by Lauren Dane
He’d known they’d had a hardscrabble life. Knew about the drinking and the catting around. But he’d had no idea the depth of it. William had never said. He’d never asked either. “Jesus.”
“No. Not in my trailer. My mother was no help. She’s an alcoholic too. A bigger mess than my dad in some ways. Her biggest addiction is attention. From lots of men who aren’t my dad. She’d run off for days, sometimes weeks. Sometimes he’d go to find her. Sometimes he’d stay home and drink. His temper was always worse when he drank. He’s mean, my father. But when he’s drinking he’s cruel. Tate was his favorite target because, as you can tell, she’s not his. The rest of us are tall with dark hair. Like him. But Tate is short and blonde. She was always so full of love for us, protected us. He resented that and my mother did too in her own way. She never protected us. She lied to the cops. Lied to the doctors when we got broken bones or had to go to the emergency room.
“We got good at lying too. It was easier, you see, if we just went along with the fiction. We fell down the steps, or ran into a door. Tate would dumpster dive for clothes because we never had any. We didn’t have coats for the cold. She managed to make a connection at the thrift store. She cleaned up after they closed and they let her have stuff for us. William and Tim had jobs, so we could eat.”
She stirred, adding garlic and vegetables to the meat, and his stomach growled, despite his growing horror.
“My parents wouldn’t allow us to go on the school lunch program. They didn’t want anyone to think they couldn’t take care of their kids.” Her laugh was bitter.
“Tate stepped in between me and a fist more times than I can count. She, William and Tim paid hush money to my parents to let us live in the apartment they’d rented. And each one of us, once we could get a job, we helped with the younger ones. That’s what you do when you love your family.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I…”
She held up a hand. “I know how to make spaghetti, that’s what’s for dinner, by the way. I know how to make it because Tate taught me. It was easy and relatively cheap. Kept you going all day. We ate it a lot in that little apartment Tate, Tim and William rented. For about six years after I got out of school and had a job, I refused to eat spaghetti. Every time I heard the burble of boiling pasta, or smelled spaghetti sauce, all I could think of were those fists. Of sweat filled with the stench of hopelessness and alcohol. I refused to speak of what my life was like. For a long time I refused to deal with it. I hid it, was ashamed of what I’d come from because it made me feel weak.”
“You can’t possibly think it’s your fault.” He was so angry he wanted to drive over to that trailer and beat the shit out of her father.
“I don’t. Not now.” She buttered bread and put it on a cookie sheet. “For a long, long time I did. I think it wasn’t until Tate got together with Matt that I was truly able to let it go. She got the happily-ever-after that she deserved. It made me reevaluate.
“When I was four, my father broke my arm. It was one of the few times we ever had a Christmas tree. Guilt. So he and my mother got into it. A week before Christmas. She set the tree on fire.”
“Your father broke your arm?”
“Yes. And he knocked out one of my front teeth. He beat me so bad I had to ditch school. More than once. We were raised, you see, to believe that if people knew what happened in that trailer they’d send us to juvie. Juvie was jail. We’d be separated and put in jail. I believed that for a long, long time. So we kept silent. And we hid what we came from. In varying degrees, we held ourselves responsible for the sins of other people who should have known better.”
She held his gaze. “I am not responsible for the thug my father is. I am not responsible that he’s quick with his fists and slow with his labor. I am not responsible for my mother. Or for the fact that Tate is not his. Or for the fact that I have running water and electricity and half the time they don’t. You can’t be responsible for other people’s shit, Joe. If there’s one thing in the world I know to be totally true, it’s that. You are not responsible for your father’s mental illness. Hiding it, or being ashamed of it won’t make it go away. Punishing yourself by breaking up with your girlfriend—who loves you—well, that’s not going to make it go away either.”
“Beth, you can’t love me.”
“Shut the fuck up.” She slid the pasta into the water, stirring as she held her tongue.
He reeled in more than one way. Her story, Jesus. And her declaration of love.
She turned to face him. “I understand shame. I understand fear and helplessness over people’s behavior and their health problems.”
She dug through her bag and tossed a thick stack of papers on the table. “Trey’s sister is a mental-health nurse. Buck and I had breakfast with her. There are some resources here. Names and places your dad can maybe find the help he needs. I don’t know all the details of course. She didn’t give me any diagnoses or anything like that. But she did say that it often happened that it might take a few tries to find the right course of treatment. This is brain-chemistry stuff, it takes tinkering to find the right medications and the right amounts. It’s easy, she told me, to get discouraged. But that the overwhelming percentage of the time they can find something that works.”
Joe looked through the papers. He had most of the information already from his research. There were some new things, though. And more than that, she’d done it for him. She’d gone out and spent the time and effort. To help his dad who’d tried to hurt her. To help Joe, who’d broken her damned heart and acted like a dick.
It touched him that she cared so much. That she’d not only told him she loved him, but showed she truly did.
Guilt rushed through him.
“I appreciate all this. I do. But it doesn’t change things between us.” He stood and gathered her things. “You need to go. I meant it when I broke things off. I have too much to deal with right now. My dad is the reason I came back here to Petal. I need to work to pay the bills, yes, but all my time needs to be spent on him. It’s not fair to him, or to you, to try to have a girlfriend on top of that. Maybe later…after this is settled. I don’t know.”
He opened his door. “Thank you for dinner. I should invite you to stay to eat it, but I don’t want to confuse things any more than they’re already confused.”
“Confused? Bullshit. This isn’t confusion. I’m not confused. Neither are you, for that matter. Don’t do this, Joe. I can help you with all of this. Support you. I don’t need you to be with me twenty-four hours a day. But damn it, you need someone to take care of you when you get run-down. You need to be able to turn to someone when things get rough. That’s what I’m here for.”
“I have to, Beth. And if you care about me like you say you do, you’ll get the fuck out of here and leave me be. I need to put my energy and focus on my dad. I can’t be with you. Don’t make it harder than it is already.”
“It’s not either/or. I can help you. I want to help you. You can lean on me, trust me. I love you, dumbass.”
“I am a dumbass.” He snorted. “But I can’t divide my attention. It’s not right. I was a shitty son. A horrible, selfish jerk and I need to not be that guy.”
She bent to scratch Buck’s ears. “See you around, Buck.” She took the bags at the door. “You know where I am when you realize you’re being stupid.”
He shook his head. “We don’t have a future. You need to move on. Don’t wait around for me.” He gently pushed her out and closed the door, watching through the peephole as she went to her car and drove away.
Buck growled at him, turned and walked off.
“I know. Okay? I know. But you heard her story. She doesn’t need any more fucked-up stuff in her life. She deserves a guy with a normal life. I can’t be that. Even if and when my dad gets himself straight, it’ll always be there. I can’t saddle her with any more crap. I’m doing it for her. And for me and my parents too. I have to do the right thing, Buck.”
“So how goes it?” It was her lunch hour and she’d escaped to the Honey Bear. Apparently William was still around, as he was the one who’d brought her lunch out to her.
He slid into a seat across from hers.
“What do you mean?”
He rolled his eyes. “Baby girl, I’m your big brother. You’re nursing a broken heart. How are things on the Joe front?”
It had been two weeks since that day when Joe had kicked her out of his apartment after she’d told him the story of her childhood. She hadn’t told anyone that part. It had felt like a rejection of her and of that story for a while. She wasn’t so sure now, but it still hurt.
“He wanted some space, I’m trying to give it to him. You know more than I do. He doesn’t talk to me.”
“He loves you.” William stole one of her potato chips. “I shouldn’t tell you any of this because, to be honest, I’m not sure if Joe is right for you. I got a problem with a man who can’t see what’s right in front of his face. But you love him and I love you and I want you to be happy. He’s drowning in all the stuff with his father. Court stuff for that night at the Sands. More mental-health evaluations. His dad is resisting. His mom has checked out of the process.”
She sipped her tea. “I hate that he’s doing this on his own. I’ve gone by the shop but he won’t talk to me. I stopped by his place but he won’t open the door. I sent food over a few times. I know he took it. Jacob told me. I can’t do it on my own.”
“He doesn’t want you to have to get tied up in any of this stuff.”
“I told him.” She blurted it.
“What?”
“I told him about our childhood. About the drinking and the beating. I wanted him to understand that I got it. You know? I wanted him to see that I understood what it was to be ashamed of what people did, even when it wasn’t your fault. And he shoved me out of his house and hasn’t spoken to me since.”
William moved to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Sweetheart, what Joe is doing is stupid, yes. But it’s not about you. Not about you telling him about what happened in that trailer. Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. I want to fix things. But he won’t let me. He keeps pushing me away. I love him. I want to help him but he won’t let me. He won’t even just be with me at all. It’s hard not to feel like he’s rejected me because of that story.”
“Have you never told it before?”
“What we went through? Some, here and there. It’s been years since I’ve stayed silent. We all told Matt and the Chases some. And here and there it comes up. I’ve never hidden it from someone I dated, but I’ve never gone into the detail I did with Joe. None of them have been important enough for me to expose that part of my life that way. I wanted him to understand what it meant that I was sharing. I wanted it to make a difference and it didn’t.”
“How do you know it didn’t? Hm? How do you know he didn’t hear that story and think, that girl’s got enough damage, I can’t give her any more.”
“Why would he think that? That’s dumb.”
William laughed. “We’re men, my wife tells me this all the time. We do dumb stuff thinking we’re doing the right thing, but we just mess things up. He’s a guy. He’s buried in all this mental-health stuff. He wants to keep you away from it.”
“He thinks he was a bad son.”
“He was a bad son.” William snorted a laugh. “He wants to make amends and he’s doing that. He’s doing what he should with his family. Being a real man. He’s got to do this.” He kissed the top of her head. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t send him a little jolt.”
“Yeah? What do you mean?”
“Keep showing up. Keep yourself in his sights. He needs to know you’re not going anywhere. You’re too stubborn.”
“You think that’ll make any difference?”
“Way I see it, you can give up and move on. Or you can keep trying. You can’t mope around. It makes me want to punch him. He’s my best friend so I’d rather not. But you’re my baby sister and he’s the one making you this way. I can’t have that.”
She smiled up at her brother. Usually so gruff. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard you say this much at one time.”
“I hate to see you sad. You deserve a man who makes you smile. If it’s not going to be him, move on. I’ll help you however I can. But you’re my kooky, smiling sister. I want my Beth back.”
“You’re very sweet.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Your secret really isn’t that much of a secret. Especially if they’ve seen you with your children for more than a minute.”
He rolled his eyes, but she saw his smile, knew he was warmed by her compliment. “We can move past what we came from. We can let it make us better instead of hobbling us and dragging us down.”
“I love you.” She hugged him.
“I love you too.”
She stopped by the garage after she left the Honey Bear. Jacob saw her, as did Buck, who barked, dancing over.
“You’re like one of those dancing horses, Buck. I’ve missed you.” She had a cookie in her pocket so she passed him one, which he inhaled and then gave her a few kisses in thanks. “Where’s your dad?”
“Beth, why are you here?”
She stood, and the way his gaze ate her up gave her hope she hadn’t had much of before then. He missed her. Ha.
“I’m here to say hello to my brother. And to see Buck. I have a stash of dog cookies at work and it would be a crime to let them go to waste.”
Jacob left, leaving her alone with Joe. He had dark spots under his eyes.
“You’re not sleeping enough.”
“Beth.”
“What? Come on, Joe, this is so silly. I know you care about me. You know I care about you. How’s your father?”
“He’s fine. Or, on his way to being fine. Hopefully. You need to go.”
“You’re still playing this? You want to touch me. I can tell.”
“I want a lot of things I can’t have. I can’t afford you, Beth.”
“I’m already yours. You know that.”
He swallowed hard, not speaking for long moments. “You need to move on. I’m going to as well. I never should have let things get serious between us. It was a mistake. You and I were a mistake.”
She knew he was using it to hold her back, but it hurt anyway.
“You’re a liar. And a coward. Two things I’d never have thought of you before now.”
“Another two reasons for you to move on then. Go, Beth. I have too much. Too many things and people depending on me. I can’t have a girlfriend. You’re more than a casual fuck. That’s not a lie. But I can’t have anything more than that. I’m moving on and you should too.”
Honestly? If she saw him out with another woman she might have to run him down with her car. She considered telling him that, but then she thought he’d do it to try to push her away harder.
“I’ll be seeing you around. Get some sleep, why don’t you?” She bent, giving him a view right down the front of her sweater. He may as well get a little memory of what he could have if he wasn’t a dick. “Buck, make him get some sleep.”
She turned, swaying out, looking back over her shoulder and finding him staring longingly at her ass. “See you around, Joe Harris.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lily shook her head. “He’s not worth it.”
“I disagree.” Tate sighed, rubbing her stomach. “He’s hurting. She knows it. She wants to make it better. I think her plan has merit.”
“I think her plan is dumb. Why should she have to do any of this at all? If he loves her so much, why should she have to do more than she is already doing? She sends him food. She asks after him and he won’t even talk to her! Fuck him.” Anne shrugged. “I agree with Lily. Beth is better than this jerk. She should move on. There are other guys in town.”
“And none of them is Joe.” Tate cocked her head.
“Right?”
Beth blew out a breath. “Not a one.”
“He loves her. William says so. I say so. Anyone with eyes says so.” Tate waved in Beth’s direction. “We gonna let this guy push our Beth away?”
“Maybe we should! He doesn’t deserve her,” Anne growled. “He makes her sad and I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
“If this doesn’t work, I vote we all make him sad. Forever and ever. But, our Beth wants him. And I think he does deserve her. He’s hurting. We all know what that feels like.” Tate looked to Lily, who sighed. “If you hadn’t given Nathan a second chance, how would your life be? Hm?”
“You fight dirty.” Lily frowned and then turned to Beth. “You’re too good for him.”
“Of course she is. That goes without saying. She’d be too good for any man.”
Beth squeezed Tate’s hand.
“What if he doesn’t respond?”
“He needs a jolt. That’s what William said. I showed up at the garage and started that ball rolling. He couldn’t take his eyes off my boobs or my butt. That’s step one. Plus, he saw me, spoke to me, he got a good old reminder of why he loves me. So now he needs to remember there are people who love him. Who want to help him. That he can have a life outside all this stuff with his dad and still be a good son. And, he needs to realize that I won’t wait around forever. If he doesn’t wake the hell up, I can find a man elsewhere.”
She took a deep breath.
“And if he doesn’t respond? I’ll know it’s really time for me to move on.”
Trey looked up when she cruised through the door of his and Jacob’s apartment. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
He gave her a look. A little scared at the edges and she nearly felt sorry for him. “What? Jacob isn’t here.”
