Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
L orelai…
“Lore, baby. C’mon and wake up,” Hangman’s voice was gentle, but I couldn’t help but wince and curl in on myself in the warm snug bed. I groaned. I didn’t want to wake up, yet. It was too early – the sun still having that quality of light to it that said it was still barely past sunrise where it poured in between the slats of the bedroom blinds.
“What? Why?” I groaned and then whined.
“Your daddy sent the cops here,” Hangman said, sighing. “Gotta come show them that you’re fine, that you’re not under duress, and tell them that you want to be here.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked, sitting upright.
“Wish he was, ma’am,” I heard from the bedroom doorway and I turned to face a uniformed officer in dark blue standing in the doorway.
“Savannah police?” I asked frowning.
“Thunderbolt, but your father called Savannah and then Savannah reached out to us for a wellness check, ma’am.”
“Well, I’m fine. You can see that I’m perfectly well,” I said, annoyed.
“Yes ma’am,” the cop was young and he was grinning.
“I’m right where I’m supposed to be right now, thank you,” I said and the cop nodded, tipping his hat.
“Yes, ma’am. You might want to call and sort things out with your father.”
I sighed tiredly and nodded.
“I’ll walk you out,” Hangman said tersely and he led the officer out.
“Ugh!” I flopped back into the bed and pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, rubbing the sleep from them.
I heard the whisper of denim swishing against itself and looked up. Hangman was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, looking put out but not necessarily annoyed with me … just more at the situation.
“Nice that you’re loved,” he said with a faint smile.
“Am I?” I asked and sighed out. “By my mother, yes, absolutely. My father, I think it’s less about love and more about control sometimes.”
Hangman shook his head and came over to sit on the edge of the bed. He sighed and reached out a hand to touch my leg and I felt my stiff posture ease.
“I get that,” he said. “I get that all too well. Is that why you called me?”
I looked at my hands, gripped together in a distressed ball in my lap and said, “Partially. I felt as though he was suffocating me.”
He looked thoughtful.
“Is he part of the reason why you’re worried the cops might victim blame you?” he asked.
I didn’t say anything. I mean, what could I say? It was my dad who had honestly led the charge on practically grilling me about that night. He’d only circled the wagons at the hospital and kept everyone at bay to save face, more than any actual care he had for me. At least, it felt that way after we’d gotten home and behind closed doors. I should have known it was too good to be true when it came to all of that. My silence must have told Hangman everything that he needed to know.
“Alright,” he soothed, smoothing a hand over the satin covering my back. “Okay,” he murmured.
I covered my face with my hands and scrubbed at it, sighing. He sat with me while I collected myself, my nerves jangled with the rude awakening.
“I don’t know why he would send the police,” I said after a moment. I went to my phone and looked at it. A ridiculous number of missed calls and texts, all from my father and a few from my mother. My father’s texts becoming increasingly irate when I wouldn’t answer him, my mother’s texts few and succinct, telling me to ignore my father and to do what I needed to do to find myself.
I loved my mother in that moment. My heart swelling to the point of cracking in the face of her calm and supportive words. Meanwhile, in juxtaposition, my father’s texts becoming more unhinged and even downright mean in places from my not answering.
“Let me see, Sweetpea,” Hangman urged gently.
A bit reluctantly, I handed him the phone.
I mean, if we were going to be together, or whatever this was or was becoming… I rather liked that there were no secrets between us. That meant something to me… even if it did sting letting him in to see this part of my childhood.
“He was probably drunk,” I said timidly, in a rather lackluster defense of my father; but it was the truth. He was prone to drinking when things got hard or stressful, and while he’d never hit me or my mother his words could be cruel and cut rather deep.
“Jesus,” Hangman muttered, glancing through the texts. He took screenshots of a few, and sent them somewhere. Presumably to himself.
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” I murmured weakly.
“He knows,” he said. “I can see why you would come to me. Not exactly the kind of environment for healing.”
“It’s calm here,” I confessed. “I think it might have something to do with the graves outside your door… honestly, I don’t know but I feel better here.”
“I’m glad about that,” he said. “You need to get dressed, pick one of your nice dresses and some comfortable walking shoes. The girls are coming by to scoop you up while I’m at work for the day. I told them to take you someplace to find your tea and a proper set or whatever up to your standards.”
He smiled at me, this crooked smile and I felt an answering one of my own.
“That sounds quite lovely,” I said and his smile grew.
“Enjoy your day, Sweetpea. I’ll see you at the end.”
He bowed at the waist and pressed lips to my forehead, putting my phone back into my hands.
I let my eyes flutter shut and melted into the touch.
“I love you,” he whispered against my skin, and I felt suffused with a glow of happiness.
“I love you, too,” I murmured.
“I’ll get you a set of keys to things so you can come and go as you please,” he said.
“Thank you,” I murmured, a bit surprised by that.
“Try to have a good day, and ignore Daddy Dearest until he can act right.”
I blushed faintly and chuckled at that.
“I better message my mom,” I said softly.
He nodded.
“You do that.”
“Okay,” I said and he pulled some things from some drawers and disappeared into the bathroom to finish getting ready for his day.
I texted my mother that I was alright, sent some screenshots of my father’s bullshit – which I had been correct; Hangman had sent them to himself, but I had no idea what he planned to do with them.
She responded to me to just ignore him and that she would handle him. I told her about the police showing up here this morning and she sent back an eye roll emoji and said: That’s your father for you. He still sees you as eight, and not the young woman you’ve become. You’ll always be his little girl…
I sighed; she did that. Took up for him… but I wasn’t sure it was so much taking up for him as it was, she was trying to spare my hurt feelings when he did things this.
The bathroom door opened and Hangman swung back into the bedroom to kiss me goodbye, and check on me one more time before leaving the house.
Once he was gone, I closed my eyes and sat very still for several moments. The texts had gone from frantic and worried, to angry and hurtful before finally devolving into a vitriolic frenzy of word salad that was barely comprehensible.
It was frustrating, but that was Dad. He had his good qualities, but don’t test him.
I sighed, and was grateful for how cool, calm, and collected Hangman seemed to be at all times. I was sure there was a part of that my mother recognized, and I was surer still that my mother trusted me to make the right decisions.
…I just didn’t know if I trusted myself anymore.
I mean… look what’d happened.
I got up and moved about the apartment like a wraith, getting myself dressed and putting on a pair of white comfortable shoes to go with the sun dresses that’d been chosen for me. Spot on, in my particular style. I loved them so.
I’d chosen the one with small pink flowers today, and only worried marginally about my thighs chaffing. Still, to buy myself a little insurance on that front, I slathered my inner thighs with antiperspirant to help.
It wasn’t long after I’d finished doing something with my hair, making a final check in the bathroom mirror, that a knock fell at the door out in the living room. I went out and found Madisyn and Lainey waving through the glass windowpane by the door excitedly and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Welcome back!” Madisyn cried and Lainey hugged me.
“Thank you,” I said dryly and they both said, “Ready to go?” practically in unison.
We shared a laugh and I said, “Just let me grab my purse.”
I went into the bedroom and collected it off the top of the bag I’d packed that was sitting in the chair in the corner and slung it over my shoulder.
I went back out and we closed the door behind us and I was nervous about not being able to lock it or locking myself out.
“Don’t worry about it,” Madisyn said when she caught my nervous eye.
“There’s cameras everywhere and it’s not exactly a secret that Hangman is who he is when it comes to the club and nobody wants that kind of heat,” Lainey added.
“We’re parked down at the club,” Madisyn said threading her arm through mine and giving it a hug. “I hear we’re on a mission for some tea. Lainey looked up some shops downtown. We’ve got you covered.”
“Throw in a bookstore and it sounds like the perfect afternoon to me,” Lainey said.
“Ooo, a bookstore! You won’t hear any complaints from me, on that,” I said, my spirits lifting.
“Bet,” Madisyn said as we left the bottom of the stairwell and went around to leave through the open gates.
Hangman zipped up on a golfcart and asked, “You lock up?”
I shook my head, worried I’d made a mistake.
“No worries, I’ll get to it. You girls have fun.”
I smiled and I felt him drink me in from behind his aviators, an answering smile touching his own lips nearly hidden by his beard.
“You’re beautiful,” he said to me and I felt myself blush a pink to match the flowers on my dress. “Try not to let yourself get burned.”
“We’ll get her some SPF moisturizer,” Madisyn said.
“See you when you get home,” he said and I let the phrase echo in my head.
…when you get home…
I liked the sound of that. It felt right. It felt… real .
“Okay,” I said and he put the cart into gear and zipped off in the direction of the house.
I paused to look into the cemetery, and breathed a big, contented sigh.
“Ever been through?” Lainey asked.
I shook my head, paused, and then nodded. “The day it happened,” I said. “I don’t remember it… or really only vaguely do. It’s like everything is shattered and falling and I only catch glimpses when the shards turn just right.”
“You should have Hangman take you after the gates are closed,” Madisyn declared. “Nothing like this place during golden hour.”
“Golden hour?” I asked.
“Happens twice a day around sunrise and sunset, when the light is just perfect and there are no hard lines or harsh shadows,” Lainey explained. “I had to ask too at first.”
I let them lead me arm in arm out the front gates to the cemetery all the while learning all sorts of things about what light was good for what when it came to painting. It was eye-opening, to say the least.