34. Chapter 34
Chapter 34
Joker
The last week has been a whirlwind of information. Claire stayed until yesterday, and I’m thankful that she was here for all of us. It wasn’t just Ginny, but all of our friends seem to have been hiding trauma from their own experiences. I’d say we wore Claire out, but that woman is a powerhouse. I also happen to know that she’s a badass mother-in-law to one of Trish’s friends who is one of four sisters, and all of them had some of their own traumas, too.
Something happened in that hospital room that changed Ginny. I think it changed Trish, too. Ginny’s been calm. Reflective. Writing so much in her journal, she’s already gone through two of them. She’s doing all the right things, and at least on the surface she feels better. It’s the nightmares. Those are rough. If I get up in the middle of the night, she’s screaming. If I let her roll over in her sleep, she starts screaming. The first couple of nights, Claire came in to help me calm her down. She said it was her subconscious working things out and it would just take time. Ginny agrees. She confessed to me she had them after the attack in New York, and it just reminds me that this woman is the strongest person I know, and I’m lucky every fucking day she chooses me to be by her side. That I’m who she relies on to keep her safe, even if I wasn’t there to do it that day.
Outside of the individual, group, and couple’s counseling that’s taken over my house this week, the girls set up some type of a meal train—or a babysitting schedule. If I’m not here for whatever reason, there’s someone at the door within two minutes of me leaving, if they aren’t already here. Even her teacher friends, who came back to town from their own fall breaks as soon as they heard what happened, have been here. They’ve been trying to keep an ear out for any gossip, but they’ve since returned to classes. Ginny’s job is there when she’s ready, but for now they’ve brought in a sub.
Daniel, who might be the best boss to ever exist, has assured me that he’s not taking me away from her until she’s ready and okay with me leaving overnight. Out of everyone I know, he might get it the most.
We are in the kitchen making lunch when there’s a knock at the door. I look at her and we both smile. It does no good to ask who it might be when it could be one of almost a dozen people.
I wipe my hands on the towel and grin at her. “I got it.” I kiss her cheek and make my way to the front door. Opening it, I find Mr. Mills.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I ask, shaking the man’s hand. “Come on in. Is it your day or something?”
“No, not really.” He shakes his head.
“Everything alright?”
“Not…not really? I need…” he starts and stops. “Well, I need to talk to you.”
“Me? What about?”
Looking more uncomfortable than I’ve ever seen him, he looks away from me. “I would like for you to set up a meeting with my son.”
“You can’t pick up the phone and call him?” I carefully, tactfully ask.
“I’m honestly not one hundred percent sure he’d answer.”
“He better answer!” Ginny yells from the kitchen.
“Girl’s got ears,” I whisper to Mr. Mills.
“Yeah, she does.” He grins. “Always did.”
“It’s a teacher thing!” she yells back.
“Fine!” he yells to her. I motion for him to follow me to the kitchen, which he does. “Fine,” he says quieter. “I’d very much like to talk to my son. Can you arrange that?”
“On it,” she smiles, pulling her phone out.
“Thanks. Umm, I don’t want to interrupt your—”
“We have plenty. Sit. Eat,” Ginny almost demands. I think she might want this as much as he does.
“That would be great, thanks,” he tells her, pulling her into his arms for a big hug. You can always see the relief of a dad worried about his little girl when he’s near. He makes eye contact with me and nods. He knows nothing can happen with me around. That I’ll protect her with my fucking life.
Damn, I should have had Claire talk to Mr. and Mrs. Mills, too. I can’t imagine the pain this brought up for them.
“What do you want to talk to Davis about?” Ginny asks.
“I want him to forgive me,” he replies, his sadness and guilt evident.
“How do you know he hasn’t already?” I ask.
He shares a look with Ginny before turning to me. This is a family look. I’ve seen the same look from Davis and Ginny before. “He hasn’t.”
“Yeah, he is a stubborn ass,” Ginny says, as if this should be a known fact. And it is.
“It’s a family trait.” I smile at her.
She smacks me on the arm. “Hey! I’m not stubborn.”
“No, of course not,” me and her dad say at the same time.
She grins and continues eating.
About ten minutes later, there’s a knock on the door and before I can stand up, the door opens. This is obviously a friend.
“Hey, where are you guys?” Davis asks.
“He always do that?” Mr. Mills wants to know.
“Pretty much. They all do,” I quietly tell him.
“In the kitchen!” Ginny yells out.
“What’s going on over here that I had to rush—” He cuts himself off as he enters the kitchen. “What’s he doing here?”
“What’s going on is we’re staging an intervention.” Ginny sits up straight and clasps her hands together, assuming the 'don’t fuck with me' pose. She adds a somewhat maniacal grin as the cherry on top. I might be wearing off on her.
“Why do I need an intervention?” Davis asks.
“It’s not for you. It’s for both of you. You need to stop being so fucking stubborn,” she tells Davis before turning to her dad. “And you need to just tell him everything.”
“He told me everything,” Davis grouses.
“Well, if he told you everything and you’re mad at him, that’s a you problem.”
“Why are you so vested in this?”
“I miss my fucking family! Even when you all weren’t talking much, you weren’t actively avoiding him.”
“Wasn’t my fault we weren’t talking,” Davis argues.
“No, I agree,” Ginny concedes. “And Dad knows this.”
“She’s right,” Mr. Mills speaks. “She’s been telling me for years.”
“How long has she known?”
“I’ve known for fifteen years.”
“And you’re okay with it? He’s a fucking kidnapper!”
“A what?” Ginny asks. I also look at him like he’s got two heads. “You’ve got something very wrong, brother. I found out what he does because I had a girl in my class that needed help, and he helped her.”
“Yeah? Did he ship her off south of the border?”
“What the fuck do you think he is?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not legal and he should be in jail!”
“What the fuck did you tell him?” I ask Mr. Mills. Turning to Davis, I say, “If you really thought he was breaking the law like that, why’s he still sitting here, a free man?”
“I don’t know, but nothing he said made any sense for someone doing something legal!”
“Sit down. Now!” Mr. Mills barks in a voice that almost makes me piss my pants. Davis does what he’s told. “The girl in Ginny’s class was being molested by her father and beaten by her mother who blamed her and was jealous that her own child was now getting that pervert’s attentions.”
Davis looks at Ginny, who nods. “He’s telling you the truth.”
“What did you do for her?” Davis asks, calmer now.
“I helped her legally change her name and get a new ID.”
“Legally?”
“Everything I do is legal, son. But I know the right people to make the information incredibly hard to find if someone goes looking.”
“Like an abusive father or spouse.”
Mr. Mills nods. “I got her in touch with someone in her family that had been cut off from her and helped them work out the next steps to get temporary custody. Then I took her to the store and got her some clothes and a new backpack, purchased her a plane ticket, and took her to the airport.”
“I didn’t know,” Davis quietly admits.
“You jumped to the worse conclusion. You accused me of being a monster.”
“Why did you hide it from me?”
“Because I didn’t want you to jump to the conclusions you jumped to when I tried to tell you the first time. It was easier to stay away from you and still be in your life than risk losing you completely.”
Davis looks devastated, and I can tell he’s rethinking everything he thinks he knows about his life.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Ginny asks him. “Do you think Dad would have let you join the fucking FBI if he were doing something illegal? I cannot believe you thought he would do something. God, Davis, sometimes you’re really stupid.”
“Why are you in such a good mood?” Davis asks her, rolling his eyes.
“I’m tired.”
Both her dad and Davis look closely at her. I can tell the minute they register what I’ve noticed every day this week. The dark circles under her eyes, the paleness of her skin, how her hair is limper than normal, even with daily showers. Her cheeks are a little sunken, even though she’s been eating.
“Why are you so tired? You’re not getting up for work, right?” Davis finally asks.
She looks at me. “Tell them, or I will. They need to know, and you need to let them in.”
She flips me off, but there’s no umph behind the finger. “I’ve been having nightmares.”
Her father tenses and his face loses some of its color. Davis looks like he might be sick. Obviously they both know what this means.
“Again?” her dad finally asks.
She nods, avoiding eye contact.
“You’ve been having nightmares. Or more like night terrors. Screaming that doesn’t stop and you can’t be woken up?”
“Yeah.”
“Like after New York,” Davis clarifies. “Have you had them since then?”
“Yes, and no. The ones I had after New York went away. I started having them again after everything happened at your house.”
I remember her telling me about the nightmares she has now. She let me in and kept them out. Why?
“That was more than two years ago, Virginia!” Davis says, his voice rising.
“You need to calm down,” I growl at him. “Or I’m going to make you leave.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” her dad asks quietly.
“For the same reason I kept things from everyone. I didn’t want the judgement or pity. The obsession over my protection. I didn’t want you to think you had to keep treating me like a baby, that I couldn’t take care of myself. I wanted to handle it on my own.”
“But we’re family. We protect each other. It’s what we do,” Davis replies, calmer than before.
“Are we really family?”
“Yes.” That was a direct shot. He looks hurt.
“It doesn’t always feel like that.”
“I’m so sorry, Ginny,” her dad says.
“Me, too,” Davis adds.
“I just want all my family to love each other again, okay? I want Dad to feel like he can come see Aaron without having to sneak around to do it when you aren’t there.” She looks pointedly at Davis. “I want you to play ball together like you did when you were a kid. I want you two to take Aaron to his first baseball game and buy him his first bat and glove. I want you to both sit in the stands together and cheer him on and…” She pauses, her voice breaking and her eyes filling. “I just want you guys to love each other again.”
She’s full on sobbing now, and both men look completely lost. I’ve seen this a lot this week, and I know she just needs to get it out.
Mr. Mills turns to Davis. “I have never done anything illegal. Never. I would never do anything that would get my law license revoked and put our livelihood in jeopardy.”
“But you deal in real estate law,” Davis weakly argues.
“Just because that’s what I do here doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do other things. You think this town has never had a divorce or family issue on an estate? Someone’s got to help them. Just because my main focus is real estate and contracts, I’m a lawyer, son. I practice law.”
“How did I not know all this?”
“Because I started to pull away from you,” his dad admits.
“That’s not fair to me. You didn’t give me the chance to understand when I was younger.”
“You dealt with your life in black and white. Right and wrong. You also dropped people who wronged you in some way. If I helped someone you knew and they just disappeared, I would have been blamed and you would have accused me of selling them into slavery then, too. At least now you’re more aware. Trish was the first person I ever saw you almost fight for. And you didn’t fight very hard for her then, son. I was afraid I’d lose you completely.”
Davis sits back in his chair like he’s been physically hit. He stares at his dad until Mr. Mills sighs, like he’s ready to give up.
“Dad,” Davis quietly says. “I’m sorry.”
Mr. Mills looks at him while Ginny quietly sobs.
“I would be very interested to hear how you helped people. And what you’ve done.”
“Davis, I don’t want to upset you anymore, and I’m afraid this might.”
Davis shakes his head. “Not now. Now that I have a better understanding. That last few years of being an agent, I lived in the gray. I think we might have more to talk about than you think. Would it be possible to maybe grab a drink together one day?”
“I think I’d really like that,” Mr. Mills replies.
“If Ginny doesn’t need me,” Davis gives her some serious side-eye, “would you like to come back to the house and play with Aaron for a little while?”
Mr. Mills closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose. “I think I’d really love that, son.”
“I know you see him when I’m not there, but I want you to know my door is always open to you. And maybe you’d like a little grandpa bonding without grandma there?”
Mr. Mills chuckles. “As long as you don’t tell your mother.”
They both turn their gazes on me. And somehow, I know it’s my turn in the hot-seat.
“Keep her safe,” Davis says.
“With my life, as long as she lets me.”
“Her, uh, mother wants to know if she’s coming back home anytime soon,” Mr. Mills asks.
I look at Ginny, trying to hide my grin. The panicked look in her eyes tells me I’m about to do the right thing.
“I don’t think so.” I smile at Ginny. She gives me a relieved smile in return.
“Is this your way of asking me to move in with you?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Pretty much.”
Davis leans closer to me. “Dude. If you ever ask her to marry you, you probably should do a better job of it than that.”
Ginny laughs. “I don’t want to talk weddings for a very long time, okay?”
“Works for me,” Mr. Mills taps the table, “and my wallet.”
“Daddy. I’m so sorry.”
“Sweetheart, money can be remade. Your happiness is worth way more to me than that wedding cost.”
Ginny gets up from the table and moves behind her dad, giving him a hug from behind and kissing his cheek. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
She then moves behind Davis and repeats the hug and kiss. “I love you too, big brother, even when you’re an ass.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dad the same thing?” Davis pouts.
“Because I feel like he’d still ground me if I called him one.”
I watch this family, a dad with his grown children, and realize that as much as I can give Ginny, there are still some things that we will never have. Not yet, anyway.