Chapter Fourteen #2
I checked the microwave clock. “It’s only a few minutes after two.”
“We’ll start fresh tomorrow morning,” Rosie said. “The ham comes out of the oven in a couple of hours, so Scarlett wouldn’t get much done in that length of time.”
Scarlett glanced over at the clock on the microwave. “You are right, Rosie—and Grady is calling in fifteen minutes to FaceTime with me.”
Rosie pointed at me. “Your eyes tell me that you need a nap between now and supper. You go get a nice warm shower and get into a real bed for a couple of hours.”
No one had bossed me since Paula came into the picture. I’d hated it when she got that look in her eyes and laid down the law. But with Rosie, it was different.
One did it because she wanted to make you miserable enough to leave. She didn’t want to deal with a teenager when she had children of her own. I didn’t recognize the voice, but it sure explained a lot.
Rosie poked me on the shoulder. “How far do you think the nearest hospital or doctor is?”
“What has that got to do with me being sleepy?”
“Over fifty miles,” Scarlett answered for me.
“That’s right,” Rosie said. “That means if you fall asleep on your way to your room and fall and crack your head wide open, I’ll have to stitch it up with a sewing needle and thread. Before that, I’ll have to shave a patch of your hair away.”
A vision of my mother lying in a pool of blood flashed through my mind and sent a shiver down my spine.
“She’s not joking,” Scarlett said.
“No, I am not,” Rosie declared. “I’ll wake you up when supper is ready.”
“Thank you,” I muttered. “But why do you think I need a shower?”
“I washed all our bedding yesterday. You are not crawling in between clean sheets in a sweat suit that you’ve probably already slept in,” Rosie answered.
“Thank you, again,” I said on my way down the hall.
I stripped out of my borrowed clothing and made a mental note to wash them the next day.
The warm water flowing down over my body was so relaxing that I closed my eyes.
I jerked awake when my shoulder hit the shower wall to my right.
I quickly turned off the water, stepped out, and wrapped a towel around my body, then rubbed the moisture off the mirror with my palm.
I leaned in and stared at my reflection in the semi-fog.
“Why am I so sleepy?”
Because the adrenaline rushing through your body has bottomed out, my mother answered.
Not once in all my traveling years had a bed felt as wonderful as mine did that afternoon.
Sleep came as soon as my head hit the pillow, but it wasn’t the good kind.
Jackson’s dream popped into my head in color.
Only this time, I was with him. Well, not really right there beside him, but standing back behind a tree so green that it seemed surreal.
Unbearable heat caused me to sweat so badly that my shirt and cargo pants stuck to my skin.
Jackson was alone when he tossed what looked like carpet over the razor wire, but it could have been something made specifically for that purpose.
My heart pounded so loudly, I was sure the guard patrolling around the ramshackle building would hear it. It was then that I realized something was wrong, and I stepped out from my hiding spot to yell at Jackson: “Don’t do it. Come back to me, and let’s give us a second chance.”
He didn’t hear me and barreled over the fence.
The next minute, a red haze filled the area, and a gun fired bullets so rapidly that there was no time between the shots.
Had that stupid guard lost his mind? There was nothing left of Jackson to shoot.
In one instant, he was dead, and I would never feel his lips on mine again.
I awoke with a jerk and sat up so quickly that it made me dizzy.
Tears made wet circles when they dripped off my jaw onto my nightshirt.
Until I came to my senses and figured out that I had been dreaming, grief like I had never known before filled my whole body.
My heart still thumped so hard that my chest ached.
I buried my face in a pillow and sobbed until I got the hiccups.
“This is too much responsibility. I need to go back to a lifestyle where I was not responsible for anyone but myself,” I whispered.
“Hey,” Rosie yelled at my door. “Wake up. Supper is ready and going on the table in ten minutes.”
“Surely not. I only fell asleep five minutes ago,” I whispered and glanced over at my phone to see 4:45 in big numbers and a couple of text messages.
“Be right there,” I shouted and threw back the covers.
I dressed in a pair of pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt and went straight to the bathroom.
Not even splashing cold water on my face five times helped my red, swollen eyes.
I finally gave up and patted my cheeks with a hand towel.
I rationalized the dream by telling myself that it was simply showing me the mental pain that could possibly be involved if I chose to leave the Tumbleweed.
“She’s alive!” Scarlett said when I walked into the living area.
I forced a smile. “Barely, but I wouldn’t want to miss a meal like this, so thanks for waking me.”
“If you’d have slept any longer, you would have trouble sleeping tonight. You need a good night’s rest, because we have a big day tomorrow,” Rosie said. “Take a seat, and we’ll say grace.”
She bowed her head and said words. I was glad that no one was going to test me on Rosie’s short prayer. Whatever came out of her mouth didn’t register, because that crazy dream kept replaying on a continuous loop in my head.
“You’ve been crying,” Rosie said when she raised her head.
“I was there with Jackson in his dream this time,” I told her. “I saw it all in color.”
Scarlett laid a large piece of ham on her plate and then passed the platter to me. “I can’t imagine having a dream like that.”
“They will quit when you decide to stay at the Tumbleweed,” Rosie said.
“I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I put a piece of ham on my plate. “This is nice. We should do this more often.”
“We eat together at the café every day,” Rosie reminded me.
“But not family-style like this,” I argued. “When was the last time any of us sat down to a meal here at the trailer?”
Scarlett shrugged and frowned. “I can’t remember.”
Rosie sent a bowl of candied sweet potatoes over to Scarlett. “You go to church and dinner at Grady’s mama’s house every Sunday.”
“There’s over thirty people there, so his mama serves it buffet-style. And that’s not with just the three of us,” Scarlett said.
“How about you, Rosie?” I asked and took a bite of sweet potato.
“Christmas Day,” she answered. “I invited Ada Lou and Nancy to dinner at the café. We close the Tumbleweed on that one day of the year, and Scarlett was spending the day in Dell City. So us three ladies had a nice meal, and I served it up homestyle in the kitchen. How about you?”
“At Ada Lou’s today. The food was good, but we had to rush.
” I didn’t tell them about practically hyperventilating every time Jackson’s leg brushed against mine under the table.
“Before that, the last time would have been fourteen years ago. I had supper with Frank and his wife, Paula. That was the night I was given an ultimatum.”
“Which was?” Scarlett asked.
“To burn my lucky deck of cards, promise to never play poker again, and get my grades up to passing by the semester’s end,” I answered. “Strange thing was that I had already finished all the classes with my online courses, and I was bored to death having to repeat them.”
Rosie’s eyes bored into mine. “Or?”
“I asked the same one-word question. That’s when the lecture came about appreciating the fact that Frank had taken care of me.
How he could have put me in foster care and still could if I didn’t quit playing cards.
Then she said that she had put a roof over our heads and given me a stable environment.
If I didn’t like it, I could leave. I chose the latter.
And before today, that was the last homestyle meal I had. ”
“Why would anyone you had spent so much time with let a woman run you off? Was he your uncle or stepdad or what?” Scarlett asked.
The air suddenly seemed almost too heavy to breathe. My chest tightened, and my hands clenched into fists. Admitting what he was, other than my poker mentor, was something I didn’t even do to myself. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Finally, I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Scarlett said.
“Yes, I do. Just give me a minute,” I whispered.
Rosie covered my hand with hers. “Take all the time you need.”
“He is my father,” I blurted out. “He and my mother were young when they had me. Long story short is that Mama called him Frank, so I did, too. He was fine with that because he never wanted to be a daddy anyway.”
Rosie crossed herself and shook her head slowly. “Bless your heart. No wonder you shy away from letting folks get to know you. A father who would turn his daughter out in the cruel world doesn’t deserve to be a daddy, anyway. It’s a wonder that you survived out there on your own.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my pictures. “Look at this. How old is that person?”
Rosie took the phone from my hand and studied the picture. “It’s your mother, isn’t it? You look so much like her. She was very beautiful.”
“That is the photograph on my first fake ID when I was fourteen,” I answered.
“Scroll up to the next one, which is the one that I use when I play poker these days. That’s how I survived.
I studied women who did not need fake papers and mimicked their mannerisms. I attended the card games with Frank at first and had to show my ID, but not always.
When I started going by myself, the players that knew him would ask where he was.
I always told them that he’d left the game for a woman.
We would all laugh, and then forget all about him when we got serious about playing. ”
“What made that so funny?” Scarlett asked.
“Frank liked his booze and young women, and he had declared many times that he would never marry again,” I answered.
Scarlett’s eyes got as big and round as saucers. “Did he . . . ?”
I shook my head so that she didn’t have to finish.
“If we won money, he would blow part of it at a bar until closing time. If he picked up a woman, they took care of their business somewhere other than our hotel or motel room. He would stagger in in the early-morning hours, reeking of whiskey and/or perfume, fall into the extra bed, and sleep. I would be very quiet and work on my studies, wake him up an hour before we had to check out, and make him drink coffee to get semi-awake. He would drive out of the town or city, and then I would take over while he slept off the hangover in the back of the van. That was my life back then.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Rosie muttered.
“That’s why you have trust issues,” Scarlett said.
I could feel myself bristling. “Who said I have issues of any kind?”
Rosie reached over and patted me on the shoulder. “Everyone around this table has or has had problems. Matilda rescued us, and the Tumbleweed saved you. There’s no way you would trust men the way that Frank floated from one poker game and woman to another.”
“I’m still mad at him for not standing up for me when Paula laid down the ultimatum, and didn’t even ask me not to leave.
” I took a sip of tea before I went on. “But he promised my mother that he would take care of me. I guess in his mind, he was doing that. At least he taught me to play cards, and that gave me the ability to support myself.”
Scarlett shook her head in disbelief. “You were sixteen, and he let you drive away?”
“Yep. I was sixteen. He was thirty-eight, and Paula was thirteen years younger than that. That meant she was only eight years older than me, and she came from a strict religious background. Looking back, I guess she was trying to be like her folks. But you are right,” I said.
“Trust is something I don’t have much of. ”
Rosie handed the plate of ham over to me. “You are preaching to the choir.”
It seemed like a dam had broken; words poured out of me.
“I often envied little girls my age who had a family around them, but I would convince myself that they were probably jealous of me. After all, I didn’t have to go to public school.
I didn’t have to go to bed at any certain time.
I could order room service to my hotel room.
When Frank finally came home in the wee hours of the morning and collapsed on the other queen-sized bed, I was free to go to the swimming pool. Those girls couldn’t do any of that.”
“Matilda would tell you that you were growing a shell around your heart to protect you from the pain of losing your mother so suddenly,” Rosie said.
“Shall we have a game of Scrabble after supper?” I asked to take my mind off the past.
“Not me,” Scarlett answered. “I’m going to FaceTime with Grady again this evening. When the snow finally melts, you”—she pointed at me—“are going to church with me and to Sunday supper with his family.”
“O . . . kay,” I said.
“Or you can go to evening Mass with me, and then over to their house for Sunday supper,” Rosie offered.
“What if I just drove up there in time to meet Grady after y’all go to church?”
“Oh, no!” Scarlett said. “You have to get some Jesus in your soul before supper. Jesus delivered a message to the multitude before he broke up the fishes and loaves to feed them. That means you listen to the preacher before we go to Grady’s mama’s house.”
“I guess I’ll pay my dues, then,” I agreed.