Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jo
I ’m staring directly at myself in the mirror, but my eyes won’t focus on anything but my mother’s face over my shoulder.
The permanently curled upper lip is hardly noticeable after all of the Botox, but I see it every time she looks at me.
She refuses to age, and I can’t wait to get older.
I want the freedom that comes with maturity.
The independence.
I don’t want anyone to control me.
“Your breasts are too heavy; they sag.” She pinches the under cup of my bra and pushes up.
“I think we should call a surgeon.”
“Yes, mother.”
“If you would stop eating breakfast and lunch, you’d lose a few inches off your waist by summer,” she remarks disgustedly.
“But, I would starve.”
“Replace it with a green smoothie, don’t be a pig.”
“Yes, mother.”
It’s strange how time can heal parts of the brain that seemed irreparably damaged.
Six months ago, my mother had her claws so deep in me that I couldn’t take a bite of food without considering her disapproval.
Any article of clothing that touched my body had to pass her inspection.
One cross look would send me running to my room to change before I ended up in tears and ruining my makeup.
The makeup that she critiqued down to each pore.
There hasn’t been a miracle cure, but I find myself thinking about her opinion less.
I got less blonde highlights in my hair this morning at the salon, and I haven’t been able to stop checking my reflection.
It’s taken twenty-four years, but I’m finally starting to look like me and not the prototype she wanted but could never quite get right.
There’s a knock at my door suddenly, and I suspect it’s another delivery from Lochlan.
He’s been leaving random gifts.
Gift isn’t the right word.
Peace offerings would be more apt.
The first time, it was a drawing, held in place by a rock, that his niece had drawn.
A colored pencil portrait of us doing our makeup.
It was cute, so I hung it on my mini fridge.
I didn’t make any effort to thank him for it.
The next delivery was a box of Girl Scout cookies.
I ate them, but I didn’t thank him for them either.
When I went into his kitchen to get a few hours of work done the other day, there was a pink sticky note on the whiskey cabinet with my name on it.
He swapped all my sweets down low so I didn’t need to use a chair.
I threw the note away and never mentioned it.
The last delivery was a small pizza from his sister’s pizza shop.
The kind with my favorite toppings.
I haven’t acknowledged him when I know he’s sitting on the porch, and I definitely haven’t asked to explore the property.
Not since he lashed out at me for the last time.
I’m starting to gain the tiniest shreds of self-worth, and he is not going to take them away from me.
I open the door expecting to see something on my little welcome mat, but instead I see men’s boots.
For the briefest moment, I consider shutting the door in his face, letting him feel an inkling of how he treats me, but he sees my intention before I can follow through.
“Can I talk to you? Please.”
He looks as dark and dangerous as usual, and undeniably handsome.
“We have to leave for the event soon.”
“I know. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Fine.” I brush past him to sit on the porch steps because I do not want to be inside the guesthouse with him.
“Here.” He grabs a jacket from inside the door before I can sit and lays it down on the top porch step so my black dress doesn’t get dusty.
“Thanks.”
“We both know that I need to apologize for my behavior the other night. I’m sorry for how I acted, and I’m sorry for not knowing what to say to fix it.”
“You don’t owe me an apology, Lochlan. You don’t owe me anything.”
“Of course, I do. I owe you everything.”
“I don’t want you to only be nice to me because I convinced my father to exonerate you.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it? Because I am so sick of feeling worthless.”
“That’s how I made you feel?” He looks devastated.
“Yes. Believe it or not, I have feelings. Being kind to me one second and then snapping at me the next hurts.” I can’t look at him while I speak, my head’s twisted to the side, staring out across the property.
“Dammit, Jo. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt your feelings, I’m just an idiot when it comes to you.”
“Hayes said you didn’t know how to talk to women.” I laugh humorlessly.
“That’s probably true, but you’re on a-whole-nother level. I suffocate when I’m near you.” He jets up from his seat on the steps and starts pacing back and forth, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
“Like you’re in prison,” I mutter.
He skids to a stop and looks at me.
“No, not like I’m in prison. Like I don’t have the privilege to breathe the same air as you.”
“What?”
“You don’t belong here, Jo. I stand by that, but it’s not because you’re not worthy of being here. It’s because you are too damn good for this place. You shouldn’t be running away from bullets or worried if one of the parolees will slip up. You shouldn’t be out there begging for money for this place. Or, being propped up on stage for your family’s sake when they treat you like crap. You shouldn’t be subjected to all my shit.” He points to his head, clarifying what he means.
That’s the kindest thing he’s ever said to me, but it sounds like he’s about to fire me.
“I like it here.”
“But, you shouldn’t.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want you to be happy and safe. I want you to be proud of the work you do here, and then I want you to leave it in your rear view mirror as fast as possible. Move on to bigger and better things. ”
“Okay…”
“I promised your brother I’d keep you safe, and I intend to keep that promise.”
“My brother?”
“Sheriff Malec.”
“He told you.”
“Yeah. Why didn’t you?”
I’ve wondered that many times, but I always concluded that it wasn’t the time to share something so deeply life-altering for me.
“When I was a little girl, close to Emory’s age, I had a pet bunny that I loved. She was all white except for a black spot around her nose and right eye. She was my best friend.”
Lochlan stands silently, letting me purge myself.
“I came home from school one day, and she wasn’t in her cage. I ran around for hours looking for her until I found her behind the pool house. My brother had killed her. Pulled her arms off, tuffs of fur out, and mutilated her with a stick… He stood next to me, laughing about it.”
“What?” He throws his hands out as if he’s outraged because Lochlan Dane has a moral code.
“I bawled my eyes out to my parents, and they didn’t care. They swept it under the rug and told me to get over it… I knew then that I was alone. My family was the worst of the worst. I kept my head down and did my best to avoid trouble, to avoid Conrad, my entire life.”
“Jesus Christ. I’m sorry, darlin’.”
A sad sigh escapes me.
“Until he abandoned a child,” I admit, barely above a whisper.
Lochlan tips his head and squeezes his eyes shut, “Son of a bitch…” He mumbles .
“I found out two and a half years ago that he got a woman pregnant. She thought they were in a relationship, but he did not see it that way. When she told him that she was going to have a baby, he completely cut her off. Filed a restraining order based on nothing, blocked her from contacting him in any way. I was devastated that he would do something like that, but I wasn’t surprised.
“Of course, when I protested his behavior, I became enemy number one.
He was pursuing his career, he was the victim.
” I roll my eyes, remembering the stupid excuses my parents gave.
“That’s a pathetic excuse for a man,” Lochlan says, affirming my beliefs.
“I’ve never been brave enough to stand up to my father, but I looked him in the eye and told him what Conrad did was despicable. How could a man do that and still sleep at night?”
My father’s face has aged over the years, the texture of his skin has roughened, and his wrinkles have gotten deeper.
The youthfulness has faded from my memories, but I will never forget how he looked when the blood drained from his face in shame.
“He was stricken with guilt, and I knew immediately he had done the same thing.”
Lochlan doesn’t speak, urging me to continue as he sits down beside me.
“I spit into so many little tubes, putting myself on every genealogy website and DNA app. I waited almost a year before I finally got a match. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. Maybe to protect Jackson’s privacy.” I shrug.
“I always wondered why there was such a big gap between me and Conrad. Turns out my father had Jackson from an affair with the gardener during that time… He and my mother went through a rough patch because of it.” I roll my eyes incredulously.
“Instead of doing the right thing, he cut off Jackson’s mother, never claimed him, or supported them in any way.”
“And Conrad’s kid?”
“I get an allowance every month from a trust that will be paid out when I turn 25. I’ve been sending most of the money to the mother of Conrad’s child. I wrote her a letter and told her that she could never speak about it, and I’d deny doing it, but I’d help her as much as I could until the baby turned three. Give her time to get on her feet, I guess. That’s next year sometime, I’m not even sure when his birthday is.”
“A boy?”
“I don’t know his name, and it breaks my heart. I have a nephew, and I don’t even know him. He doesn’t know half of his family, but it’s probably for the best. My family wouldn’t deserve him anyway.”
“Is that why you needed a job so badly?”
“I was running low on money and needed to make it look like I wasn’t, so my parents didn’t find out and retaliate. I was afraid of what they’d do if they found out I was helping them.
“But, once I turn 25, I’ll be able to get all my money and take off.
They’ll never know what I did and they’ll never see me again,” I explain coldly.
I’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with it.
“When do you turn 25?”
“The week after summer semester ends.” I stand up from the porch steps and straighten my dress.
“So, you can take this as my termination notice. I’ll be out of your hair then, too.”