Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Lucille
“Alright!” My mother huffed and wiped her brow.
“I’ll work on moving the furniture out to make more space.
Your brother is going to need all the room, and I don’t want anything getting in his way.
” She tied her long hair up high atop her head.
“Why don’t you go tackle the old hall closet?
I figured we’d clear it out to make sure there is room for his meds and whatever else the hospital decides to send home.
” She looked up at me and smiled. “Thanks again for helping me, baby.”
“Of course, Mom. Anything to help you and Boone.”
Mom and I had spent most of the day cleaning and prepping the house for Boone to finally come home.
Between therapies, he still needed to spend most of his time at the hospital, but at least he’d get to come home every night.
So, we were doing everything we could to make the transition easier.
Mom even had another one of her famous peach cobblers baking in the oven.
I grabbed a trash bag and a few empty boxes and headed towards the hall closet. It was located at the far end of the house and away from the door. Mom had music playing on her old radio in the kitchen. It felt just like old times.
“Alright, now.” I swung the old closet door open.
“Time to declutter.” I plopped down on my knees and began to sort stacks upon stacks of old gardening magazines.
A habit my mother tried to pick up when I was kid but ended up abandoning days later.
Even still, she kept her subscription until Dad finally made her cancel it.
So silly.
I chucked them into the trash bag one by one, pulling everything from the closet, sorting and tossing the most random things.
There was so much dust, making me cough as I tried to wave it away.
I stood up to check the highest shelf and found stacks of shoe boxes.
“What’s in these?” I pulled them all down and sat back on my knees as I opened them one at a time.
The boxes were filled with old family photos.
Photos of Boone and I as kids, my parents and their wedding, their parents, photos of Cooper and the guys back in the day, and even photos of Forsythe through his years.
I flipped through them all, spending at least an hour distracted by it.
I pulled a couple photos out and flipped through the polaroids.
There were even a few of my parents when they were teens.
“Mom! Oh my gosh…Mom! Come look at this!” I shuffled through old photos of her with a perm, my dad with a mullet, and then I nearly gasped at the last photo in the stack.
It was a photo of Forsythe. Only, he looked a lot younger and had no tattoos or anything.
When was this?
I heard the screen door squeak. “Mom?” She didn't answer, but I heard footsteps which stopped behind me.
“There you are. Hey, check it out—” I looked up to see none other than Forsythe standing over me as I held the photo of him in my hand.
He was wearing another tight t-shirt and dressed in his usual dark-wash work jeans.
His hair stuck out from under his cowboy hat as he just looked down at me with a smile.
He really did look different from the young man in the picture.
“Whatcha got here?” he asked as he bent down behind me and pressed into me to look at the photo. “Would you look at that!” He whistled. “Hell, I must’ve been your age at that time.”
My heart raced at how close he was.
“What’re you doing here?” I looked around, searching for my mom.
He smiled at me. “Don’t worry, your momma is outside on the porch talking to Cooper about some measurements.”
“Measurements?”
He stood and looked down at me as his fingers played with a strand of my hair.
“Yeah, we’re putting a ramp on the porch for Boone’s wheelchair.
” His eyes wandered, and I suddenly remembered what the hell I was wearing.
I snapped my head forward, feeling my cheeks blush, embarrassed by the old high school athletic, skin-tight tank and boy shorts I was wearing.
It was a silly thing I had found earlier and put on to make my mother laugh, and now the man I was sleeping with had seen it.
Shit. Why did he have to see me in this?
Forsythe grunted and gently tipped my head back, kissing me softly.
“You got nothing to be embarrassed about, Lucille.” His fingers grazed my cheek.
“I like what I see. But, I better go before my control slips away. I would hate for your momma to find us in here…making a mess. Especially after you’ve worked so hard to clean all this up.
” He plucked a bit of dust from my hair.
It made me sad to know he was already leaving.
“Will you be back later?”
He stroked my cheek one last time. “If you want me to.” Forsythe leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
His smell washed over me, and I shut my eyes, basking in its comfort.
“See you later, little viper.” He stepped back and walked away, stepping back outside and onto the porch, leaving me there with flushed cheeks.
I looked back down at the old photo of him and smiled. “I guess he’s always been attractive.” I tucked the photo back into the shoe box and moved it aside. “Alright, what’s next?”
Mom eventually came back inside and worked on a handful of random tasks, cleaning and reorganizing as I worked on the old closet.
There was so much stuffed into it that it took forever to pull it all out and sort.
More than half the closet ended up being trash or boxed up to put in storage.
I had maybe three boxes left to go through and was excited to finally be finished.
“Alright.” I grabbed an old, large, taped box with the letters ‘F.C.’ written on it.
“F.C.?” My fingertips traced the faded ink along the top of the box.
I debated opening it, feeling an odd sense of anxiety as it sat before me.
“Oh, chill out.” I used the box cutter to cut the tape along the top.
“There’s nothing in here that could hurt me.
It’s probably just another box of old baby clothes or something.
” My fingers curled along the edges as I carefully opened it up.
It was filled with a bunch of old newspapers, stacked on top of each other.
There was a small photo album and then, just beneath it, was a folded leather vest. It appeared to have a bunch of patches sewn into it, and as I lifted it up, I realized it was a biker vest. “What the—” I flipped the vest over and on the back were even more patches.
I read the large letters across the top aloud.
“Cryptids?” I saw the word Texas across the button of the vest, but what made me freeze in horror was the giant center patch.
This look likes…no. It can’t be.
I stood and accidentally kicked the box hearing something heavy move around. “What else is in here?” I bent down and searched the rest of the box, finding more patches, photos, and at the very bottom, wrapped in an old handkerchief, was a pistol.
This can’t be real. It can’t be.
I carefully wrapped the gun and returned it to the box, feeling sick at the sight of it.
My fingers touched the vest, noticing the name patch had been ripped off.
“No name.” I found myself relieved, but still needing to confirm my suspicions.
“Maybe the answer is in here.” I picked up the small photo album, and as soon as I flipped to the first page, I realized this wasn’t just a biker jacket.
It was a gang jacket. And in these photos were the faces of members, ranging from kids to full-grown adults.
There were photos of families in the same vests, kids running around while the adults held meetings…
it was as if I found a piece of their world, hidden right here in this box.
“But why is it here?” I looked through a few more pages to find a particular photo that stuck out to me.
What the—
“Mom?” I pulled the photo from the album and jumped to my feet, leaving the vest behind. “Mom!”
“Yes, baby?” I ran through the house and found her in the living room, standing on a ladder and dusting the ceiling fan. “What is Lucille? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I approached her, holding the photo out for her to see.
“Technically, I have.” I tapped the photo.
“I found this really weird box in the closet, and this was inside it.” My nail tapped the photo of my parents hugging a young woman in a matching vest like the one in the box. “Were you and dad in a gang?”
“What?” My mother laughed at the question. “Lucille, baby. Come on now, a gang? Really?” She continued to dust the blades of the ceiling fan. “What in heaven's name would make you ask such a ridiculous thing?”
I shook the photograph up at her. “This!”
“Oh let me see that!” Mom plucked the image from my fingers and examined it closely. Her smile fell as the color in her face drained. “Lucille, where did you find this?” Her entire demeanor changed from her usual cheerful tone to one more serious.
“In a box in the closet. There was a bunch of other stuff in it. But—”
Mom waved the photo for me to take it. “Put this back in the box. Now. You need to just leave that box alone.”
“But why?” I asked. She didn’t answer. “Mom…if you’re not in a gang, then why are you in this photo? And who is that woman?” I tapped the unknown face. “You and Dad look pretty comfortable with her. And the vest—”
“Enough, Lucille!” Her temper startled me. “I’m sorry…Oh. I’m sorry, baby.” She slowly descended the ladder and walked over to me. Her hands gently cupped my face, and she looked at me with dark, saddened eyes. “Yes, your daddy and I knew that woman. But no, we were never a part of the Cryptids.”