Chapter 24
S he trespassed like a craven thief but wasn’t willing to back off. The thought that she’d been “bought” had nagged at her until she’d ultimately come to this.
Dalia tugged on the rusty trailer door, so overgrown with vines and weeds she’d barely been able to find the handle.
Grunting as she yanked as hard as possible and sweating in the afternoon sun, she fell flat on her butt when the door flew open so forcefully it caught her off balance.
She got up and reached around to wipe dirt off her butt.
A critter ran out the door, startling her. She didn’t get a good look, but it was probably only a mouse. As far as she knew it’d been twelve years since anybody had lived in the squalid little motor home. All manner of creatures had settled in.
There had originally been half a dozen occupied, albeit barely habitable, trailers on the property. When the county shut down the illegal park, the other five mobile homes had been driven away. But Agnes Singleton had left with no forwarding address.
Dalia had never had an urge to set foot in the place again.
Over the years as she drove by, she always avoided turning her head to witness its fall into decay.
But on this day when she drove by, she had a sudden urge to see what had been left behind by the mysterious and malevolent woman she’d thought to be her birth mother.
Might there be a clue as to Dalia’s beginnings?
She stepped inside. Holding her tee shirt up over her mouth and nose as defense against the putrid smell, she scanned the jumble of debris.
Most of it appeared to be common everyday items that had turned to mold after being shredded by animals – magazines, newspapers, toilet paper, a couple of towels, pillows, and more.
Dark streaks of mold climbed the walls like a demon’s long tentacles.
Window curtains hung in tatters. Hard pellets covered the rotted floor that had been used as a latrine by the wild squatters.
She deigned to touch anything and knew she should go home and come back with a proper mask and garden gloves, but her curiosity got the better of her. Using one finger, she lifted a pile of newspapers. They disintegrated. She kicked at a pile of junk in a corner. Nothing there but trash.
The tiny couch that had served as her little girl’s bed had been annihilated.
She turned away from it, not welcoming her earliest memories of sleepless nights in the room filled with cigarette smoke, flashing lights, and scratchy voices while Agnes watched television.
She opened the few kitchenette cabinet doors to find the plastic dishes still sitting there.
The sink, full of its usual dirty dishes, crawled with ants.
She went into Agnes’s bedroom, so small the hefty woman had always had a hard time maneuvering around in it.
Consequently, the sheets seldom got changed and clothes seldom got hung up.
All of that had been mangled by wild animals.
The few things hanging in the tiny closet had become scraps.
Feeling along the shelf above the clothes rod, her fingers touched something that startled her.
Carefully, she pulled down a pistol. Reflexively, she checked its safety.
Safety had been her dad’s top priority when he’d taught her to shoot.
The Smith and Wesson revolver was loaded, so she emptied it and put the bullets in her pocket.
Impotent gun in hand, she turned to leave.
But something made her look up at the shelf again, too high up for her to see all the way back.
Standing on tiptoe, she swept the pistol as far back as possible.
Metal clanged on metal. Not able to reach whatever it was, she became frantic to get it down, as it sounded like a metal box of some kind.
Nothing in the trailer was stable enough to stand on so she dashed outside, placed the gun on a tree stump, and went to the bed of her truck to grab the hefty toolbox.
She lugged it inside and stood on it to reach way back on the shelf.
Her heart raced as she pulled down a metal box.
Not much larger than a shoebox, it was locked.
She stared at it. Terrified yet curious beyond belief, she didn’t know what to do.
Take it home? Drop it and run? Coming to her senses, she fetched the hammer out of her toolbox and ran outside with her tool and her mysterious find.
There she whacked the small box until it became a smashed-up mess.
But the lock wouldn’t relent. Frustrated, she took a bullet out of her pocket, loaded the pistol, and shot the lock. The top flew open.
She dropped the gun and plopped onto the ground where she set the box between her outstretched legs.
With shaking hands, she took out a pile of old photographs.
Tears stung her eyes as she shuffled through picture after picture of herself as a baby.
She’d never seen a picture of herself before moving in with the Blackburns, but there was no mistaking this was her.
Agnes Singleton had obviously been excited to have a child. At least at first.
She set the photos down and pulled out a rumpled scrap of paper, all that was left in the box. Faint, scratchy handwriting said, “Dr. Clive Upton, Amberton.”
“What the hell?” Amberton was a small town two counties away and it was the town on Dalia’s birth certificate, the one her dad had retrieved from Agnes years earlier.
Perhaps this Dr. Upton knew something about Dalia’s birth.
He might be dead by now, but she decided it would be worth a try to seek him out.
She’d wondered about her birth story and the photographs and the doctor’s name fed a desperate need to know more.
She picked up a picture again and there she was with a baby’s toothless smile, eyes wide with innocent newborn wonder, happy to be alive.
As she ran a finger over the sweet image, her tears became a waterfall.
She cried so hard she didn’t notice that a silver sedan barreling down the county road jerked to a stop, backed up, and slowly pulled into the lane that ended with her.
It was the crunch of tires on gravel that made her look up and recognize Llayne O’Brien’s classy, silver BMW.
Quickly, she swiped at her tears with her sleeve, embarrassed.
But instead of Mrs. O’Brien, the woman’s daughter got out. Kenyon hurried to her side.
“Dalia, what’s wrong?” Rather than offering to help the crying woman get up off the ground, Kenyon plopped down beside her, her sundress billowing out at her sides.
“What is it?” Kenyon looked around, confused.
“Dalia! Why is there a gun?” She grabbed for the weapon to get it away from Dalia and held it by the end of its handle, afraid of the thing.
Feeling plumb out of sorts and unlike her usual secretive self, Dalia let loose.
“A lot happened while you were gone. The woman I thought was my mother, Agnes, well, she died. But her final words to me were ‘I bought you.’ So we don’t think she was my real mother after all.
She must have privately adopted me or something.
And I think it’s your mom who paid for Rose to take gymnastics.
And I quit my job and Mama and I can start our bakery now. ”
Kenyon gawked before saying, “Holy shit. It’s as if I’ve been gone for a year.” She set the pistol on the ground as far away from Dalia as possible.
“Oh, there’s more. I have a date tomorrow night with Brody McIntyre, that good looking deputy.
But I’m such a mess I’m afraid he’ll end up hating me.
I mean, he was so nice to me the other night when he knew I was only half a mess, but now I’m full-fledged.
” She flung herself down in a spread eagle on the ground.
Kenyon laid down beside her, rolled onto her back, entwined her fingers, and placed her hands on her belly like a corpse. She talked to the sky. “All that, and there I was lying on the beach, drinking fruity drinks, swimming in a fabulous pool, getting massages, and kissing a cute bartender.”
That broke Dalia’s morbid spell. “You kissed the bartender? Bravo! Good for you. I’m glad you had fun.”
“Yeah, the best part was it all went on Chad’s credit card.”
Dalia sat up and offered a palm for a high five. “He deserves it.”
Kenyon sat up and obliged on the high five. “Did you happen to notice his road sign out on the highway?”
“Yeah, I did. It had said, ‘Your best choice,’ but somebody painted it to say, ‘Your breast choice.”
“And I know the scallywags who did it.” Kenyon explained about Zach and Jessa.
They stood up, chuckling over the sign, but Kenyon got back to business. She pointed at the dented metal box still sitting on the ground. “So, what’s that all about.”
Dalia explained, concluding with, “I’ve decided that tomorrow I’m going to Amberton to the county clerk’s office with my birth certificate. I’ll see if anybody can tell me anything at all.”
“Can I come?”
“Ah, sure. But won’t you be bored?”
“Nah. I’m still looking for a good story to write. I’ve got to get a job. My parents are generous but even they are getting antsy about me being a moocher all my life. Oh, don’t worry, I would never write about you unless you want me to. But maybe I’ll get some good ideas along the way.”
They made arrangements for where and when to meet, with Kenyon insisting she drive.
“Not that I don’t trust your old truck, but I don’t.
We’ll take my Toyota. I’m only driving Mom’s car right now because Zack’s tinkering with something in mine.
He’s a mechanical genius and is always making something work better.
Mom’s having me pick up a couple loaves of bread she ordered from your mom. ”
“Ah, of course. That’s why you were driving by.”
Kenyon pointed at the gun still laying on the ground. “What about that? What are you doing with a gun?”
“Oh, I found it inside and used it to unlock the box.” Dalia picked it up, thought about it, and walked to the side of the trailer where she tossed it as hard as she could.
They heard a splash. “There’s a creek back there.
I don’t want anything that was hers .” One by one, she tossed the bullets, too, each making a little “plop” when it hit water.
“Oh, whew,” Kenyon said. “I’m so glad you did that. I was afraid, well…”
“You were afraid I was going to kill myself?” Dalia was incredulous.
“Hell, no. I was afraid you were going to kill someone else.”
“Oh, that. Nah. Too much trouble.” Dalia picked up the metal box with its treasure trove of pictures, knowing her mama was going to love those photos. “Okay, let’s blow this pop stand.”
They headed for the farm but halfway down the road Dalia remembered her toolbox, left in the trailer.
She whipped a U-ee, sped back to the trailer, spewed gravel when she slammed on the brakes, hurried in to grab the toolbox, and got the hell out of there.
Never again did she want to go back inside that rancid place with its mice and mold and horrifying memories.