Assault and Batting

by Rothery, Tess

  When Belle hadn’t come home by eight, Taylor found her mom’s old cell phone and scrolled through the numbers. She still needed to transfer the contacts to her own phone, but that seemed so…permanent.

  There were two numbers for Dorney. Taylor went with the first one.

  “Hello?” The voice that answered sounded like it had just woken up.

  “Hi, this is Taylor Quinn, I’m looking for my sister Belle.”

  The person on the other end yawned. “Sorry, we were having family movie night and I fell asleep. I don’t know how the kids can watch these shows, so boring.”

  “Ahh…um…I’m just wondering, have you seen Belle?” Taylor paced her living room, counting the steps in her head to slow her racing brain.

  “Belle, your sister wants you.” There was a murmur of conversation on the other end.

  “Sorry about that.” The voice was clearer, more awake now. “I guess she’s staying the night here.”

  “Oh, you guess that, do you?” Taylor’s heart felt like it had exploded. Who was this woman and why did she think it was okay for Belle to sleep over with that Conner or Cooper or whoever he was? “Belle is coming home right now, and if you don’t send her, I’ll come get her.”

  The voice chuckled again, but it sounded forced. “Calm down. Maybe you didn’t know, she stays over all the time. Your mom didn’t mind.”

  “I’m not my mom.”

  “No, you’re not Belle’s mom.” The voice suddenly went stern. “And I don’t think it’s real bright of you to start acting like you are.”

  “Who am I speaking to?” Taylor spit the words out one at a time. She was not going to fight a nameless woman.

  “Sissy Dorney. Surely you knew that, since you called.” Sissy paused, then started again with a softer, more sympathetic voice. “You’re under a lot of stress right now, but that is no reason to upset the kids. Disruption to your sister’s normal life won’t be good for her.” There was an emphasis on the word sister that stuck out. As though being sisters meant Taylor had no right to set boundaries.

  “And her normal life is staying nights with her boyfriend? You think that’s okay for a high schooler?”

  “Her boyfriend?” Sissy laughed. “Cooper and Belle aren’t dating. They’re just best friends.”

  “Sure, I’ll believe that when I see it with my own eyes.”

  “Oh yeah?” Sissy was on the defense again. “My son has been dating Dayton Rueben for over two years.”

  Taylor paused. In this world Dayton could be a boy or a girl. If a girl, then Cooper was most likely a two-timer. If a boy, then obviously it was no big deal for Belle to stay over.

  “I don’t know who that is.” That seemed like a safe answer.

  “Dayton is the love of my son’s life and Cooper would never…”

  There was a riot of voices on her end of the phone. Something banged and then a door slammed.

  “Never mind. Belle’s on her way home. Cooper is bringing her, but listen, you can’t just show up out of the blue and start bossing teenage girls around. It’s not how this works.”

  Taylor wanted to hang up on this woman. Sissy Dorney was only a few years older than her. Sissy’s parents owned the auto body shop down the road. Her aunt sold jewelry in the antique mall across from Flour Sax Quilt Shop. Sissy had dated one of her professors at the crafts college, but then eloped with a truck driver that had gone through town one winter. The truck driver ran the family auto body shop now.

  Sissy had been an anonymous voice. But when she said her name, the flood of information rolled over Taylor.

  This town was small.

  Everyone knew everything.

  Just…not what their own sisters were doing in their spare time.

  It only took fifteen minutes for Cooper and Belle to show up. They walked in like it was their house and settled into the slipcovered couch.

  “We need to talk,” Cooper said in his smooth, so polite voice.

  “I agree.” Taylor stood in front of the TV arms crossed.

  “My mom loved Dayton, but we broke up spring break.” Cooper held Belle’s hand in both of his. “Dayton goes to church with us. I haven’t told Mom that we broke up. She’ll flip her lid.”

  “If Belle stays nights at your house, I’m going to flip my lid.”

  He gave Belle’s hand what he thought was a subtle squeeze and dropped it. “I just wanted to be honest with you. If you decide to tell Mom, I understand.” He stood up and offered his hand to Taylor.

  “I’m not doing your dirty work for you, kid.” Taylor shook his hand. He gave hers a squeeze too. “Be honest with your mom and be honorable with my sister.”

  Taylor didn’t know how to describe the sound Belle made from the couch, but if you could verbalize an eye roll, she did.

  “Head home.” Taylor walked to the front door and opened it. “Belle and I need to talk.”

  When the door was securely shut behind him, Belle spoke up. “I’m not sleeping with Cooper. He’s my best friend and has been since we were six. He thinks he’s in love with me, but he’s wrong. The important thing for you to remember is even if I was, it’s none of your business.” Despite the bravado, there was a brokenness in her big blue eyes. A fragile child who, Taylor suspected, desperately wanted someone to protect her from making a big mistake.

  Taylor chewed her bottom lip. “There’s only one thing I really want to know right now.”

  Belle stiffened.

  “Is Dayton a girl or a boy?”

  Belle’s lips curved up, into a knowing, sneaky smile.

  They stared at each other, neither giving in.

  “The restaurant at Berry Noir Vineyards doesn’t close till eleven. Let’s go get some dinner.”

  Belle made a face that indicated she was both bemused and knew the real definition of the word bemused, but she followed Taylor out to their mom’s ten year old Audi.

  * * *

  Berry Noir was a small family run vineyard five miles East of town. Their restaurant was nicer than the local café, and the atmosphere more conducive to heart to heart talks.

  And yet Belle sat across the small square table in the atmospherically lit dining room grim-faced as though Taylor was attempting to drop her off at prison for the weekend.

  Taylor ordered a plate of mushroom and spinach ravioli, waited through the silence and then ordered the same thing for Belle.

  “Grandpa’s worried.” The kitchen at Berry Noir wasn’t fast, so they had a long time to talk before the waiter returned. “And so am I.”

  Belle’s mouth pursed, a moody version of the duck face that had been popular when Taylor was her age.

  “Do you want to take some time off from school? Everyone will understand.”

  Belle grimaced. “No one understands.” Her words were muffled, and her eyes downcast.

  “I do, anyway. We’re in this together.”

  Belle looked up at her, one eye narrowed suspiciously. “Are we?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” Taylor attempted a warm smile. It was a challenge as this new version of her sister frankly terrified her.

  “I suppose you think I’ll say, ‘You’re not my mom’.”

  “I don’t expect anything.” Taylor wondered if Belle could tell she was lying. She had totally figured that would be Belle’s next line.

  Belle unfolded her napkin and then folded it again, but smaller. “My mom wasn’t your mom.”

  “Belle…”

  “I’m not talking about my birth mom. I’m talking about Mom. She was a different woman raising me. For like twelve years she was a married woman, a woman with a kid. That was you. When your dad died, she changed. She got me, and that changed her too. I was only five years old when you left for college. All of a sudden she was just this lady—a single mom all alone with a really young kid.”

  “But that’s what’s so wonderful about you. Mom wasn’t alone.”

  Belle’s lip curled in disgust. “We were both alone. She was in t
he shop every day and I was upstairs in the apartment with Grandpa.”

  “Yeah…but I mean, she was a single mom for me too. From when I was eleven until I was seventeen. That’s a lot of growing up.”

  “You all had me though, like a pet or something, to play with. What did I have? After you left, just…Gramps.”

  A shiver of anger raced up Taylor’s spine. Grandpa Ernie was awesome. Or, had been awesome. He had aged a lot in the last year. Either way, when Belle had been upstairs chilling with Grandpa Ernie, he had still been fun.

  “It’s okay to tell me this. I need to know what it was like for you.” Taylor tried hard to remember anything from her psychology elective in high school. Allowing Belle to talk and not judging was the best she could come up with. She stuffed her defensive anger about Grandpa down deep in her heart. Belle needed grace right now.

  “When you went to college you just…left.”

  “I mean…” Taylor smiled naturally this time. “I was just at the other end of Love Street at the Comfort College of Art and Craft. It’s not like I wasn’t around.”

  “But you weren’t around. We went to your gallery shows, and I saw you at the shop sometimes, if you were working, but you never came home. Not for lunch, not for a weekend, not even for Christmas.”

  Taylor cringed, remembering the holiday with her college boyfriend and his family. “I came home in the summer….”

  “No. You didn’t. You stayed on campus.”

  “But I worked at the shop.”

  “But you took classes and stayed on campus. Working in the shop during the summer wasn’t the same. Then you moved to Portland for grad school and work and stuff and we really never saw you again.”

  “Oh, come on…” Taylor sipped her water, trying hard to change her attitude. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I didn’t come home enough.”

  “Never on my birthday.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Belle continued, her voice tired and cold. “Never on Christmas, Thanksgiving or Easter.”

  “We were never much of a holiday family after Dad died.” Taylor glanced around for the waiter, dying for an interruption. He was headed their way, laden with their plates.

  “I wouldn’t know the difference. I wasn’t around before he died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The waiter joined them, asked something about cheese, and left them with their painful conversation.

  “You went to your grandparents for your last birthday.” Belle stared at her plate like she didn’t recognize it.

  “I wanted you to come.” Taylor also wanted to dive into the food to escape her guilt. Belle was good at this. She made it sound like Taylor had abandoned her mom and sister. But that wasn’t the way it had felt. She had just taken the opportunities as they came. Jobs, houses, trips with friends. Each decision had made sense in the moment. Even going to her grandparents for her birthday dinner instead of seeing her mom and Belle first. “They’re your grandparents too.” Taylor stabbed a little square of pasta.

  “No, they aren’t. Don’t you understand that? I never met your dad. He wasn’t my dad. His parents don’t want me.” Belle also stabbed a ravioli. Then she ate it, slowly.

  Taylor exhaled, glad for the break.

  It didn’t last long enough.

  “Do you know what happens when I run into them in town?”

  Taylor ate another ravioli, not wanting to hear what Belle had to say about their other grandparents.

  “They don’t even say hi.”

  “Oh, Belle…” Taylor reached for her hand, but Belle gripped her napkin.

  “They shop at Bible Creek Quilt and Gift. They never come into Flour Sax.”

  “I’ll talk to them. I’ll make this right.” Taylor’s fork hovered over her plate. The coldness between Grandma and Grandpa Quinny and Belle had been obvious from the start, but that was sort of who they were. They weren’t baby people. They warmed up to kids, bigger kids. They went to sports games, but Belle hadn’t played sports.

  “They aren’t wrong…Todd wasn’t my dad.” Belle stared at Taylor with a challenge in her eyes.

  Todd Quinn had been Laura’s only husband, her true love, and Laura and Taylor had told Belle stories of him, his bravery in the face of danger, his funny falsetto singing voice. They had kept his memory fresh by sharing him with her. He was gone, but he was Belle’s dad too. That’s how Taylor and her mom had seen it.

  He would have loved her.

  “Belle…”

  Taylor’s dinner stared at her, daring her to remember her appetite, but it was gone. She missed her dad every day. Every single day for the last eighteen years. It hurt to hear Belle talk like this, but she wouldn’t show it. Taylor was the adult. Taylor was here, in Comfort, for Belle and not for herself. “Why don’t we go away? Roxy can run the store while we’re gone. Let’s stay a week at the time share. We can go all the way up to Long Beach, or even Blaine. Let’s just get as far away as possible.”

  Belle locked eyes with Taylor, and though there was just that hint of drama in her face that made Taylor doubt her sincerity, there were tears in those eyes. Taylor would do anything for this kid.

  “We can’t leave Grandpa that long anymore. Didn’t you know that? Mom hadn’t gone away for even one night in more than three years.”

  “I’m sorry.” Taylor held her fork in a white knuckled fist. Her mother hadn’t told her how badly Grandpa Ernie had deteriorated.

  “Anyway, I have a paper due on Monday. I can’t leave right now.”

  “But, um, you’re not going to classes.”

  “I only skip the stupid ones.” Belle squared her shoulders and stuck her jaw out. “I don’t have a car, so I have to walk and bike everywhere. Why would I need gym class? And seriously, Taylor, why on earth would a Quinn girl need home ec?” She almost laughed.

  “It is absurd, but you don’t want to flunk the stupid classes, do you?”

  Belle snorted. “No one will give me F’s right now. My mom just died.” She seemed to notice her ravioli again, and after a moment, she dug in as though no one had fed her all week. Considering what they’d gone through together, Taylor suspected it was true. Taylor certainly hadn’t thought to cook family dinners for her and Grandpa Ernie.

  Chapter Two

  The weak, spring sun cast its gentle light through the east window. No one had turned on the kitchen light, so Taylor didn’t either. She sat at the well-worn pine table nursing a cup of coffee. Grandpa had seemed fine at breakfast, lucid, with it. Belle had been efficient but quiet. Taylor, herself, was in a fog of discouragement. Maybe delayed grief. It had now been three days since the funeral, and the flowers on the kitchen counter had begun to lose their petals.

  The excitement of putting her condo on the market, throwing all of her stuff in a van, and coming home had buoyed her up through the immediate loss, but now that all of that was over, the adrenaline rush from being needed had passed and Taylor was empty inside.

  Her stuff was in the shed behind her house. Her house? No. This was Belle’s house. She would need it more than Taylor did. Taylor let her spoon sit in the bowl of oatmeal as it cooled. This house was so empty without her mom.

  Taylor expected to hear her voice, to feel her warm hand on her shoulder as she passed—giving gentle touches throughout the day was a little habit her mother had.

  She hadn’t come home enough, but she hadn’t known she needed to. Her mom was only forty-nine. Exactly twenty years older than Taylor, to the week. How could she have known they didn’t still have a million years together? It had never occurred to her that she could lose both of her parents.

  Taylor watched Belle scrub out the pot she had made their oatmeal in.

  Grandpa was in his room getting dressed. She could hear his grunts and heavy sighs all the way in the kitchen. This was a small house, but it was still funny to hear him getting dressed. Living alone in the city was so much quieter than here with the birds outside and the people inside. The sounds
of life around her were good.

  Taylor had been younger than Belle was now when her dad had died. Belle was almost done with her junior year of high school.

  Taylor had been a moody tween. She had been awful to live with for a full year, acting out, running to Grandma Quinny’s house, talking back. She hadn’t recovered till they got Belle.

  Did that mean Taylor needed to adopt a baby to fix all of this? Someone for Belle and her to dote on, to give them a reason to keep going?

  She sincerely hoped not. Having a moody teen and a baby at the same time was too much to even imagine.

  Grandpa shuffled into the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast?” He had just finished his oatmeal. Taylor looked at her own bowl.

  “Better have some toast with your vitamins.” Belle didn’t try to convince him he had already eaten.

  Grandpa put two slices of raisin bread in the toaster.

  Belle gave him a handful of pills from a plastic week long pill container. “There you go. Coffee’s hot too.”

  He took his pills, one little swallow at a time, but not with water. When they were all gone, he looked at his hand, just to make sure, and then poured himself a mug of coffee.

  He joined Taylor at the table. The toast popped, but he ignored it, possibly he had forgotten it already.

  “Eat that oatmeal, young lady.” His gruff voice was serious, his bushy eyebrows drawn together. “You’re wasting away. Men aren’t lookin to marry sickly girls.”

  Taylor put a spoonful of oatmeal in her mouth.

  Belle wrinkled her nose at her sister. “Love you, Gramps.” She kissed the top of his head, grabbed her sherpa jacket, and left out the kitchen door.

  Belle had handled him so well.

  Was that her morning job? Had her mom made her do that every day? Surely not. The store didn’t open till eleven, and her mom wouldn’t have made the baby take care of Grandpa Ernie.