KAREN
I never meant to push Josie away. I only meant to guide her. I did the same with Alysha. She was a typical youngling, too sure of herself, too judgmental of the older generation, walking out on problems because she had me to sort them out.
“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass,” we used to say to the young ones, and so had our parents to us, and theirs before them, because when you’ve lived a life, you know just how hard that door can swing at you when your nose is too high to see what’s under your feet.
Josie is a good kid. She was born with a talent.
When you grow up in a small town, with a dark past, as a loner, that talent is a rebellion.
It blooms, hiding from the bullies, and when it gets a chance, it bursts like sunshine.
That's why I wanted Josie to leave Burnville.
She had to share that with the world, that sunshine that a town like Burnville often snuffed out.
I wish I could tell her everything that happened back then, but I can’t. Some secrets are not meant to be shared. Ignorance is boring but safe. Knowledge often has sharp edges. Without experience, it’s hard to hold sharp objects and not get cut.
I sit at the kitchen table for a while, the silence around me suffocating. I want to move, but I can’t, the memories in my head paralyzing me.
I should text Josie and apologize. Will that help?
I’ve been here before, trying to teach, to protect.
Josie is not her momma, but this still hurts.
It cuts deep. The sound of the door being slammed.
The angry tears. The accusations. I tried to raise Josie differently.
Granted, Josie was a different child—introverted, sensitive, and kind.
But it’s hard to get someone to listen when their response is walking out.
In the days that led up to the bar fire, slamming doors in this house became frequent, on repeat, as if I were ruining Alysha’s life though all I wanted was to protect her.
I was putting paperwork in my purse, ready to leave for the bar one day when Alysha strutted past me.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
Her high heels clacked against the hardwood floor. A low-cut shirt. Her skirt barely covered her behind. She didn’t look at me. “Out,” she replied.
That slight roll of her head was starting to get on my nerves. “Out where? Alysha, come here.”
She turned slowly, like I was bothering her.
“Out where?”
“Gosh, Mother, somewhere!” She chewed her gum like she was chewing a tough steak, with her mouth open. “What do you want me to do? Stay home every day? It’s summertime, my last summer here.”
She popped a bubble with her chewing gum, her eyeliner cat eyes staring at me with annoyance.
I studied her high ponytail, her hand on her hip, her pink lipstick.
Just done with high school and half dressed.
What happened to the sweet girl who used to like flannel shirts and rain boots, reading Harry Potter books, and catching insects by the creek?
Who called me Mom instead of Mother or Ma.
I never noticed when my own child became a stranger.
“Who are you going with?” I asked in a cold tone usually reserved for my drunk customers.
“Who do you think? Victoria.”
“To the fair?”
“Yeah, the fair, where else?” She snorted. “Gonna go hang out with a bunch of old people, juniors, and smelly country folks.”
“Oh, and you’re a city girl?”
Her lips curled in a smirk. I knew that curl.
She didn’t like it when I put her in her place.
Don’t know where she got that attitude from, like she’d been kicked out of a better place and sent to Burnville as a punishment.
Younger generations think they invented life, sex, partying, underground music, and fashion.
So had I when I was her age. I thought my granny Anther was an uptight churchgoing woman until she showed me a picture of her at a New York venue in 1913 in a risqué outfit.
“I miss cabarets, coca wine, and bridge. Everything good always gets banned,” she said with nostalgia, wearing her usual creased dress pants and getting ready to go to church.
My daughter was no exception in thinking that her mother was a dinosaur and “out of the loop.”
“That guy, Derek, I don’t want you to run around with him,” I said, knowing well that we were past the times when I could forbid her things. But she was the clueless one here.
She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms at her chest. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“Don’t play dumb, Alysha. You know what I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t.”
“He is bad news. You are about to start college. Don’t let anyone ruin that for you. His kind? They can do it in a blink of an eye.”
She pursed her lips.
We had corporal punishment when I was a schoolgirl. Dad could use a belt now and then. Mom used to smack my hands. You don’t forget kneeling on buckwheat. Or eating soap. These kids? They didn’t know how easy they had it. Our fault too. We didn’t want life to be hard on them.
And that was what I got in return—that little arrogant posture, arms crossed over her chest, pursed lips. Her mobile rang, and by reflex, she jerked to check it, then stopped herself, her cautious gaze back on me.
Good. Because I’d take that damn thing away from her. She didn’t deserve that gadget, didn’t need it. I sure did spoil her.
“Derek is not right,” I told her. “That’s not what I raised you for.”
“How about I’m old enough to make my own decisions?”
“How about you do that when you pay your own bills?”
“Really? Oh my god.”
“Really. I am the one still cooking for you too.”
She swore under her breath—I heard it.
“Pardon me?” I pressed, daring her to say it louder.
She snorted, grabbed her purse, and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her.
I was no Mother of the Year, but I ran a business. In my opinion, giving a child financial stability was more important than playing house and struggling to make ends meet, then kicking her out into the world with nothing to her name.
She and Donna’s girl, Victoria, were two peas in a pod.
We’d thought we’d been saving them from hard life, the bar business, the riffraff that often drifted through.
Looked like those two had found their own trouble.
I’d blinked, and somehow, my once sweet girl had gotten out of hand.
“Out of hand”—that’s something you’d never thought you’d say as a mother about your child. Yet, here we were.
I pressed my lips tightly, watching Alysha get into her car—my car I’d bought for her—and drive off.
I phoned Donna.
“Did you talk to Victoria about Derek?” I asked.
“She said he was nothing.”
“I checked Alysha’s phone last night. She’d been texting him. The sort of stuff you don’t text to just a regular boy.”
“He’s not a boy.”
“Exactly my point. So what is he doing with two girls fresh out of high school?”
“Do you want me to answer that?”
I cursed under my breath.
“You think she’s deep in with him, your Alysha?” Donna asked.
“Don’t know.”
“Victoria pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“Yet they are going to the fair. I’m sure he’ll be around.”
“Did you tell Alysha you want her to stay home?”
“She’d break the windows and run away. You remember yourself at their age?”
“We had more sense than this generation.”
“That we did. That we did.”
“Well?” Donna exhaled loudly. “Let me know if he shows up again at the bar.”
“No doubt in my mind. Telling you, D, he’s trouble.”
“There are a lot of folks in town for the fair. Maybe he’ll leave too.”
I doubted that. Didn’t say anything. All we could do was wait.
Victoria wasn’t an angel either, but Victoria listened to Donna more, was more careful.
My girl? Well, my girl was a leader. Came from her father, no doubt.
Cigarettes in her car. Booze. Condoms in her purse—at least she had enough sense for that.
I wasn’t afraid about those—I wasn’t clueless.
At the right time, I’d sat Dougie down and given him a lecture.
I had a bar, heard plenty when people drank and ran their mouths.
That evening, I didn’t know how deep the trouble ran. I went to my bar as usual. It was crowded, but no sign of Derek.
My mood churned—he could be with Alysha and Victoria. Hopefully, at the fair. Hopefully, with other people. Maybe it was nothing.
It wasn’t until ten or so that the crowd poured in after the fair had closed. I noticed a young woman, about thirty, sitting by herself. Nothing unusual, except she watched everyone who went in and out of the bar, like she was waiting for someone.
She nursed a beer for an hour, only a quarter of it gone.
“You need anything, love?” I asked.
She shook her head, dismissing me.
It was almost one, only a few regulars left and a loud group of carnies in the back when I talked to her again. She looked tired, deflated, a little strained.
“You all right, love?” I asked. “Anything I can get you?”
She lifted her chin. “I’m fine,” she said. Said it like I bothered her.
I was about to walk away when she cleared her throat. “Hey, question for you.”
“Shoot.”
She reached into her purse, took her wallet out, and pulled a small photograph out of it. “I’m looking for my husband,” she said. “He should be in town for business. But I can’t get ahold of him. Have you seen him around? Maybe he stopped by?”
I took the picture from her hands, and a chill ran down my spine. “That’s your husband?”
“Jimmy, yes.”
“Is that right?”
“Well, we are not married. Yet. We are out of Ohio. He went on a business trip weeks ago. Was supposed to call. Never did.”
I looked at her in the picture, then at the little baby boy, around two, and her husband-to-be, Jimmy. Though he was no Jimmy. Not according to his driver’s license. The one he gave me when I checked his ID two weeks ago said Derek Sickler.