Sixteen
FANG
The fucking lawns are overgrown, weeds defying logic as they part the thick bushes to strangle what remains of the garden. I know she’s fucking busy, know she has other priorities in life, but shit. Can’t she give my girl a nice home to grow up in?
“You’re late.” Reno leaves the door open and turns to head back into the house.
I make a mental note to order a gardener to stop by this weekend, and find my way up the short path to the uncovered door.
The home is basic. A bit more than a trailer, but not what you’d call a cabin or a cottage.
Built in the late seventies by the previous owner of the property for their aging mother, it now sits separated from the main homestead by a tall timber fence and a narrow driveway; this part of the property was sold off a decade ago to a young investor.
The home has changed hands twice since, and somehow it’s avoided anything more than basic maintenance every time.
“I told you I’d be here when the club was finished with me,” I call to Reno as I step through the door.
“Lucky me,” she sasses back from the kitchen.
I head left off the short dogtrot hallway and find her hastily cutting a PB she hates how the water over her face in the shower feels. I’ve told her not to touch anything that’s not hers, and if she can’t find you, look for Jezabel.
She’s been warned not to open closed doors, and to stay in the main house.
” Her lined eyes find mine. “I need you to keep her away from trouble, Fang.”
“Why do you think I never wanted to agree to this?”
I take stock of what the woman wears—tight blue jeans and a lace-trimmed camisole. No shoes yet, but I can guarantee they’ll have heels. “Who are you doing this for again?”
Her gaze narrows. “Like I told you, a person.”
“Why the secrecy, Reno?” I fold my arms and lean against the doorframe.
She sighs, moving to collect her purse and small suitcase from the end of the counter.
“Because it won’t do any good to have it any other way.
” She tugs the foldaway handle out of the hard, red case and wheels it toward me.
“I’ll be back Monday night, but it’ll be after her bedtime so I’ll come get her Tuesday. ”
“And then we talk,” I remind her.
“And then we talk.” She gestures for me to move.
Molly meets Reno in the hall, a smaller version of the red case in hand. “We’re the same, Momma.”
Reno runs her fingers gently beneath Molly’s little chin. “Oh, baby. No we ain’t. But you do look cute.” She bends and presses a kiss on her head. “Be good for your daddy, yeah?”
“Yes, Momma.”
“I’ll see you in a few days.” She stops near the door and, sure enough, pulls on a pair of strappy heels before donning a puffy jacket. “Love you, baby.”
“Love you too, Momma.”
Reno tugs her case over the threshold with a hasty, “Lock up when you leave,” thrown over her shoulder before the door clicks shut.
I glance down at Molly and silence the immediate barrage of negative thoughts that arise. Should have been there… not doing enough… growing too fast. “What should we do first?” I ask with a wry smile. “Ice cream or donuts?”
My daughter’s smile matches mine. “Both.”
A genuine chuckle escapes, and I gesture for her bag. “Anything else you want to bring with you?”
“No?” The response is posed more as a question than a certainty.
So, I head toward her bedroom on my way to the door and stop in to see if there’s anything she might miss, like a cuddly toy or favorite book.
The sight startles me. Reno’s never been shy about telling me how thin the household budget stretches after rent and utilities are paid, but I thought the monthly amounts I gave her would have covered more than this.
Molly’s bed sits disheveled in the far left corner, no frame, just the mattress straight on the floorboards.
A tattered rug is positioned between that and a three-tier bookcase with a split join at the top.
A total of three books sit on the bottom shelf, two of which are geared more for babies than a first-year school kid.
A slingshot collects dust on the middle shelf with a teddy that’s missing one ear, and the top shelf is cluttered with cheap, plastic takeout toys.
The kind that kids play with once and lose interest in.
Swear to God she had more than this the last time I visited. Not that you can even say when that was.
I move to the built-in closet and open the ajar door wider. Clothes spill out of the drawers shoved inside, but again, half of it she has to have grown out of.
“When did Mommy last buy you clothes, baby?”
Molly sits on the edge of her bed to watch me as I rifle through the contents of the closet. “I don’t know.”
“She buy you new clothes for school?” Like she said she did.
“Yeah.” Molly springs to her feet and nudges me out of the way to tug down a plain blue dress. “See.”
“Just the one?” Stones grind in my gut.
“And this.” She pushes a few things out of the way and tugs flowery leggings out of the bottom drawer and a matching T-shirt.
“Nothing else?”
Molly’s ponytail swings with the shake of her head.
Fuckin’ Reno. I gave her a tidy stack a full month before Molly started school so that she could get our daughter clothes, shoes, a bag, and anything else she might need.
The first question I’ll have for the woman when she gets back is: where are the receipts?
“We can fix that.” I usher Molly from the room and shut the door behind us as though that’ll erase the guilt of trusting Reno at her word from my conscience. “You want syrup with your ice cream and donut?”
“Yeah!” She answers me as though it’s a no-brainer. I guess for someone her age, it ain’t.
“Then let’s get going. We should make it before they shut.”
Molly’s legs swing back and forth, alternating, while she uses broken pieces of her cinnamon donut to scoop the rapidly melting ice-cream from the dish.
I swirl what’s left of my coffee and stare out the shop window at the street beyond. Police tape criss-crosses Davis’s shopfront door, and a sign tacked to the window of Beryl’s craft shop likely advertises the reason for her closure.
Slurping sounds emanate from my left when Molly opts to clean her sticky fingers.
The weight in my gut only worsened when we left Reno’s in the club truck, growing to a sizable blockage the closer to Temperance we got.
I shouldn’t bring her near this. As shit as seeing the state of their house made me feel, I can’t find it in me to harbor any further guilt at never bringing Molly here until now.
I’ve made plenty of bad choices in my life, but maintaining distance between the club and my daughter will never be one of them. Only the distance that it kept between her and me.
“You need more napkins?” I ask, noting how she wipes what remains on her hands over the legs of her little jeans.
“No, thank you, Daddy.”
At least Reno got one thing right, and that was bringing Molly up with good manners and a bright disposition. It could have been worse. So much worse.
“I thought you could share my bed while you stay,” I tell her. “Top and tail.” Not just for convenience’s sake, but because we’ve got guests in the other rooms. “That sound okay?”
“I guess.” She lifts the bowl and licks the remains off the sides.
Maybe she doesn’t have all her manners. Not that I care.
Patrons of the ice-creamery stare at us enough as it is, no thanks to the patch on my back.
Probably waiting for me to slip up and yell at her or raise a hand.
Give them a reason to call Child Services and feel vindicated for their good, Christian behavior.
They’ll be waiting a while.
“What do you normally do in the holidays?” I can’t recall Reno ever saying, but maybe I’ve also never asked. If I’m going to have her for two weeks over Christmas, I need to get my shit together.
“Watch movies,” Molly answers between licks. “Ride my neighbor’s bike.”
“I thought you had your own?”
“It broke.”
“Momma never told me.”
“I know.”
What else does this kid know? I resume watching the street, paying special attention to the people who slow down as they pass the closed stores, or look toward them whilst holding conversation.
Sure, Chaos said the inside info was all connected to a Tribune reporter, but realizing I’d been blind to that betrayal all this time has me wondering who else on our streets is a double agent.
Is it old McLeary from the veterinary practice? The Sandersons, who refuse to do construction work for us anymore? Or maybe that woman from church Kyra mentioned. What was her name?
“I’m finished,” Molly announces, staring up at me.
I dip the corner of a napkin into a glass of water and gently wipe around her mouth. “Now you are.”
She huffs as though frustrated to be treated like the child she is. “Are we going to your house?”
I help her off the stool—a gesture she doesn’t seem to mind so much—and then take her hand to head for the truck. “We’re going to where I live. Yeah.”
Because it ain’t my house. Or my home. It’s my place of residence.
And there’s a hell of a difference.