Chapter 13
Delaney
I’m nursing a headache and sore feet as I walk the rest of the way home. All I want is to curl up in my bed and sleep but when I get to the street that leads to the trailer, I spy a visitor at the door.
Joey doesn’t have guests. As far as I know, he doesn’t have friends. So, who’s he speaking to right now?
I can’t see Joey’s expression with the light at his back while he stands on the threshold, but he doesn’t ask the visitor inside and he’s blocking the entrance with his arms clutching the frame.
All the hair on my nape stands on end and I step across the street and behind our neighbor’s car.
From here, I see the visitor wave his arm before Joey says something and slams the door in his face.
The stranger stands there, staring at it for a few minutes before he looks around as though sensing my gaze.
I freeze, hoping he can’t see me in the darkness and watch him walk away, squinting to see more than his shadow but it’s impossible.
At the street, he drops his keys and when he bends down to pick them up, I see a flash of light on his chest.
Squinting, I step forward but pause. Is that Peter in his uniform?
I just don’t know, and I wait until he leaves, wishing he would turn back but relieved when he doesn’t.
As soon as it feels safe, I cross over and enter the trailer, eyeing Joey when he swings around.
“Where you been?” he barks.
We’ve been ignoring the last argument we got in, but I think it’s only a matter of time before he kicks me out, which is why I try not to instigate another altercation as I move past him and say, “Out.”
“I don’t like you hanging with them,” he says, grabbing my arm.
Shaking him off, I hiss, “Yeah well, I don’t like having a drunk for a father. Who was that at the door?”
“Who?” he grunts, and I wave toward it as though that will jog his memory from two fucking seconds ago.
“The guy who was just here.”
Staring at the can of beer in his hand, he shakes his head. “Wrong address.”
I hardly know the man but when he refuses to meet my gaze and turns back to the tiny television playing some game, I sigh.
We’re basically two fucking strangers coexisting and at times like these it’s really painful.
Who is he really? Was he MC? Why? When?
I know this will only lead to further frustration but once again, I can’t resist and say, “Joey?”
“Huh?” he says, focused on the television.
“Do you…know the Aces?” I ask tentatively and he whips around.
His wide eyes meet mine before they narrow and he barks, “I told you to stay away from them scum.”
“Why?” I ask, searching for clues but for all his drunken habits, he’s remarkably good at avoiding answering questions.
“They’re trouble,” he says, tossing the can of beer into the trash beside him.
As he reaches for another sitting by his hand, I rub my aching forehead and mumble, “You’re such a fucking liar.”
“Ha!” he bellows. “I’m a liar? Go ask your fucking mom about lies, you little bitch.”
Despite what’s happened between us, I don’t appreciate how he’s speaking about my mom, and I swing toward him, shrieking, “Shut up. Just shut up. Do you even care about how you treat your own daughter?”
“I ain’t your fucking father!” he bellows, and I stagger back.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Ask her, fucking patch whore. She probably don’t even know who the poor fucker is.”
After the screaming match with Joey, I find myself standing on the front porch of my home, or at least what used to be my home.
It’s late, which means the house is dark when I let myself inside before tiptoeing down the hall.
To my left is the living room. An L-shaped sofa faces the big screen television that Peter insisted on buying two years ago. During football season he plants his ass there and barely moves, much to Mom’s chagrin.
At the end, past the stairs is the kitchen and the light above the stove casts a dull glow across the floor when I pause at the base of the stairs and look up.
I’m sure Peter is sleeping. He has to work tomorrow.
Although my throat burns with the questions that roll around in my brain, my chest clenches when I consider what I might find out. Does Peter even know or am I opening up another can of worms?
Who am I?
A shiver rolls down my spine and I shake my head. I can’t confront Peter but I don’t have anywhere else to go and I step carefully up the stairs and down the hall, passing the bathroom before I enter my room.
The light of the moon casts a soft glow as I glance around, surprised to find that I don’t really recognize the girl who inhabited it before.
I’ve never been a frilly girl, but I still smile and shake my head at the pale blue bedspread and pillows adorning the bed.
Posters of bands I’ve always liked line the walls. In the corner, I eye my dresser before approaching the floor length mirror.
How many minutes of my life did I stand before this damn thing and analyze everything about me, wondering if I measured up?
Being popular, a cheerleader…those were the things that I defined myself around and looking back now after everything that’s happened in such a short amount of time, I feel foolish for wasting a single brain cell on something so fucking stupid.
After toeing off my shoes and socks, I drop to the bed and eye the teddy bear beside me.
Much like Petey’s which I slept with for months after he died, there was a time that I refused to go anywhere without my own bear, but on my sixth birthday, I lost it forever. This was after we went to the grocery store one day.
While Mom perused the aisles, I skipped around on the shiny floors. One moment I was having a heated conversation with my bear and the next, I looked up to find Mom speaking to a tall gruff man.
I don’t recall his features or what they said to each other, but I do know that Mom’s agitation flooded my senses and after clutching her arm and begging to leave, she complied.
It was only hours later, after all had calmed down that I realized I lost my bear. However, I never mentioned it to my mom because some part of me feared seeing that weird light in her eyes again.
That seems so long ago now but I wonder as with everything these days if there wasn’t more significance to that encounter than she let on. Was that the man she dated before Peter and Joey?
Did Peter know about him?
I suspect much like everything else, he did not and the truth I’ve been trying to outrun barrels through me.
Petey’s death was not the catalyst for Mom’s change of behavior, and it stings to know that this is the cross she plans to die on.
Would I be here now if she had just told the truth?
At a minimum, Peter wouldn’t have said things that he can’t take back and as I consider that horrible day, I roll over and curl into a ball.
Practice let out early that afternoon and with promises to Micah that I would text him when I got home, I rushed to my car and headed in that direction.
The entire ride, I prayed that she would be anywhere but on that damn couch, smelling of vomit and sleeping off her high.
It was getting harder and harder to hide the evidence but knowing that Peter would lose his shit, and Mom was already at her lowest, I tried anyway.
As soon as I saw the police cruiser in the drive, my heart jumped into my throat, and I rushed inside to do damage control, but Mom wasn’t on the couch, and I came to a stop in the living room where I found Peter sitting on the floor, rocking her in his arms.
Her stringy hair covered her face except for one blue eye peeking through.
Surrounded by the evidence of her sleepless nights, my heart clenched when a single tear spilled over the red rimmed lid and trailed down her cheek.
Too late, I spied the used needle and tin foil on the coffee table before turning back to the spectacle.
Maybe it was for the best because I couldn’t do this alone anymore. Peter needed to understand what was truly going on.
“Is she…” I whispered and Peter met my gaze.
His eyes flickered as he assessed me in my cheer uniform before he said, “Go on up to your room.”
Nodding, I bypassed him for the stairs and pressed my back to the wall as he said, “Jesus, Helen.”
Had I ever heard him sound so defeated?
Rubbing my chest, I peeked around the corner when she mumbled, “It’s what I deserve.”
“Shh,” he said before setting her gently on the floor.
I held my breath as he approached the coffee table, no doubt staring at the remnants of the drug paraphernalia left there.
The silence in the room sent a shiver down my spine while I gazed at my mom, her cheek mashed against the floor and her wide eyes spacy.
“Why?” he rasped, bowing his head but she didn’t answer, and he kicked the table before swinging around, shouting, “Why, Helen?”
Covering my mouth, I bit back my cry as Mom rolled to her back and said, “I lost him.”
This is when I turned to walk back down the stairs because I couldn’t leave my mom alone while she confessed her sins but before I reached the bottom, Peter shouted, “What the fuck are you talking about? Do you see yourself right now?”
Immune to his rage, Mom punched her chest and cried, “I knew it would come for me eventually.”
Frozen, I looked between them as Peter grabbed the back of his neck and said, “What? What are you talking about?”
Clenching the fabric of her robe between her fingers, she said, “I didn’t deserve Petey. He was too pure. I’ll never see him again.”
Her brittle tone punched at my chest and Peter’s bitter chuckle rebounded around the room before he sneered, “Petey is dead because your slutty daughter was fucking her boyfriend when she should have been watching her brother, Helen.”
Visions of her lying there like a broken damn doll danced through my head as I walked away and later that evening, I packed my shit and left.
Now, as I sit on my childhood bed and stare into nothing, I realize that there’s nothing Peter or my mom could say to me that can change this story, and I grab my bag before stepping down the stairs.