Rhodes #3
I stand and walk to the end of the porch, because sitting beside him doesn't work anymore. "Does Ridge know?"
“I told him after I did it.”
I turn around, but I don’t say a thing. I keep my eyes on him until he finishes one goddamned complete thought.
"Yeah. He knew after, and we agreed it didn't need to go outside of that room."
I laugh once because apparently that's what comes out.
"So the two of you sat there while Ridge told the rest of us Vin died alone in some rented room of natural causes, like none of you knew anything more than we did."
Reeves looks down at the bottle. “Yep. It was for the best for everyone involved.”
"Jesus Christ."
I go down one step, then come right back because there is nowhere to go without actually leaving.
"You decided what I could handle."
His expression changes, but he doesn't answer that.
"I loved him."
"I know."
"He killed Dad."
"I know that, too."
"Then quit sitting there like one of those cancels out the other."
"I'm not. You're doing that."
I put both hands on the wrought-iron rail and stare out through the gate.
"I wanted to hate him," I say. "Would've been easier, but I never could. It was all so fucking complicated, everything that's happened in the last three years."
Reeves nods.
"He was there when nobody else was."
"I know."
"No, you know he was around. That's different."
His face tightens.
"Mom died, you guys left, Dad disappeared into Stone Intermodal, and Vin was fucking there. He taught me half the shit Dad should've taught me himself."
"I know what he was to you."
"Then why the hell didn't you tell me? I needed closure.”
"Because you'd already lost Dad. Then you found out the man who helped raise you was behind it." Reeves leans his forearms on his knees. "Ridge and I thought you'd carried enough."
There it is. I turn my head slowly.
"You thought you were protecting me."
"Yeah."
A laugh works its way out of me, but I don't have any humor for it.
"Of course you did."
Reeves watches me for a second.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That wasn't nothing."
"You're sitting there telling me you did what you thought needed doing, then kept it from me because you thought knowing would hurt worse."
His eyes narrow slightly. I hear Tallulah in my kitchen. I see her face buried in my shirt while I stand there with both arms around her and say nothing.
My fingers close harder around the rail. A car rolls slowly past the gate, bass low through closed windows. Neither of us speaks until the taillights disappear around the corner.
Tallulah's voice comes back with no invitation. “This has never been about you. Whatever I decide to do is my choice, and you don't get a say.”
I sit down again. Reeves reaches for his beer and takes the last swallow.
"I fucked that up with her," I say.
Reeves takes a sip of his beer.
"I've known I fucked it up since the day she walked away."
Reeves looks over at me. "Knowing you fucked up and knowing why aren't always the same thing."
He shrugs one shoulder. "I'm not saying that to be a dick."
"You've got a gift."
"So I've been told."
I lean back and stare at the ceiling of the old porch, following the lines of the beadboard. There must be twenty coats of paint on it.
The light is almost gone by the time Reeves stands. He gathers both empty bottles and drops them into the cardboard carrier.
"I'll be here Tuesday before work." He gets down two steps, then turns back. "For what it's worth, my feelings about Vin are complicated, too. But I wasn't going to let him spend twenty years rotting in that room because Ridge and Wells decided that was worse than dying."
Then he turns around, takes the last four steps two at a time. The gate clicks shut behind him, and his Hummer starts on the street. I stay where I am until the sound fades.
Inside, I leave the chandelier off and turn on the lamp beside the front parlor sofa. One bulb catches the edge of the old molding and leaves most of the room dark.
I go down the stairs to the bunker. It doesn't look temporary anymore.
My shoes are under the bench by the bedroom door. My razor is beside the sink, and there are shirts hanging in the closet now instead of folded into two duffels on the floor.
I open the dresser looking for nothing. Her Columbia shirt she wears when she works on the boat is in the bottom drawer. I found it when I unpacked weeks ago, mixed in with my things from Audubon. The faded blue cotton, tattered white logo above the front pocket, is folded perfectly.
Could have returned it, but I didn't. I pick it up now and run my thumb over the lettering.
What comes first isn't how I held her while withholding what I did to cause it. It's her mouth at my throat in a dark room, and the sound she makes when I get a hand under whatever she's wearing. I'm hard before I've finished the thought, and I’m disgusted with myself.
Tallulah stood in my kitchen crying because her father didn't believe her, and I decided the truth would hurt her worse than the lie. I understand how much that hurt her more than I have at any point before.
I turn off the lamp and walk into the bathroom to shower.