Chapter 5 #3
“I want the truth, Mom. Who was at my room and why did you tell Kelly I was sleeping with her? You know nothing about my love life, outside of the woman I almost married and the woman I did marry. So why would you assume that this woman was someone I was sexually involved with?”
Grimm leaned forward on the table. “Watching you people talk to this woman is driving me insane.” He pushed his phone, screen up, across the table at Grumpy. “Keys pulled the hospital footage. This is the cleanest picture he could get of the girl. He’s running facial recognition now.”
Kelly and Grumpy looked down at the phone together. Kelly immediately recognized the young woman with black hair, though she’d only seen her at a distance before. From the background, this picture was taken as the young woman entered the hospital, before she met up with Margery and started crying.
Grumpy let go of Kelly’s hand and carefully lifted the phone between his two. Kelly felt the stiffness in his body, his mood change. It hinted at anger, but his expression as he stared down at the young woman looked almost reverent.
“Who is she?” Kelly asked softly.
Grumpy licked his lips. “My daughter. She’s my daughter.”
* * *
Maddie. Little Mads. His Mad Pie. All grown up—and here. In Mount Grove. Or she had been six months ago. What was she doing here? Was she okay? Why had she come? Why hadn’t anyone told him? What did she think after him not reaching out all these months?
“That, that woman,” his mother spat, clearly wanting to use another word and smartly deciding against it, “is not your daughter.”
There’d only been a few times in Grumpy’s life when he could honestly say he was in shock.
His divorce was the big one, but also the gloomy day when Steel and Jenna confessed her illness that they’d been hiding from the club and then the godawful night of Pumpkin’s motorcycle accident and Scar’s supposed death.
He’d been too drugged in the hospital to count his own injuries.
That had been sort of a progressive shock, the club and doctors feeding him bits of information at a time.
But learning his daughter had been in Mount Grove, his mother knew, and she hadn’t told him?
That went beyond shock. It went beyond anger, beyond disappointment.
He’d put up with a lot from his mom over the years.
A part of it was guilt, he knew. A child raised to feel guilty for having ever been born.
Margery Bell loved him. He knew this, and he did not doubt it.
But that love came with strings, conditions.
Guilt and obligations. His injuries had shaken both of them, scared both of them.
Grumpy couldn’t fault her overbearingness when he’d almost died, though he would admit that he’d allowed it to go on far too long.
Especially if she believed she was going to move into his house without even talking to him first.
Lying to Kelly was one thing. It wasn’t forgivable, but it was…understandable, believable even. Margery had always butted in where she didn’t belong. In fact, the only reason she likely hadn’t been more involved in his marriage was because of her hip replacement surgery.
But hiding this? His daughter from him.
Beyond unacceptable. Beyond unforgivable.
His body hurt. Even with the soup Ruth had kindly made for them, his mouth felt dry, like he’d swallowed a handful of sand. His jaw ached, his back thrummed, and his false eye wept as if a dam had broken in his soul.
“Get out.”
Margery’s anger turned to confusion. “What?”
“Get. Out.” Unable to move his jaw, the words were spoken through his teeth. Grimm’s phone groaned between his hands as his fingers tightened into fists. Kelly quickly removed the breakable device before any real damage could be done.
“Jesse…” The way Margery said his name, like he was nothing more than a child who needed to have the world explained to him, it shifted something in his mind.
This woman wasn’t his mother. She wasn’t anyone to him.
Not anymore. She’d knowingly kept something, someone, that he loved from him, and she damn well knew that doing so would hurt him if he ever found out.
Was that why she’d pushed Kelly away from him, so there wouldn’t be a witness to her deception?
Grumpy had already said his piece, he’d already told her to leave. He wasn’t going to waste another breath telling her again. If she didn’t leave, Kelly could call Carlos and have Margery arrested for all Grumpy cared.
He turned to Kelly. His hands and voice were shaking so badly, he feared at first that he might be having a stroke.
But she leaned forward, pressing herself against him and holding his hands between her own—and the world fell into place.
The anxiety, the fear, the betrayal… It all fell away at her touch.
They would face this, they would fix this, together.
“I can’t get my fingers to work right now. I need you to text Keys.”
Nodding, Kelly got his phone out of his pocket and used his face to unlock it.
“Jesse, stop this and talk to me!” Everyone in the room ignored Margery’s pleading cry.
As soon as Kelly pulled up his text thread with Keys, Grumpy said, “Her name is Madison Pierce. I call her ‘Mads’, but maybe she doesn’t go by that anymore. She’s enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin.”
Kelly typed it out, adding the part that she was Grumpy’s daughter, but didn’t send it until Grumpy nodded his approval. There was no point in hiding that fact. Keys would soon learn it, which would mean soon the entire club would, too.
“Jesse! I will not stand for this! You will face me! You will talk to me! I am your mother!”
Keys responded back immediately, saying he was on it and he would find out everything he could about Madison.
Kelly put Grumpy’s phone down and faced him. Her expression was kind, sympathetic even, and once again, Grumpy found himself thinking that she was far too good a person for the likes of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” It wasn’t an accusation. Kelly’s voice was soft, gentle. It made Grumpy’s heart hurt because there was so much about both their pasts that was still unknown.
“See, clearly this so-called daughter of yours isn’t even that important if you haven’t told this skank about her yet!”
Grumpy moved. He’d been completely prepared to ignore Margery, completely cut her and her existence out of his life, but no one spoke about Kelly like that. Not even the woman who had given birth to him.
Except, Grumpy didn’t need to move because Ruth got there first.
Holding onto her walker with one hand, Ruth grabbed Margery’s left ear with the other.
“Gey shoyn!” Though she shouted the words at Margery, her tone and expression were much kinder as she looked to Grimm.
“You, zu din, get this farflucht reshaydim out of my home!” Using her hand on Margery’s ear, she forced Margery to stand.
Grimm immediately stood too, though from his confused expression Grumpy would guess he didn’t understand any of the Yiddish Ruth had just spewed. Even without the direct translation, the intent was obvious.
Margery looked to Grumpy, like she thought he would intervene on her behalf, but he literally sat back down and turned his back on her. “Jesse!” she shouted, appalled.
Kelly’s smile was loving and supportive as sounds of Grimm herding Margery out filled the house.
“Zol dir vaksn tsibeles fun pupik!” Ruth shouted just before the front door was slammed closed.
Grumpy tried to raise an eyebrow but it pulled on his face too much. “Do I want to know what that means?”
Kelly bit her lip like she was trying to keep from laughing. “Basically she cursed your mom to have onions grow from her navel.”
Grumpy blinked in surprise and intrigue. “Fair enough.” He touched Kelly’s cheek. “I’m sorry she spoke to you that way. She shouldn’t be taking her anger on me out on you.”
Kelly turned and kissed his palm. “I’ve been called a lot worse by worse. Don’t worry about it.”
Grumpy’s eyes narrowed as his face tightened for an entirely different reason. “Who?” he demanded, already dreaming of etching their names into bullets.
Before Kelly could respond, though, Ruth came back into the room. Neither Grimm nor Margery was with her, and thankfully she was using her walker. “Mameleh, are you okay?”
Grumpy had picked up that “mameleh” was Ruth’s nickname for Kelly, though he did not know what it meant. He assumed “sweetheart” or maybe something that meant “my daughter”.
Kelly and Ruth reached for each other around Grumpy. “I’m good, Mama. You chased the bad lady away.”
Ruth beamed at those words. “Still got it.” Her eyes, as dark and as sharp as her daughter’s, landed on Grumpy. “Your mother is a wicked woman. I knew it the moment I saw her,” she tapped her chest, “and I was right.”
Grimm came back into the house then. He walked into the kitchen like he hadn’t just escorted a sixty-three year old woman out of a stranger’s house while she screamed and cursed at him. “Gave her cash for a cab and made sure her cellphone had service. The rest is up to her.”
Grumpy nodded once, slightly appreciative. Just because his mother was dead to him did not mean he wanted her actually dead.
“Such a guter yung,” Ruth said, reaching to pinch Grimm’s cheek. “Sit. You look farmisht!” she announced before working to place even more food in front of Grimm.
Grimm looked to Kelly. “Why do I get the feeling she’s trying to fatten me up for a sacrifice?” he asked her quietly.
Kelly laughed. “Pretty sure she’s adopted you. Food is her love language.”
“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Grumpy mused. “You practically feed this entire town.”
“I serve the town,” Kelly corrected. “Unfortunately, I did not inherit my mom’s touch in the kitchen. Though I am slightly curious what would happen if we put Tally and my mom in a kitchen together and lock the door.”
Grumpy had to admit that that would have an interesting outcome—especially because Scar would find a way into that kitchen, not allowing anything to bar himself from his woman.