with any surplus eggs and produce. He also sells some free-range pork but the bulk of that goes to a few farm-to-table restaurants we’ve developed contracts with.
My father would probably turn over in his grave, but I couldn’t care less. If it had been up to him, the world would’ve stayed unchanged. He was allergic to progress and would’ve called the changes to the farm commie bullshit. He was a rigid man.
“That order for Farm Fare is ready, right? I was going to head into Durango to drop it off, is there anything you need?”
“Cooler is packed and I’m running low on coffee, if you wouldn’t mind picking some up.”
“Will do.”
We only have the one restaurant in Durango, and since I spend a lot of time in town, I deliver the occasional order.
The real reason I’m heading into town is to see if I can catch Anika before the salon opens. When I had my haircut last Tuesday, things were a little awkward and I haven’t had a chance to clear the air with her.
I walk over to my truck and scratch at what looks like a bit of mud on the front fender. Shit, more rust. I like this truck, it’s comfortable, and I was hoping maybe to get another few years out of it before I need to get something new.
But I do like that new Suburban on the lot of the GMC dealership in town I’ve been eyeing. Maybe I’ll stop in while I’m in town.
I get hung up for a few minutes when the owner of Farm Fare wants to discuss an upswing in business she’s seen, and the consequent need for additional product. The increased demand may be too much for the farm to handle right now, but I listen before suggesting I’ll get Franco to call her. At this point in time, I’m no more than a glorified delivery man who happens to still have his name on the business, but Franco makes the decisions about the future of the farm.
My next stop is the salon, but when I pull up to the curb in front, I see I’m already too late to catch her alone. She’s out front in a heated discussion with a guy who is getting in her face.
Hell no.
I’m out of the truck so fast, I don’t even see the cyclist I almost knock off his bike.
“Back the fuck off,” I bark as I approach the pair on the sidewalk.
I draw their attention long enough to insert myself between them, using my arm to maneuver Anika behind me.
“Who the fuck are you?” the guy slurs.
A wall of alcohol breath and bad body odor almost has me staggering back, but with Anika behind me, I stand my ground.
“Not your concern,” I inform him. “I need you to step back though.”
“Like hell I am. She’s got my wife in there!”
He tries to lean around me, poking his finger in Anika’s direction, but I quickly sidestep, blocking his way.
“Like I told you before, she’s not here, you asshole!” Anika fires back from behind me. “You’re a miserable, drunken excuse for a man, aren’t you? Taking out your own failure and frustrations by using your fists on a woman half your size?”
I’m half a foot taller than the guy, but he carries about twice the bulk, and I’m not skinny. The idea of him whaling on a woman has me grind my teeth. If not for Anika’s fingers digging into the arm I’m trying to hold her back with, I’d have swung at him myself. Unfortunately, calmer heads need to prevail or this could get out of hand fast.
“You’re drunk. You should go home, sleep it off,” I try.
It doesn’t surprise me when his response is to swing at me. Given his state, it doesn’t require much force to get him on his stomach on the ground, my knee firmly planted in his lower back to keep him from getting up again. I twist his arms behind him, immobilizing his flailing hands.
That’s how Bill Evans finds me a few minutes later, a big grin on his face as he saunters over, casual as can be. When Anika called the police, I expected a patrol car to show up, not a Durango PD detective.
“Taking up wrestling in your time off?” he razzes me.
“Haha. Did they put you back on patrol?”
He shakes his head. “You’re in luck, I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Hope you brought your handcuffs.”
He pulls them off his belt and quickly secures the drunk’s hands as I get to my feet. Then he looks past me at Anika. “This guy giving you trouble?”
“His name is Chris Cooper and he’s a piece of shit. He’s looking for his wife, who works here but isn’t in yet.”
“Bullshit!” the idiot protests. “I saw her in there.”
Anika walks up to him—her pointy boots mere inches from where his face is still pressed to the sidewalk—and folding her arms over her chest, looks down her pretty nose at the man at her feet.
“You’re drunk and you’re imagining things. I’m the only one here.”
I doubt the guy catches it, but something tells me Anika is lying through her teeth.