Chapter 5
C hapter F ive
“Are you sure we should do this?” Aunt Louise asked as she sat down at the kitchen table.
Arden sipped his coffee and blinked the sleep from his eyes. “I can’t answer that for you. You have to decide what you want.” Her sleeves rode up, and for the first time, Arden saw the black-and-blue marks above her wrist. “Do you want to continue to live in fear?”
She shook her head. “Then I guess I have to make the change. Okay, when does he get here?” Her eyes were clear, and she seemed determined.
“Half an hour,” Arden told her as she pulled the sleeve of her robe down over her arms. “Go get dressed, and remember you have nothing to be ashamed of. You did nothing wrong.” Arden stood when she did and hugged his aunt tightly. “You’re the good person in all this. He was a jerk, but you took me in, even when your sister told you not to.” Arden would do just about anything for his aunt Louise. “You have a good heart, and Uncle Charlie abused that, and it needs to stop. So don’t hide what he did.”
She tensed. “You saw?” Her voice was so soft.
“Yes. It’s not your fault. We all carry wounds and scars. Some are just on the outside. But you’ll heal—inside and out—and the first step is to get rid of him.”
She nodded. “Okay. I need to dress and put my face on. I’ll be right back.” She took her mug with her and hurried upstairs. Arden finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. Then he sat in the living room, nervously moving from place to place until his aunt joined him. “I’m so nervous. I never thought I’d be here again.” She hung her head.”
“Again?” Arden asked.
She nodded. “Charlie is my second marriage. I was very young when I got married the first time, and it was terrible. It only lasted a year, and you weren’t even born before it ended. You never met him. The family was angry that I divorced and thought I should have stayed and made it work.” She looked almost completely broken, and Arden wished he could fix that. But all he could do was be there.
“They don’t get to make the choices for others. Mom and Dad tried to dictate my life and the decisions I was going to make. I know you don’t understand, but you still supported me, and I’ll support you.” The doorbell rang, and Arden got up and opened the door to a black man in his forties, wearing tan pants and a light blue polo shirt.
“Are you Arden?” he asked. “I’m Vinny, a friend of Ronny’s.”
“Of course. Please come in,” Arden told him. “My aunt is very nervous, but I think she’s resolved that she needs to get out of the very difficult situation.” He closed the door, and Vinny went through to the living room. Then he joined them, and Vinny had them explain what had happened. To his shock, his aunt showed Vinny her arms and even her back.
“How long ago did he do that?” Vinny asked.
“Three days,” Aunt Louise answered, close to tears.
Vinny sat back. “Okay.” He sat in the chair. “You have some options, but here is what I think you should do. What we should do. I’d advise you to call the police, make a complaint, and press charges. They will take pictures of your injuries, and those can be used in court. That will help keep your husband in jail and add to the charges. Once you have done that, I will then prepare a petition for a restraining order. And I should be able to get that before a judge tomorrow. But… here is where we do some real good. I will inform the prosecutor that we are getting the restraining order as well as the pending abuse charges. We should then be able to use all of that to ensure that your husband cannot use any joint assets to secure his bail.”
Aunt Louise eyes seemed to spin. “Okay.”
“I know it seems like a lot, but it really isn’t.”
“So I just call the police?” she asked.
Vinny nodded. “Here is their nonemergency number. Call this and explain that you wish to report spousal abuse and that you are pressing charges. They will send someone right over.”
“I’ll be here with you,” Arden said softly. “You aren’t going to be alone. I promise you that.” He sat next to her on the sofa.
“But… your mother and….”
“They don’t get a say in this. He’s hurting you, and no one gets to do that.” Arden wanted his uncle to pay for what he did, though it wasn’t likely his aunt would see things that way. “But this is your decision.” He unlocked his phone and held it out. Aunt Louise hesitated for a good minute, and Arden wondered if she was going to take the step, but then she took the phone and made the call.
Things happened quickly from there. The police arrived in less than five minutes, and they were so kind with his aunt. The lead officer was a woman, Vivian Clark, and she was soft-spoken and gentle with her. She took pictures and asked a lot of questions. More than once, Arden found himself swallowing hard and damn near in tears as she related all the things she had put up with over the years.
“Thank you,” Vivian finally told her. “I know how hard this has been for you to tell us, but you did the right thing.”
“I’m not so sure. When Charlie comes home….”
She shook her head. “We’ll do our best to see that doesn’t happen.”
Arden figured that was mostly hope on her part. How could anyone guarantee that?
Once she was done with her questions, she explained what would happen next. “You pressing charges goes a long way to us helping to keep you safe.” Then she said goodbye to his aunt and spoke to Vinny for a few minutes before leaving.
“Okay. You did your part. Now I need to do mine. I will have a police report number in an hour or two. In the meantime, I’ll draft a request for a protection from abuse order, as well as a restraining order. I’m going to ask that he be kept a hundred feet away from your home and work, which means he is going to have to find somewhere else to live. I can also request that he not be allowed to use any of your assets, joint or otherwise, to secure his bail.”
“Thank you. I know it’s Sunday and very little will happen.”
“True, but I have a few contacts I can use. Let me see what I can do.” Vinny gathered his papers. “I’ll call you when I know anything.”
“Thank you,” Aunt Louise told him. “And I’ll thank Ronny as well. I’m so glad he sent you to us.”
“Don’t thank me yet. There are still a number of unknowns. But as another precaution, call a locksmith as well. Make sure he can’t get in. I’ll also email you the name of a good divorce attorney. Keith knows what he’s doing, and he’s worked with people in your situation before.” He shook Aunt Louise’s hand and then Arden’s before leaving.
Arden saw him to the door, closing and locking it behind him.
“This is so much,” Aunt Louise said.
“I know. But you need to be safe from him. And with him being held on multiple charges now, it weakens his hand a lot.” He pulled out his phone, but he wasn’t sure who to call. “Ronny,” Arden thought out loud and made a call. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“How is your aunt?” Ronny asked.
“She’s hanging in there. Your friend just left, and he was a big help. But we need a locksmith. Vinny recommended changing the locks.” He heard the sound of the bar in the background.
“Sorry. It’s super busy here, and I can barely hear you.”
“Aren’t you usually off?” Arden asked, but figured when you owned a bar, days off were kind of few and far between.
“It was supposed to be. But John is sick and can’t work today, so I came in to cover for him, but the place is packed because of a game.” He paused. “I’ll find the name of who we use and call you back.” Ronny hung up.
“Is he okay?”
Arden sighed and then made a decision. “Come with me. Let’s lock up the house and go on down to The Gingerbread. Ronny needs help, and I’m thinking you could use a drink and some time away from here.” His aunt didn’t seem convinced. “And I don’t want you to stay here alone. You’ll just worry.”
“Okay. Let me get my purse,” she said, and Arden hurried over to his place to change his shirt and get dressed in more work-appropriate attire. Once he was ready, he met his aunt in the yard, and they left through the back gate, walking the few blocks toward the center of town.
At The Gingerbread, Arden found his aunt a place at the bar before joining Ronny. “I thought you could use some help.”
“I really could. The bar is swamped, and I’ve been taking orders as well, but I’m getting behind.” Ronny began making drinks, and Arden grabbed a pad and checked with each table, taking orders and delivering food when it was ready. It was hopping for a few hours until the game started to wind down. Then people began filtering out, while others came in to replace them.
Yeardley came in after five to relieve him, and thankfully one of the bartenders was able to take a shift to relieve Ronny.
“How are you doing?” he asked his aunt, who had a beer in front of her and had been deep in discussion with the man next to her about which team was likely to go all the way. It was shocking how much his aunt knew and how easily she held her own.
“I’m fine. This is my third beer,” she told him. “And my last. I think if I have one more, I’m going to stumble home, and I don’t want that.”
“Did you get something to eat?”
“I had a sandwich a few hours ago. I’m good.” She pushed the glass away before motioning Ronny over. “I need to handle my tab, please.” She handed him a credit card, and he rang it through and gave her the slip to sign. “Are you done?”
“Yes. I’ve been relieved,” he told her. “So we can go home.” He let her slip off the stool and then led her out in the evening.
“You like him—I can tell,” Aunt Louise said as they walked. “You watch him all the time.”
“He’s my boss, and he was good enough to give me a job when I really needed one. That’s all.”
She snorted. “Don’t try to feed me that line of bull. I just sat at the bar watching both of you watch each other. It was cute. You heard he was busy, and you had to rush in, on your day off, just to see if he needed help.” She stopped as a car pulled down the alley. “If you ask me, I’d say you have it bad.”
“And what does it matter? He’s my boss, and I’m not going to get involved with him. It’s a minefield.”
“That may be true, but that doesn’t change the fact that you like him, and he feels the same way. Every time he thinks you aren’t paying attention, he’s looking at you in that way that makes your heart flutter.” His aunt smiled, and Arden shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. Not with the way things are right now.” He had so much on his plate with his new job and all the crap with Uncle Charlie. The last thing he needed were additional complications. “And you know it’s a bad idea.”
She shrugged. “I know no such thing. Do you think Ronny is going to use his position as your boss to his advantage?”
“No.” He was pretty sure about that.
“And are you going to use any relationship with Ronny to get what you want at work?”
Arden giggled and clapped his hand over his mouth. “You have to be kidding me. It isn’t like there’s a top to sleep my way to.” He shrugged. “I just don’t want other people to think that’s why I took the job or why he gave me the chance.”
“Are they really going to think that?” She continued walking down the back street. “Because I don’t. Arden, you don’t get to choose who you have feelings for, and if they develop into something deeper, then you definitely don’t get to make a choice. The heart wants what the heart wants, and that’s about it.”
“Was it like that for you and Uncle Charlie?”
His aunt stopped walking. “No, it wasn’t. Your grandparents knew his parents, and they pressed us to meet, and then once we did, they kept pushing us together. After the mess I’d made of my first marriage, they determined that they knew best, and I didn’t have the backbone to stand up to them, not again. I kept wondering if I was wrong. They had been right before, so I thought they might be right this time, so when Charlie proposed, and they thought we were perfect for each other, I thought they had to be right, even though I wasn’t sure. And for a while, things were good between us.”
“But then he changed?” Arden asked.
She began walking again. “I think we both did. I realized he wasn’t the man of my dreams and started to pull away. He began to drink more, and then when I stood up to him, he attacked me back. He didn’t hit me then, but he went after me verbally, and I grew less and less happy as he got more and more controlling. I don’t think I even realized it was happening. I think it happened gradually, and I didn’t really see it.” She shivered. “Most of the friends I had are gone, and now my world is so small that….”
“It doesn’t need to be that way. Call your old friends, tell them what happened and what you’re doing. They’ll be back.” Maybe he was being na?ve, but it seemed to him that if they were his aunt’s friends once, they would be again. “All it takes is one.” Arden knew that was true. It only took one person to help change your life.