CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
And Lennox had already been through so much; he deserved this night with the guys to just relax and unwind. I also felt that if Mabel wanted us to call him, she would ask us to. She wasn’t so far gone in her panic attack that she couldn’t articulate her needs.
The tasting room door flew open, and Danica came rushing inside, out of breath and carrying a gray weighted blanket. Her cheeks were rosy, and she grunted as she unfolded it. “I forgot how much this weighs.”
“Come sit down, sweetie,” Gabrielle encouraged, not touching Mabel, but guiding her back to the booth. “Then we’ll put the blanket on you.”
Mabel moved to the booth, and we draped the big weighted blanket over her until just her head poked out. Gabrielle, Danica, and I stood, waiting for her breathing to settle while Raina observed from the other side of the booth.
Slowly, Mabel’s breathing became deeper and slower. She blinked a couple of times and swallowed. “Why does this woman want to meet me so badly?”
“Because she’s a nosy wench who needs to know everyone’s business,” Raina said, her brows furrowed.
“She’s relentless in her pursuit of gossip.
Even when you tell her to back the fuck off, she just takes that as a challenge.
Thinks you’re hiding something really juicy because you’re so adamant she butt out. ”
Mabel’s gaze shifted to Raina. “What did she do to you?”
Raina rolled her eyes. “Nothing to me specifically. But I know enough people who she’s pestered relentlessly that I’m pissed off on their behalf.”
“Like Hugh Tapper?” Gabrielle asked. “Jolene knew and told half the island that his daughter was getting engaged before her fiancé even asked Hugh for his blessing. Woman saw the jeweler’s bag on his front seat and announced it to the whole island.”
My head bobbed.
Mabel’s eyes narrowed. “My dad’s stepmother repetedly raped and molested my father, got pregnant with me when he was thirteen, then his father tried to kill him when he found out I was my dad’s baby.
Kyla went to prison for molestation and abuse, and my grandfather went to prison for attempted murder.
Now Kyla’s out on parole. I kind of think this is a bit bigger deal than ruining asking a girl’s dad for permission to marry her.
An out-dated, misogynistic ideology anyway, if you ask me. ”
Eyes around the room widened to the size of car tires. Mouths hung open and my heart started beating like a hamster’s. Gabrielle made a noise in her throat, and my other cousins and I glanced at her. Even she was speechless.
“You’re right,” I finally said, needing a moment to find some words. “That’s a big difference. And your history is yours alone. Nobody else deserves to know unless you and your father decide to tell them.”
“You have to understand though, that given how young Lennox is, and how young he looks,” Raina said softly, her eyes still very wide and shifting back and forth between me and Mabel.
“It’s going to make people wonder. You’re thirteen.
You look thirteen. Your dad is twenty-six.
He looks twenty-six. So unless you want to create a false narrative and tell people he adopted you or he’s your brother who has custody of you, people are going to ask questions.
It’s human nature. And a small town tends to have very curious people. ”
“That’s lying, and lying is bad,” Mabel blurted out.
Gabrielle nodded. “That’s true. But perhaps it’s not as bad when it’s benign and for self-preservation.”
Mabel shuddered out a long breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “I know. It’s still lying though.”
“We will protect your privacy, you, and your dad as best we can, honey,” Gabrielle said softly.
“But Jolene isn’t going to stop. And you can’t hide forever.
Summer is coming. There will be farmers markets and beach days; you don’t want to stay cooped up in your house forever, do you? You can’t let Jolene, your mother—”
“Her name is Kyla,” Mabel said with venom. “She might have given birth to me, but she’s not my mom.”
“Fair enough,” Gabrielle said. “You can’t let Jolene’s nosiness or Kyla being out on parole win. Don’t give into the fear. You are a strong, brilliant young woman. I think you can figure out a way to use this to grow even stronger, rather than let it take you down.”
Mabel stared unblinkingly at Gabrielle for a moment, to the point where my eldest cousin glanced at me and started to squirm a little where she stood. “What’s your story?” Mabel finally said.
Gabrielle blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t say that stuff to me without having a story to back it up. That’s therapy rhetoric. Why did you need therapy?”
Raina barked out a laugh. “Oh, Mabel darling, everyone needs therapy, whether they’ve experienced trauma or not. We could all do with a little cognitive behavioral therapy.”
Mabel ignored Raina and kept her gaze fixed on Gabrielle, waiting.
Gabrielle sighed and slid into the booth next to Raina.
Danica and I pulled up chairs so Mabel had some space in the booth and didn’t feel overcrowded.
“My husband was abusive. He was also a child molester. I was pregnant with Laurel, and Damon was a toddler when I came home and found my husband, Danica’s husband,” she glanced at Danica who nodded, “and another man, abusing the other man’s three toddler daughters. ”
Mabel blinked but made no other facial expression.
“I was very pregnant and had bare feet, but with Damon on my hip, I ran to the police station. The men chased me. I made it there before they caught me. They were all arrested and are still in prison. Then I became a lawyer to help women who found themselves in similar situations that we had all been in—abusive husbands and with nowhere to go. I’ve experienced—” she met my eyes, then Raina’s and Danica’s, “we’ve all experienced some pretty traumatic stuff.
But we’re not letting it consume us. We’re not letting it—or the people who harmed us—win.
This is our story, and we’re going to choose how its written. ”
Mabel exhaled a long, deep breath and blinked a few times. She still hadn’t made any other facial expression, and it was a little unnerving, to be honest.
Her gaze shifted to me. “What’s your story?”
Man, the way this kid pivoted was like a Formula 1 driver on a hairpin turn.
I choked on air. “Uh …”
“If you’ve all got a story, and you know mine, don’t I deserve to know yours? If you’re dating my dad, I should know your trauma, right?”
“Well …” Raina started. “That’s not exactly how it works. It’s not quid pro quo.”
Mabel glanced at her. “It should be.”
I met Raina’s eyes and subtly shook my head.
“It’s okay. Um … my husband was very abusive.
He would get drunk and hit me. He raped me.
I wasn’t allowed to say no. He took a belt to Austin when he was just a toddler and I was pregnant with Honor, and that was it for me.
Austin was a baby who fell and cried, and that woke Ephram up from a drunk sleep, so he decided to hit his son. ”
“What did you do?” Mabel asked, her facial expression remained neutral, but her eyes shifted back and forth across my face, reading me like a book. I squirmed a little, knowing this brilliant kid would see right through any lie I tried to conjure.
My cousins’ eyes all widened again.
I swallowed.
“You killed him,” Mabel whispered.
“The coroner ruled it a heart attack,” I quickly said. “He was older than me by over twenty years, an alcoholic, and very unhealthy. Hypertension, gout, high cholesterol. Honestly, he was a heart attack waiting to happen.”
Mabel blinked some more. “What did you give him?”
“He died of a heart attack,” Raina said. “Didn’t you hear her?”
“I’m fine with bad people dying,” Mabel said, with no inflection in her voice.
“The world is already overpopulated. People like your husband and Kyla shouldn’t exist. They shouldn’t breathe our oxygen, let alone drain our resources and consume our tax money.
I believe in capital punishment. Especially for people like Kyla and Ephram. ”
I swallowed again and met my cousins’ eyes. They all looked a little spooked.
Mabel shrugged off the weighted blanket, so it was just on her lap, and let out another long sigh. “When is the first farmers market?”
Danica’s jaw dropped. “This Saturday.”
Mabel nodded and stared at the top of the table for a moment. “I’m going to ask my dad to take me. Let the island talk. I did nothing wrong. My dad did nothing wrong. And if people want to know the truth, then they better be prepared for it.”
Gabrielle, Danica, Raina, and I all locked eyes.
Holy shit, this kid was strong.
Mabel reached forward onto the ground and pulled a wine bottle out of the box, then wiped it with the cloth. “I’m hungry. Would I be able to have something to eat, please?”