CHAPTER SIX
Lennox
“You know, Mabes, you could have been a little kinder to Austin back there,” I said as we navigated the winding island roads toward home. “He was just trying to be helpful and kind.”
She was studying her sketchbook.
“Mabel Dawn,” I said with slight exasperation. “Don’t ignore me.”
“I’m not. I heard you.”
“Could you reply, please?” I brought down the visor to keep the sun from blinding me. My head was already pounding as it was.
“You didn’t ask me to. You simply told me that I could be kinder to Austin. Am I supposed to say something about that?”
Rubbing the bridge of my nose between my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, I did my best to keep my tone even but firm.
“Maybe that next time you will try to think about how someone else might feel or why they might be saying or doing something, before you reply. You need to think about others and their feelings before you speak sometimes. It can come across as abrasive.”
She lifted one boney shoulder, but didn’t look at me. “Fine. I’ll just say ‘thank you’ next time.”
“That’s better than what you did say, I guess. You still need to work on considering others, and their feelings though. Work on your delivery.”
“Why?”
I was in no mood to continue this discussion with her. It was a conversation we’d had probably a thousand times and would have a thousand more times.
“Who were you on the phone with earlier?”
Right. My phone call.
The reason for my rapidly growing headache.
“Dawn,” I said with a weighted sigh. The throbbing in my temples and forehead had now gone from intermittent to constant.
Pounding so much that I could barely see the road clearly.
I blinked a few times, then finally—because I couldn’t actually see the dash in front of me clearly anymore—I pulled over. “You need to drive.”
“I’m thirteen.”
“Almost fourteen.”
“That’s still not the legal driving age in the state of Washington.”
“Mabel—” I unfastened my seatbelt. “It’s fine. It’s an automatic. It’s not the freeway. We’re only like ten minutes from home. I just have a bad headache. I need you to drive.”
“It’s illegal,” she said again. “You could be arrested. Then I’d have two parents in jail. I’d be sent into foster care. Would they let me pick my foster parents? Or would I just be thrown into the next available house? Would it be here in Washington?”
“Mabel!”
“It’s illegal,” she repeated for the third time.
“And if we get pulled over by one of the four police officers on the island, I will explain things, and I’m sure I’ll just get a slap on the wrist. They’re not going to send me to jail because I let you drive two miles. Can you please just get out of your seat?”
Thankfully, it didn’t result in more of an argument. My daughter climbed out of the seat, and we met around the front grill. She didn’t fight me, but she wasn’t happy about the situation either.
I’d kept the truck running and hopped up into the passenger seat. She adjusted the seat to accommodate her shorter stature so her feet could hit the pedals.
“You know the brake is on the left, gas is on the right?”
“Yes.”
“Just take it out of park, put it into drive, and give it a little gas.”
“This is highly illegal. And unethical.”
“Well, I don’t know about the ethics part. Is it safer for a man who is close to passing out from a sudden migraine to be driving, or for an almost-fourteen-year-old with an IQ of 164?”
“Can’t we call someone?”
“Mabel—”
“Fine.”
“Okay. Take it out of park, shoulder check that nobody is coming behind us, then give it some gas.”
She did as she was told.
“Both hands on the wheel. Ten and two.” We started to move. “A little more gas.”
Now we were trucking along at a decent pace.
“Just keep it steady, in the center of your lane. You might have two stop signs to deal with, but those shouldn’t be an issue.”
I could tell she wasn’t enjoying this at all. Any other kid I knew would jump at the chance for such a rebellious and unique opportunity. Not my kid. Not my rule follower. She was more concerned about the legal aspects of it all.
“What did Dawn have to say?” she asked.
“Just focus on driving, sweetheart,” I said, doing my best to keep my eyes open and help her, even though all I wanted to do was shut them and keep the space dark and quiet. “We can talk about that when we get home.”
She didn’t respond, but she also didn’t speak again.
“You’re doing great, kiddo,” I said, as she put on the indicator to turn left down our long driveway. Rolph Mazurenko and his wife were outside in their yard, and they gave us slightly perplexed looks as we drove past and waved.
“They’re going to call the cops on you,” she said, having slowed her speed to a crawl.
“No, they’re not.”
“I don’t think you’d do well in prison. I heard someone say once that pretty people become bottoms in prison. You’re good looking. What does that mean? Would you become a bottom?”
I raked my fingers through my hair and groaned. I was not in any frame of mind to be discussing tops versus bottoms with my thirteen-year-old child. Maybe not ever.
“What’s a bottom? Is it like the person who is always on the bottom during sex? Are they saying that you’d be having sex in prison a lot—with other men—but always on the bottom? Would that mean you’d be the one always taking another man’s penis into your anus?”
“Yes,” I finally said as we came to a rather abrupt stop in our driveway, and I lurched forward. “That’s basically what it means. But Maz and his wife aren’t going to call the cops on us. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I drove a vehicle without a license. I’m not legally old enough to drive.”
“Get out of the truck, Mabel,” I said with a growl, throwing open the passenger door and making my way to the front door.
I’d been told by many people on the island already that it wasn’t a place you needed to lock your doors, but I wasn’t ready to follow that custom just yet.
I punched in the code and stepped inside, grateful that I hadn’t bothered to throw up all the blinds and the place was dark and cool.
I collapsed onto the couch and placed a pillow over my face to really make the space dark.
Her clomp-clomp up the porch steps and the jingle of the keys alerted me to her presence. “I managed to figure out how to turn the truck off. No thanks to you.”
“You’re 2e gifted. I figured you’d get it eventually.”
“So, what did Dawn have to say?”
“Ca-can you grab me some Tylenol and a big glass of water, Mabes?”
She didn’t say anything, but a moment later, she set down a glass on the coffee table beside my head. “Here.”
I pulled the pillow away to find her standing over me, holding out her hand and two Tylenol caps. I took them, tossed them into my mouth, and reached for the water, draining the glass. “Thank you.” Then I reclined back down and put the pillow back on my face.
“What did Dawn say? Did it involve Kyla?”
I liked that my daughter never referred to her mother as “Mom”.
It was always “Kyla.” Because Kyla had never been a mother to Mabel.
She held her for an hour, then she was mine and I never took her to see Kyla, not once.
She didn’t deserve to know her daughter.
She’d also never submitted a formal request through her lawyer to see her.
“Kyla’s parole hearing was today,” I said. “Dawn and Irv spoke at it.”
“And?”
Despite the fact that the Tylenol had obviously not kicked in yet, I rallied for my kid and sat up, removing the pillow from my face.
I encouraged her to sit down on the coffee table across from me, and I did my very best to focus on her round, slightly-pimply face. “She was granted parole, honey. Kyla is getting out of prison.”
Mabel’s nostrils flared, and a flicker of rage flashed behind her eyes.
“Why? What she did was wrong. So wrong. Illegal. Worse than a thirteen-year-old driving without a license. What she did was … Dad, it was gross. Why are they letting someone who did something so gross and so wrong, and illegal, out of prison?”
“Because despite Dawn and Irv’s best efforts to convince the parole board that Kyla is not someone capable of rehabilitation, empathy, or remorse, the parole board believed otherwise and said she’s served her time and deserves a second chance.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Mabel—”
“You said that swear words could only be used when I understood the impact of them. And when there wasn’t anything more fitting to use.
Well, this is total bullshit, Dad. Kyla is a monster.
You couldn’t keep what she did to you a secret from me, and I’m glad that you didn’t.
She doesn’t deserve to walk the same streets as other people.
” Tears welled up in her honey-brown eyes.
“It’s not fair. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to me.
Is she going to try to get custody? Can she do that? ”
I could see the panic spiral forming around my child. It was something I was all too familiar with.
Even though things were easier now that she was older—we had her diagnosis, support systems in place, resources and tools—she was still prone to abrupt reactions and anxiety attacks.
She’d had them ever since she was about four.
It was the routines in preschool getting disrupted that first started to set her off.
The amount of times Dawn, Irv, or I had to go pick her up early because she started to freak out was more than I wanted to remember.
She stood up from the coffee table and started to pace, shoving her hands into her blonde hair the way I did when I was stressed.
“I won’t go with her. Not for a weekend, not for a minute.
I don’t want anything to do with her. I don’t ever want to see that wo—that monster.
I might share half of her DNA, but she’s not my mom.
She’s not my parent, and I don’t want to see her. ”