KAREN
I never meant to hurt anyone. I didn’t. Unless you count an attempt to desecrate a human body. Mind you, that’s what the town decided, not the jury.
For what I did, I got a witch hunt. And the locals were ready to burn their witch.
But I stood my ground. In small towns, you either do that or you get burned at the stake.
I didn’t care what they all thought. Still don’t. Any mother would’ve done what I did to protect her child. Many would’ve done worse. Mothers’ instincts often override logic, morals, and law, regardless of whether their children are saints or sinners.
Children are a lottery. It might not be a nice way to put it, but, hell, raising a good human is a hit or miss.
Every threat I got from my mom growing up was, “Wait till your father gets home.” I never wanted that for my daughter.
I was a single mom. Alysha was a good girl.
Or so I thought, until I saw signs, those subtle signs no parent wants to acknowledge.
We want our kids to grow up kind, strong, respectful.
How can they not? When you love someone so much from the day they come into this world, you think surely that love will mold them into their best.
But then, the thorns start poking out here and there. The little acts of cruelty. The selfishness. The not quite what we wanted.
“Oh, that’s his daddy,” we say when we want to blame someone else.
Or “I don’t know who she got that from.” There are thousands of strangers in our gene pools.
When you plant the seeds, you want them to grow into the beautiful image on the package you got them in.
In reality, it’s up to the soil, weather, and fertilizer.
And that's if they don’t get smothered by weeds before their time.
Children are more complicated than that.
I knew Alysha wasn’t an angel. I wanted to grow a flower, and she turned into poison ivy. And she drew trouble. That summer, twenty-five years ago, I thought she could handle it on her own.
Dougie stormed into my bar on the fair-week Tuesday. Early in the evening, Ma Shirley’s was half empty, but he was already three sheets to the wind and ready to break someone’s bones.
“She told you about that schmuck?” he angrily slurred into my face.
“What’s happening, Dougie?” I asked calmly.
He leaned on his fists on the bar counter, his eyes bloodshot, his baseball hat askew. “That hotshot she and Vic are parading around. She with him?”
Derek. I knew it. I’d heard enough rumors. Talked to her about it. She’d denied it and got angry. Too much of that anger lately, and I wondered if Derek was the cause.
I studied Dougie for a moment. “You tell me, Dougie. She doesn’t tell me much. What’s going on?”
He adjusted his baseball hat, swished spit in his mouth, all rattled up, I could tell.
“Saw ’em several times, the three of ’em, all cozy, happy, like a pack of dogs.
’Cept I can’t figure out what’s going on there.
Is he with Al? With Vic? Can’t get nothing from Al.
She keeps saying ’s none of my business. That we are over.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Doesn’t matter. You know I love her, Mrs. Boots, and that guy is scum. I was pulling out of the fairground the other night. Sure, I’d had a couple of beers.”
I’d say more like a six-pack. I knew those boys.
“So, we see him chatting up some skirt,” he continued.
“I called him over to have a talk, man-to-man, ye know? Tell him to stay away from Alysha. He told me to beat it. So, ye know, I got a little wound up, wanted to toss him around, show him his place. Got in his face.” Dougie’s face hardened with the anger I knew well.
“That guy steps into me, and next thing I know, I feel a gun in my crotch.” His lips curl in a nasty way.
“Don’t know where that came from. I keep mine in the car.
His was right there. Don’t know if he carries it on him at all times or what’s up.
And then he says—” Dougie licked his lips and leaned closer.
“Says, ‘I see you around again, I will shoot your balls off, bury you in the woods, then take your sister with me to the city, have my time with her, then pass her around to all the guys who need a free ride, then come back and do the same to your fucking cousins and second cousins.’ And on and on he goes, ye know, threatening me like that?”
A dumpster set on fire? That was a kid’s prank. This sort of talk? That was dangerous, despite the fact that Dougie could stretch a tale longer than a piece of taffy. Chop it in half if you want to know the truth.
Dougie kept rambling as I served him ice water—he needed to clear his head. I knew his pride was hurt, his inflated ego shot. But I replayed Derek’s words in my head, and none of it sounded like a prank. Not even a threat. He was a talking, walking crime waiting to happen.
I just didn’t know yet that he would leave some of us with blood on our hands.