Wildfire

by Allison Martin

  The bar is dark, and I blink to adjust to the dim lights. The bar is sprinkled with people eating, drinking, and watching the game on the big screen. Some I recognize, some I don’t. Del is scrubbing glasses with a scowl set so deep in her features it makes me regret telling him to meet me here.

  My father is sitting at the bar chatting with a middle-aged customer completely oblivious to the hateful glare he’s getting from his own daughter. If Millie looked at me like that my world would crumble in and crush me. He says something and the woman laughs a shrill cackle, her mouth open and head back.

  Del turns her glare to me. “Why did you bring him here?” She hisses.

  “I’m sorry, I thought you were off today.”

  “I was, but Riley called in sick. Now I’m sick. Sick of him showing up. It’s been two years, Xan. Why now?”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  “Find out fast and send him on his way before he goes to see Mom. You know what these trips do to her.”

  I nod and step over to my father. Del’s right, he can’t make a stop to see Mom. We’ve finally got her coming out of her room and acting like a mother again to Tabby. Or as much of a mother as she’s capable of being.

  “Jason,” I say, and he turns from his conversation with a young red haired woman nursing a beer at the bar. I gave up on calling my dad Dad many years ago. I decided the name needed to be earned. Now that I have Millie and am driven by this need to be worthy of her, I’m even more convinced this is true.

  “Hey son,” he says holding out his hand, but my hands stay firmly in my sweater pockets.

  “Make this quick. I have to pick up my daughter for practice.”

  “I’d love to meet her, see her play,” Jason says, and I laugh.

  “That’s not going to happen. What do you want?”

  The woman next to him gets wide-eyed and uncomfortable so she slaps a ten down on the bar and moves.

  “Sit?” Jason says and I don’t want to simply because he asked me to. My feet stay firmly planted. “I admire your stubborn nature. The Lord was generous when he made you so strong, son.”

  I clench my jaw to avoid decking him square in the face. This in the eyes of God bullshit.

  I have nothing against God and everything against the men who hide behind him.

  “How much do you need?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?” Jason may be charming, but it doesn’t work on me. I know better.

  “How much money do you need?” I challenge him with my tone to not waste my time.

  “None. That’s not why I came here.”

  I don’t believe him, and I’m already exhausted by this encounter, so I perch on the edge of the seat.

  “I need a favor.” He finally says.

  My chin tips to my chest and the sigh that comes out is one of defeat.

  “What happens if I say no?” I ask.

  “Then I’ll go ask your mother,” he replies, and I crush my eyes shut.

  “Okay, fine. Make it a quick favor.” I stand up and walk toward the door.

  “Aren’t you going to ask what it is?”

  “Something stupid. Something reckless. Or something selfish. I’m guessing one of those three?” He grips my shoulder and whips me around. I’m the same height at him, twice as broad.

  “I’m getting kind of tired of your attitude, son. Show your father some respect.”

  “Oh, I would. If I had a father. I would.” I stare him down, watching the twitch in his sharp jaw.

  “Xan,” Del called me and I stepped around Jason feeling pretty good about myself and that I’m no longer the little boy he can use as a whipping post. I’m not afraid of him anymore and he knows it.

  I lean over the bar to meet Del. “Maybe you shouldn’t?” She whispers.

  “Shouldn’t what?”

  “Help him anymore. I don’t like it, Xan. You can’t be getting into trouble anymore.”

  Millie.

  Shit.

  I reach to my back pocket for my phone, but it’s gone. I spin to Jason. He’s gone too.

  “Mom,” Del says. I slam my hand down on the bar and curse, startling a table of older women watching baseball.

  “Delilah, call Briggs. Tell her something came up.” I don’t wait for her to answer and I’m smashing through the front door.

  The black car is gone so I wrench open the door and head for my mother’s house.

  By the time I screech up to the drive, Jason’s standing outside in a staring contest with Zeke. Thank God he’s home.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Zeke hollers at Jason and I join him on the step. Zeke speaks to me without taking his gaze off Jason. “Tabby is in there with Mom. She saw him.”

  “Goddammit.” I spin and head in to do damage control. Tabby isn’t as well versed in this as we are. Usually it’s Jet and Pris. Jet keeps him back. Pris distracts Mom. Tabby hides. Zeke disappears. Del plots. I clean it all up.

  I hear Mom inside hurling insults at her own daughter. “You are all ungrateful heathens. Satan has you all. Hell has you all. Move you little bitch.”

  I hear the crack of skin on skin and take the stairs three at a time. Tabby is holding her cheek and Mom’s eyes flare with fire she only has for Jason. I take her by the shoulders and push her back into her room, kicking the door closed in Tabby’s face.

  “Mom,” I say shaking her and the same hate she had for Tab is directed at me. She never wanted us, but Jason didn’t believe in birth control. The Lord was in charge and it was Satan’s work to stand in the way. Mom only wanted him. She was obsessed with him. Devoted to him in a way that terrifies me as an adult. He had that way with women. When they loved him, it was all consuming.

  Mom raised her hand to me but I’m faster. Stronger.

  “Stop,” I say firmly as she lashes out again. “Mom, stop. He’s not staying. He never stays. Stop. Just fucking stop.”

  I roar at her and she freezes still. Exhaustion claws at me and I want to let her go. To let her go to him and be done with it. With her. With everything.

  But her going to him doesn’t end well for us. He brings out the worst in her. I’d rather have her stoic and hating me than what she becomes when he’s here.

  All I have to do is get Tab through school. Send her to a fancy university on the East Coast and then I can let this die. She can let him destroy her all over again. Once Tabby is out.

  Heavy boots clomp on the stairs and Zeke pokes his head in the door. “He’s gone.”

  “How did you get him to leave?” I ask as Mom begins to wail, still clutched in my arms.

  “I gave him my bank deposit from the shop.”

  “Fuck, Zeke. How much?”

  “Four grand. That should keep him away for a while.”

  “You’re not my children,” Mom hisses. “The devil has sent you. God will punish you.”

  My little brother should not be in this position. He should not be handing over his hard-earned money to pay off his father. My little sister should not be nursing a bruise from her mother.

  “Mom,” I try to plead with her, but she spits in my face. I let her go to wipe the saliva from my eyes and rage sparks like a match, but I contain it, extinguishing it as fast as it flares. Zeke grips my shoulder but says nothing as our mother flings herself onto her bed like a child and weeps.

  “Comon, man.” Zeke whips me from the room by my shirt, closing the door. Tabby is still against the wall, her cheek still pink and I pull her into a tight hug.

  “I’m so sorry, Tab,” I mutter into her hair.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she says into my chest, reaching out for Zeke’s hand. As close to a group hug us Rykers ever get. “Let’s go watch Millie play.”

  My muscles all tighten instantly.

  Briggs is going to be pissed.

  #

  Briggs is definitely pissed. Her features are shadowed and everything about her is tense.

  “Yikes,” Zeke says, taking Tabby by the sh
oulders and steering them both in a different direct as Briggs stomps toward me.

  “What the hell, Xan!?” She huffs at me, her wild eyes darting around. “Where were you?”

  “I’m so sorry. My dad showed up. I lost my phone. I told Del to call you. Did she not call you?”

  “She didn’t,” Briggs says her posture settling but then I notice she’s shaking. “She doesn’t have my number.”

  We silently watch each other, waiting to see if this anger sticks or we chalk it up to unfortunate events. She glances to the field a bunch of times and I follow her gaze. Millie is standing with the other girls, a large Band-Aid on her forehead.

  “What happened to her?” I ask, unable to process one more shift in focus.

  “We were in a bit of an accident,” she says quickly waving her hands. “It was fine. Just went into the ditch. Millie hit her head a bit. She’s fine. Officer Denton said we were fine.”

  “You should have taken her to the hospital.” I put my hands on my hips and her scowl deepens.

  “We’re fine, Xan.”

  I walk away from her, straight to Millie whose eyes widen as I approach. I take her shoulders and lower to her height. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry. This would never have happened if I was on time.”

  Millie’s cheeks went full pink and she glanced at her friends. She was embarrassed but I didn’t care.

  “I’m fine. I bumped my head on the seatbelt thing, the metal button on my hat cut me a little.” She pushes my hands from her face. “I’m fine.”

  Her voice is a little firmer and she steps back from me and I see in her the same walls Briggs built around herself.

  “You’re sure,” I ask. Worry cuts me deeper than it has for any of my siblings. Fear I didn’t know possible is dug up from the depths of my heart.

  “I have to go play. We’ll talk later.” Millie turns and runs to the field, her friends giving me wrinkled nose glares before they follow her.

  “I told you she was fine.” Briggs crosses her arms as I approach her again. “I’d love it if you didn’t undermine me in front of her.”

  “This Dad thing is still a bit new for me, okay?” I don’t mean to sound like such a dick, but after this past week I just want to grab a case of beer and drink in my apartment until I pass out and forget every bit of misery.

  Chapter Twenty

  BRIGGS

  My dad’s been watching me closely for the last two days. He’s suspicious and I want to tell him about everything. My dad is a cop. What better person to ask for help from? But I vowed to not ruin Mille’s first big birthday party. After the party I’ll talk to him.

  I’ll tell him everything.

  The accident shook me more than anything else. The crank calls and slurs on the window I can handle. Running me off the highway is a level up. They could have killed us if I wasn’t such a controlled driver who knew the roads.

  I stare out the window as Del and Tabby cover the porch with streamers and balloons. Jet and Xan are setting up a tent for games and Millie is zipping about the yard like she’s five again. I can hear her chattering through the open window, and it should make be deliriously happy to see her smile so wide, her heart so big, her cup so full of this new family that didn’t even blink when it was time to take her in. I should be happy for her.

  Instead a low-level dread sinks like fog in my gut. All the shit she never signed up for. All the places I’ve dragged her to. All the ways in which her father is a broken man struggling to put himself back together. All the pain and drama of being a Ryker. Of being a Marchand.

  “Seems a little overboard, doesn’t it?” Dad steps up beside me, leaning on his crutches.

  “It’s Delilah,” I say knowing that no additional explanation is needed.

  Dad watches me and I ignore it until my jaw is clenched and twitching.

  “What, Dad?” I spin and lean a hip against the counter. “Just say it, okay.”

  “Something’s going on with you, Brigitte. I can feel it. Ever since you’ve got home there’s been something hovering over you. You’re jumpy. Secretive.”

  “I don’t really want to be back here,” I say and that isn’t a total lie. My dad was conveniently hit by a car which gave me an excuse to hide out here until my own situation calmed down. But it hasn’t calmed down, and now I’m itching to get out of here again, but I can’t. If I leave my father to fend for himself or take my daughter away from the father she never knew I’m going to be the bad guy.

  There’s no winning this.

  “Something doesn’t sit right,” he continues. “I don’t like it. I wish you’d talk to me. Your mother never did, either. Just held it all in. I can handle your silence better than I can handle your lies.”

  Dad sets a gift down in front of me as I stare slack jawed. He hobbles out the back door and settles in his favorite chair. I touch the gift with the white envelope.

  Little Miss Millie. Love Granddad.

  The letters come in and out of focus as I struggle to process it all. The sharpness of Dad’s letters come into clear inky focus and I frown. His handwriting is neat and sharp, his letters small and slightly angled as if he prints in italics.

  Quickly I set down my coffee and take the back staircase two at a time until I’m kneeling in front of my bed, reaching for the notes.

  I shove open the box and find one that isn’t Moms. Comparing the note with Dad’s gift for Millie my eyes get wide.

  “No way,” I say in a hushed whisper and glance over my shoulder, half expecting Mom to show up every time I’m reading her private notes.

  These aren’t from my dad. The writing is completely different.

  Was this before Dad? Or during?

  “Who are you?” I ask the note as footsteps sound on the main stairs. I shove the notes back under the bed and jump to my feet as Millie skids into the room. Her smile washes away everything else and my world is nothing but her.

  “Hey, Sweetheart.”

  “Mom,” she says sharply like I’m never going to believe what she’s about to say. “There’s a chocolate fountain.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty fancy.”

  “A chocolate. Fountain. Mom.” Her eyes are wide, and fingers splayed as she shakes her hands. She shrieks and spins on her sneakers, clomping back down the stairs.

  Out the window, the backyard is being turned into a carnival full of fun and games and wonder for Millie.

  Inside, I feel like my life has become a circus, juggling flaming batons on a high wire with no net to catch me if I fall.

  Not if.

  When.

  #

  The sun is warm and the spring breeze a cool dance. Noise fills the yard from music and laughter and conversation. It’s the perfect scene for a ten-year old’s birthday. Surrounded by friends and family and a face smeared with chocolate.

  I hold a glass of wine and lean against the house, not bothering to socialize with the other parents. Xan is buzzing about like a proud papa, talking to everyone, inserting himself into groups of his daughter’s friends and making bad Dad jokes. I wish I had even an ounce of his carefree spirit. He seems oblivious to the scrutinizing stares of the other mothers. The judgment that flickers through their eyes. A twenty-six-year-old mother of a preteen.

  All Millie’s friends have parents in their mid 30’s at least. Some pushing 40. Xan doesn’t seem to notice at all.

  “Are you looking to burn a hole through the tent with only your eyes?” Del giggles, bumping me with her hip.

  “I hate the way they look at her,” I say, clutching my arms tighter around my middle. Del frowns and then scans the party. “How do you not let it bug you?”

  Del doesn’t seem to understand at first but realization settles in her features and she shrugs. She knows I don’t mean Millie. That I mean her, her siblings. How can you live in a town that despises your existence?

  “You get used to it, I guess. My family is fucked up, but we’re loyal. We stick together no matter what. I’d rath
er they disrespect me for that than quietly pretend I’m perfect like they do.”

  The dig hurts, but it wasn’t meant for me. I’m one of those people. My family was like that. Perfect on the outside, hollow on the inside. Del leans over and lowers her voice.

  “Mrs. Cartwright had an affair with her husband’s brother. Years ago. Scandalous.” Del nods to one of the mothers. “Mr. Price drinks too much. I would know. But men in suits are allowed to drink too much. The Branson’s adopted Janie after a six-year battle with her birth mother who used to show up high and harass them before passing out on their lawn and getting arrested. They pretended like nothing ever happened.”

  I scan the crowd of parents and kids as Del dishes all their secrets. Makes sense she would know them as the town’s only bartender.

  “We’re all fucked up, Briggs. Every one of us has a dark secret. The difference is that my family lives with the closet doors open.”

  Her words get lost as a figure catches my eye. She rounds the side of the house, her features pinched and uncomfortable. Priscilla.

  “I thought she wasn’t coming?” I asked, my heart rate speeding up. Pris always made me feel this way from the moment Xan and I began our story fifteen years ago. She never liked me, and she was never shy about me knowing it.

  “Xan threatened her,” Del said with a kick of her cowboy boot in the grass.

  “What? Why would he do that?”

  “I dunno. Honestly, I’ve never seen him so mad. At first, he was fine with Pris being a total bitch about this but yesterday he laid down the law very loudly. He usually reserves those screaming matches for Dad, but after Dad showed up and got Mom all stirred up, he switched his tune pretty fast. Was adamant that we all know Millie. He basically demanded that we love her. I thought it was funny. As if we don’t already.”

  “I don’t want you to be forced to love her,” I say, still watching Pris as she approached Millie. Millie stared up at her aunt, the only Ryker she hasn’t met yet. Besides Xan’s parents which I’ll be happy if she never meets them.

  Millie holds her hand out to Pris, who looks at it for a long painful moment.