38. So we hide away and never tell. You decide if darkness knows you well.
38
So we hide away and never tell. You decide if darkness knows you well.
Moth
L ife with Duke had progressed easier than I had originally thought it would. He was an excellent listener and an amazing companion. It wasn’t until the end of the first week with him that I realized just how happy I was to have him with me. I had missed having a dog around, regardless of how much I didn’t want to admit it to myself.
He was good to have around on nights Tommy was on shift, and as weeks moved into months and Amelia and I got bigger and bigger, it was good to give her the option to stay home when she wanted to.
She chose to spend tonight with me, and I was happy to have her. After going over breast pump options and re-doing our birth plans for approximately the 4,876th time, we settled in front of the TV with Chinese takeout, Duke snoring at our feet. We were at the end of our seventh month, and everything was swelling to uncomfortable levels. Amelia had opted to know the gender before birth (she was having a boy), while I had opted out. It made me feel good to have something to look forward to when labor got to its worst. I had long ago decided on a natural, unmedicated birth, while Amelia instead chose a scheduled c-section.
I twirled my fork into the lo-mein and shoveled it into my mouth, letting out a low groan as the taste hit my tongue. After a long day of lugging around these extra thirty pounds I’d put on, it was good to have a break.
“Oh, shit,” Amelia grumbled, lifting the plate she’d sat across her belly. I looked over, watching as her abdomen jumped and distorted, tiny punches and kicks pummeling her from the inside.
“I guess Donovan likes egg rolls,” I said with a chuckle, reaching over to feel. It was like a metal concert inside her, and I laughed. I imagined her son being just as rambunctious as she had always been, and the thought made me smile. I couldn’t wait to see what a tiny, gender-bent Amelia would be like.
“Of course he does,” Amelia said, looking at me with a grin. “He takes after his mom.”
I laughed, twirling the noodles around my fork once more.
“Between you and Carl, that baby is gonna be the palest, blondest baby this world has ever seen.”
“All I gotta say is I would rather have tall and skinny than Tommy’s shoulders,” she waved her fork in the direction of my belly and raised her eyebrows. “I do not envy you come d-day. And without an epidural? Girl, you are braver than I could ever be. Just the thought gives me nightmares.”
I had just opened my mouth to reply when Duke rose to attention, flipping over and rising to stand before I could even react. He stood between Amelia and me and the coffee table, his head low and ears pinned to the back of his head.
“Duke…” I said, watching him with narrowed eyes as he started to creep toward the front door, a low, electrifying growl rumbling in his throat. As I watched him with narrowed eyes, I noticed the fur along the back of his neck start to stand on end, instantly making me feel like I’d been drenched in ice water.
“Should we call?” Amelia asked, silently reaching over and placing her plate on one of the two tables flanking the couch.
We had planned for a situation just like this one, Tommy and Carl running through it with us again and again.
“Not yet,” I said in a whisper, throwing myself up and off of the couch and reaching over to the coffee table where the pistol lay gleaming in the low light. I snatched it off the polished wood as I stood, holding it low at my side just as Tommy had taught me.
“But Tommy said—”
“He said to call if someone broke in,” I whispered, stepping past her. Duke had made it to the door, and he was frantically sniffing at the crack near the handle. “No one has broken in. For all we know, it could be the wind.”
“Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense,” Amelia hissed, fighting to push herself off the couch. “Your highly trained k-9 officer is freaking out about a wind blowing down the sidewalk when he has never once done that before.”
I ignored her, one hand pressed to my stomach as I tiptoed toward the door, listening for any sound from outside, and there was none. I watched as Duke stood a little straighter, looking quizzically toward the door handle, before looking back at me as if questioning me.
‘Did you hear that too?’
Except I hadn’t.
As I stood there waiting, a sudden thought crossed my mind. When I first got back to Cottonwood Falls, I never would have done this. I would have run away screaming. Had Tommy made me a little braver, or maybe preparing to become a mom had been what did it?
I remembered my mom, and how brave she had been when she was fighting for her life.
Was it because of motherhood?
I shook the thought from my head and turned toward Amelia with a sigh.
“Maybe it was a leaf this time,” I said with a shrug, and she responded with narrowed eyes and a turned-down smile.
“Either way,” she said, reaching into her pocket to find her phone. “I’m calling Sheriff Banner.”
“Amelia, we don’t need to bother—”
“I promised Carl,” she said simply, and that was the end of it. I knew there was no arguing with her when it came to that, and I couldn’t blame her there. Just like me, she had a baby to protect.
An hour later, Sheriff Banner had checked the entire house and the surrounding yard. Just like before, there was nothing there. I was beginning to wonder if I was crazy, and I would have resigned that I was if Amelia hadn’t been here to see Duke react the way I had .
“Thanks again,” I said, walking him to the door. A deep yawn pulled from my throat and I brought a hand up to cover my mouth.
“Better get to bed, mama,” he said, chuckling as his hand landed on the doorknob. “Tommy will have my hide if I keep you up past bedtime.”
He had just pulled the door open when a sudden thought struck me.
“Hold on a second,” I said, sighing.
Instantly, a type of guilt struck me, and I bit my tongue.
“Yeah?” he asked, and I tried to untangle my voice box, but all that came out was a dull croak.
“Can I show you something?”
He nodded, “‘course ya can.”
I turned, hurrying past Amelia and ignoring the confused look on her face as I stepped into the kitchen and grabbed one of my dad’s journals off of the table. I knew exactly the one, and exactly the page. I flopped it open in my hands as I hurried back to the door. I handed it to him, and a surge of worry ripped through me as I watched him read the writing on the page.
Was this the right time for this? Was I opening a box that should have stayed closed? Was I bringing up memories that were better left buried?
Still, I needed to know, and what better time than now?
“Wow,” he said with a sigh. “That was so long ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We found my dad’s old journals during the remodel. It mentioned you. I asked Mae about it, and I—”
“Nah,” he said, waving a hand at me. “Nothin’ to be sorry about. I’m not ashamed. ”
Still, I felt bad. It was a bad memory, and who was I to take it upon myself to bring it up?
“Her name was Victoria,” he said, staring down at the words on the page. “She was an amazing girl. She was my first love before Sheila, and I thought I was gonna marry her. Her daddy was never too fond of me. So when she got pregnant…” He trailed off with a sigh, shaking his head as he closed the journal with a snap and handed it back to me. “He gave her an ultimatum—either she gets rid of the baby, or he would get rid of me. We were gonna leave that night, run back to Kansas City, and stay together, but her daddy got wind of it and—”
He stopped with a shrug.
“Some say it was an accident, and he blamed it on me to drive me out of town. Some say he did it to her out of shame. All I know is we will never know what happened that night, and I blame myself for that.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears prickling the corners of my eyes. I shouldn’t have brought it up. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Nah, don’t you be sorry, Ness,” he said, reaching out and laying a hand across my shoulder. “It’s not often I get to remember her anymore. So talking about her? It doesn’t bother me none.”
There was a smile on his face that made his brown eyes sparkle, even in the low light. The regret drained out of me, and I felt something lift in my chest.
“So what happened to her dad?” Amelia piped up from behind me. I turned to look at her, seeing her leaning against the kitchen doorway, her crossed arms resting across the swell of her stomach .
“Well, that’s the thing,” he said, and I couldn’t help but notice the smirk on his lips. “After the funeral, he up and disappeared.”
When Amelia released a sound of anger from across the room, I wasn’t shocked. I had been expecting it.
“So that’s it?” she growled. “Some horrible racist that probably killed his daughter, let’s be fuckin’ real, gets to just leave town and, what, continue living his life?”
Sheriff Banner watched her, a look of understanding shadowing his face.
“I know,” he said, sighing. “I was mad too for a long time, but then I learned somethin’. Our anger isn’t going to bring her back, and it damn sure ain’t gonna make him sorry for what he did… if he did anything at all. All I know is he will get his punishment. Trust me on that.”
Amelia and I shared my bed that night. It was easier when Tommy wasn’t home and made us feel better. Duke lay in the doorway as he normally did, half in the room and half in the hallway, listening for any sounds that would need to be checked out. As per his nightly routine, more than once he would get up and patrol the house, returning a while later to his spot, overseeing both of us.
When I woke up the next morning, I was expecting Tommy to be downstairs, but by the time both Amelia and I got our bloated butts down the stairs, he was nowhere in sight .
Confused and slightly worried, Amelia and I searched the house. He should be home. Shift ended at six AM, and it was well after ten now. We called out his name, but there was no response. Sensing our unease, Duke followed closely behind us, his ears perked up and tail wagging anxiously.
As we walked through each room, we noticed that things were oddly quiet. The kitchen was untouched, with no signs that he had ever come home. The silence grew more unsettling with each passing moment.
Finally, we reached the living room and our eyes fell upon a note left on the coffee table. It was from Tommy—I’d recognize that spidery scrawl anywhere.
Got a call about an apartment building on fire between here and Topeka. It’s pretty bad. Everyone got called down. I love you, and I’ll call as soon as I can.
Stay safe.
Relieved yet still concerned, Amelia and I exchanged glances.
“Well, so much for date night,” Amelia said with a sigh, turning away from the table. “If Tommy got a call, so did Carl.”
Reaching into the pocket of her comfy sweats, she pulled out her phone, and after a second of scrolling, she pulled a face and looked up at me.
“That’s weird,” she said, looking around the house. There was something uneasy in her blue eyes, and it sent an icy chill up my spine when her free hand came down to clutch at her belly. “Carl’s at home waiting on me. How could Tommy— ”
“Because Carl already pulled a double this week,” I said simply, shaking the thought from my mind.
“I guess,” Amelia grumbled, darkening her phone and looking up at me. “Still weird. Something doesn’t feel right.”
I waved her off and forced the thought from my head as I stepped through the foyer and made my way toward the kitchen. I was hungry, and I didn’t have the energy to jump to conclusions—I could barely jump at all.
“Do you want eggs?” I called to her, stepping up to the fridge and pulling it open. It was wonderfully cold against my hot, swollen ankles. “Or do eggs still make you puke?”
Amelia was quiet except for the shuffling footsteps that came up behind me. When I turned to look at her, she stood in the kitchen doorway, looking at me as if I had grown two heads.
“Look,” she said. “I know you’ve always been the calm and collected type, not one to freak out over small things. I mean, you had a stalker and didn’t even bat an eye. But this isn’t… weird to you?”
I sighed, snapping the fridge closed and turning to her with arms crossed.
“Is it odd to me that my first responder has to… respond? No. No, it isn’t.”
She stood there looking at me, and I wasn’t sure if I was annoyed by her reaction, or just so numb that it didn’t bother me. After all, I had dealt with not one, but two stalkers without, as she had said herself, batting an eye.
What was another day alone?
I was used to this by now. I knew what I was getting into, marrying a firefighter .
Tommy was working all he could to make sure he had time off for when the baby got here. This was nothing to sneeze at.
“I guess,” she said, but the look in her eyes told me that she still wasn’t on board. “Well, if you’re sure?”
“I am,” I said, giving her my best attempt at a smile. “Why don’t you get home and get ready for your date? I’ve got Duke, and my dad’s gun, and this new security system Tommy got for me.”
I motioned to the small plastic box fixed to the wall behind her, with its reassuring, tiny blinking red light.
“I’ll be fine.”