21. Sara
SARA
Kip and I were on the porch drawing with sidewalk chalk when my phone buzzed.
It was on silent mode, but I kept it close in case Mom needed something.
But when I saw Garret's name on the screen my stomach did a little flip and anxiety shot through my chest. I picked it up and swiped to unlock and read what he had to say.
I read it twice and my mind went straight to the river, the spot downstream from the old bridge where the bank flattened out into a wide gravel bar.
Dad used to take us there when we were kids to skip rocks.
He said it was the best thing a person could do when life had them flustered, and he'd taught all three of us how to find the flat ones and flick our wrists the right way to get them dancing across the water.
He'd taught Garret too, years later, during the summer Garret started coming around the shop to learn engines. I never knew it at the time, not until much later when I went there to blow off steam after losing a race.
That gravel bar was where Garret and I had found each other for real, not the flirting at the track or the stolen glances at the diner, but the actual beginning where we'd skipped rocks in the dark and talked until we ran out of words and kissed instead.
If he was asking me there, it meant something.
I didn't know what, and I was afraid to guess. This sneaking around crap was childish, though I understood his hesitancy. Andy would never shoot Garret but he could draw attention. And my gut told me if one of my brothers drew too much attention Tony would notice and he wouldn’t be happy about it.
I typed back a fast response and hit send.
Sara: 6:41 PM: I'll be there.
I set the phone down and turned back to Kip, who was dragging a blue chalk across the concrete in wide messy circles.
"You want to go kick the ball, baby?"
He dropped the chalk and clapped his hands. "Ball! Ball!"
We went out into the yard and I kicked the soccer ball through the grass. He chased it with his whole body lurching sideways on every step, kicking it in directions he didn't intend.
I jogged after him and kicked it back gently, and he shrieked and took off with his arms pumping.
"Mama, kick it!"
"Go get it, baby." I was already winded as I watched him run. He scooped the ball up with both hands and threw it at me. It bounced off my shin and we both laughed.
I kicked it past him into the open stretch of yard near the driveway and he bolted after it.
This was the way life was supposed to be for us, simple and sweet and easy.
It brought tears to my eyes that my dad may never get to witness Kip growing up or playing real soccer. Then I heard a bike on the road.
The engine was loud and getting louder by the second. I turned toward the road expecting to see Garret's familiar silhouette, but the bike that pulled into the driveway wasn't his.
The rider was leaner, sharper, and the cut on his back had a patch placement I recognized before I could even see his face.
Tony killed the engine and swung off the bike. Every nerve in my body fired at once. I scooped Kip off the ground and pressed him against my chest and started moving toward the house quickly.
"No, Mommy! Ball!" Kip squealed but my only concern was keeping him away from Tony. No one in this town knew I had a kid outside of immediate family and the thought of Tony learning it terrified me.
"Sara!" Tony's voice cracked across the yard. "Don't you walk away from me."
I froze midstep. My legs wouldn't move. Kip squirmed in my arms and looked at Tony over my shoulder with wide, curious eyes. I turned my body to shield him.
"Danny!" I called toward the house. "Danny, come get Kip!"
The screen door opened and Danny stepped out. I shoved Kip into his arms.
"Take him inside right now," I said.
Danny looked past me at Tony standing in the driveway and his face twisted into a glare, but he took Kip and went inside without arguing. The screen door slapped shut behind him.
Tony walked up to me, stopping close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him. It made my skin crawl because I knew what lived under that disgusting smirk.
"I've seen you sneaking around with Crank," he growled at me in warning. "Wanna tell me what's goin' on with you two?"
My blood curdled. I wanted to scream, but I managed to control my tone as I took a few steps backward away from him.
"I'm not sneaking around with anyone," I told him. "I'm here to take care of my father. He's dying, Tony." I hoped turning the conversation back on Dad would scare him off, but Tony was persistent.
"And yet you keep ending up alone with Garret in the dark." He tilted his head. "That's a dangerous habit for a woman in your position." He stalked forward, looking down the front of my shirt like a perve.
"There is nothing going on between?—"
"Don't lie to me," he said, cutting me off. "I'm not stupid and neither are you."
He looked toward the house where Danny had taken Kip inside, and when his gaze landed on me again I knew he was putting pieces together. It sent panic racing through my chest. I couldn’t leave town, not without knowing what was going on with Dad, and what about Mom? She still needed me.
"That kid," he said. "How old is he?"
I swallowed hard, taking another step backward and feeling the ball behind me on the ground.
I felt eyes on me too—Danny's eyes. I sensed him standing on the porch, or inside the door.
It made me feel less alone, but still just as terrified.
Tony wouldn't hurt me right in front of my brother, but this was way worse.
I knew bringing Kip back here was a bad idea.
"He's my son. That's all you need to know."
"He looks a lot like Crank," Tony snarled, hanging on Garret's biker name like it disgusted him. He studied my face and I felt every wall I'd built over the last three years start to crack. "Spitting image, Sara. Does Ol' Cranky Boy know he's a daddy?"
My throat closed up and I blinked rapidly to keep myself from screaming and cussing at him. It was my secret, not his, and if he told Garret I'd never be able to live with myself.
"That's what I thought," Tony said, using his tongue to polish one of his canine teeth. I felt shame wash over me, then more terror, and I took another step away.
"Your secret's safe with me, Tony." I knew I sounded desperate because I was. He couldn't tell Garret. "I haven't told a soul and I never will. I'm here to mourn my father and take care of my family, and that's it. Please leave us alone."
"If you care about your life at all, you'll stay away from Crank," he said. "I've warned you more than once and my patience is running out."
His hand came up slowly, the way Garret's would when he would cradle my cheek, but Tony's long spindly fingers wrapped around my neck and squeezed. Then his thumb pressed right on my jugular and his nose twitched.
The memory of the last time he'd done this in my father's shop came crashing back and I whimpered, feeling tears well up.
"Women who get out of line get punished, Sara," he said, leaning in so close the putrid stench of his tobacco breath almost made me gag. "Remember that."
The screen door banged open and Danny stepped out with Dad's shotgun leveled at Tony's chest.
"Get your hand off my sister." Danny's voice was cold and I believed he really would kill Tony. "Get off our property or I'll shoot first and call the cops later."
Tony held my throat for one more second, eyes locked on mine. Then he released me and stepped back with both hands raised. He looked at Danny and the shotgun and didn't seem particularly concerned.
"Easy, brother," Tony said. "We're all friends here…"
"We're not friends," Danny told him. "Get on your bike and leave."
Tony backed toward his bike, hands still up. Then he stopped and looked at me one more time.
"You know, it's going to be something when Garret finds out he's got a kid he never knew about, Ms. Ducette." He said it loud enough for Danny to hear every word. "He's not gonna take kindly to being kept in the dark. That's the kind of news that changes a man."
Danny's aim didn't waver but his eyes flicked to me as I turned and rushed toward the house, humiliated and scared to death.
"What's he talking about, Sara?" Dan asked, but I ignored the question and rushed inside to find Kip.
Tony mounted his bike and kicked it to life and rode out of the driveway without looking back, and my brother followed me in, handing the gun to Tiffany as he passed her.
"Sara, What did he mean, Garret has a kid?"
The sob that came out of me was ugly and raw and I couldn't stop it. I scooped Kip up from the living room floor, carrying him down the hall to my bedroom where I shut the door and locked it.
"Sara," Danny called, knocking on the door. The knob jiggled, and he said, "Come on… open the door. We can talk about it. I’m not mad." But I was too scared to open that door for a single second.
I sat on the bed with my son in my lap and cried. Tony knew the truth, and that meant he would tell Garret. I had no way out of this now. My secret was out. Tears came so heavy, I couldn't see straight, and it made Kip look up at me and notice.
He reached up and pressed his small hands against my cheeks, trying to wipe the tears away.
"No cry, Mama," he said, patting my cheeks with his small hands. "I okay."
But it wasn't okay. Nothing was okay, and the walls I'd spent three years building to keep Garret and Kip apart were crumbling faster than I could hold them up, and I didn't know how to stop it.
If Tony told Garret the truth, he would think I ran away to hide Kip, which wasn’t the truth, and I'd be forced to tell him what the truth really was.
That Tony had killed Mandy and I was the only person in the world who knew it.
And if I let a single soul know that, Tony would kill me and my family too.