My Lucky Days: A Novel

by S. D. Hendrickson

  “I’m sorry.” He stared out toward the railroad tracks.

  I didn’t know what to say to that remark. Was he sorry about it being weird or sorry for bringing me here or sorry for something else entirely? The silence seemed to grow. He wasn’t talking. I wasn’t talking. Only the grass bugs were making noise.

  His hand went up, adjusting his hat. I saw the new colorful tattoo again, curling around his arm. And the words. The small artistic ones mixed in with the ink design that I could never quite read on television or the magazines.

  The world is bigger than you.

  Very prolific, I guess. Another one of his reminders, maybe. And I wondered why he needed it. My feet were getting tingly as they hung off the tailgate. I swung my legs back and forth, trying to get the feeling to return. “The house that Colt is building. Is it out here too?”

  “Yeah.” Lucky gestured with his head toward the north. “It’s about half done. He just started it a couple of months ago. He’s rushing it. I’m living in the pool house right now.”

  “The pool house.” I laughed. “All joking aside. You’re really going to live here full time?”

  He finally turned and looked at me. “Yes.”

  I picked up my can, taking another drink as I contemplated his answer. I couldn’t read him. Not anymore, and it was frustrating me. “Why?”

  “Sometimes the truth ain’t easy when staying is harder than leaving.”

  “That’s from a song,” I mumbled. “The one on the piano. Leaving Lonely.”

  “That wasn’t a single release.” His eyes sought mine. His face softened and for a moment, I saw a glimpse of the guy I once knew. The guy full of big dreams. “Do you still listen to my songs?”

  “Yeah. I’ve actually got all your albums on vinyl.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  And then I fell into the spell of that hopeful smile. As he looked at me, I found myself telling Lucky the secret that not even Peyton knew. “I’ve seen you play too.”

  “When?” He seemed shocked.

  “I never told anyone. But I’ve seen every big show you’ve done in Oklahoma. And I drove to Dallas once too.”

  “All those nights . . . you’ve really been there?”

  “I was there,” I whispered, feeling the warmth on my cheeks as I admitted the truth to the one person who probably should have never known. “But I didn’t want anyone to see me watching you. I was dating Ryan for part of it. And I wasn’t sure how to explain it. To explain you. So I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Peyton.”

  “You went by yourself? You should have told me. You could have watched backstage. We could have talked. I could have seen you.”

  “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  His jaw gritted up as he stared back at the railroad tracks. “So you didn’t want to actually see me. But you felt enough about me to still come to the shows?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. So I told the best version of the truth I was willing to share with him. “I didn’t want to make it harder. But I was happy for you. Proud of you. And it was incredible seeing you up there.”

  He ate another tater tot as the sound of a bird came from the bushes next to the track. “So that Ryan guy. I heard you almost married him.”

  It was my turn to be surprised. “How did you know that?”

  “This town’s not that big. His mama. My mama. Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “So he asked, and you said no.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “Why’d you say no?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He elbowed me in the arm, giving a playful smile. “That’s it? You date the guy for three years. And then say no. But you don’t know why?”

  “How did you know it was three years?”

  “Told you. That part doesn’t matter. I want to know why you didn’t marry him.” And this time he wasn’t joking. I heard it in his voice, almost like a challenge.

  I couldn’t look at Lucky and answer his question. So I didn’t. I focused on the Oklahoma sky in the distance. “He liked raisins.”

  “You’re so full of shit.” He shook his head, letting out a laugh.

  “It’s true.” I shrugged. “He loved them in everything. He even wanted pancakes with those nasty little pieces cooked inside. Who eats pancakes with raisins? That is not a thing. Nor will it ever be a thing.”

  We both laughed for a moment. And then he stared at me with serious brown eyes. “So that’s the story you’re sticking with? You said no over raisins?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  My heart was beating fast as he held my gaze, daring me to change my answer. “Well, I’m glad he liked raisins.”

  I looked away, fiddling with my napkin. This was getting harder being with him. The slight dance of words. So many old emotions were trying to resurface. I felt the truck bed shift as he slid closer to me. I smelled his damn cologne again.

  “What are you doing, Lucky?”

  Before he could reply, I heard the sound of the train. The slow swoosh until it appeared about a quarter of a mile away. The sun was going down slowly, casting a bright orange backdrop across the sky as the first car passed in front of us.

  The sudden breeze hit me, blowing the front of my dress up a little bit. I pushed it down, leaving my hands resting on my thighs.

  “Aren’t we a little close?” I yelled over the noise.

  “Maybe. But doesn’t it feel good?”

  Maybe it did. Maybe it all did.

  The train filled my view, flashing and changing colors as it sped down the tracks and the steady rhythm filled the air. As the cars moved, I heard the grinding of metal as they shifted around, morphing into a hypnotic blur in front of us.

  Lucky reached over, taking my hand, half-holding it as his fingers rested on my thigh. I felt every place he touched me. I knew what those fingers could do to me. What they could make me feel. This was crazy. But I didn’t stop it from happening. I let the magic of the night train take us back to another time and place.

  He leaned over. “You hear it?”

  “What?”

  His lips got closer to my ear, and I felt his breath. At first, it was just the low hum of his voice until he broke into the words.

  I rolled my eyes, laughing at him. “Johnny Cash. Folsom Prison.”

  “She remembers.” He winked.

  As the last car cleared, the sound slowly disappeared into the night. The sun was gone. And so was the train. The only thing left was us. I waited for him to let go of my hand. But he didn’t. His thumb brushed over my knee, sending little tingles up my leg.

  I pulled my hand free of his grasp. “What are you really doing here, Lucky? It’s like I fell off that roof and you decided to roll back the clock.”

  “I’ve wanted to get in touch with you for weeks. Months, actually. Way before you fell off the roof. I just didn’t know what to say. Or how to say it. I tried to call you a few times. But I couldn’t go through with it.”

  “After all these years, why are you being so persistent about talking to me now?”

  He stared at me for a second. “Go get back in the cab. I’ve got something to show you. I’ll clean up back here.”

  I hesitated before jumping down in the grass. Going around to the passenger’s side, my nerves were firing at a rapid pace. I didn’t know what he had to show me. What required this big production and secrecy.

  I fidgeted inside the cab as I waited for him, smelling the sweet leather scent. This truck must be brand new. Just a few weeks old. I looked around in the front and then in the backseat. I didn’t see anything in here, which was baffling. Nothing to show me.

  The driver’s side opened and he climbed inside. He seemed nervous. More nervous than me. And that was saying a lot. My hands were starting to shake from the apprehension and the nasty spiral of dread bearing down inside my chest.

  “What is it?” I asked him. “I can’t take this . . . this. It’s frustrating. Just tell m
e.”

  Flipping on the interior light, he opened the console in the center and handed me a photograph.

  It took a moment for my eyes to catch up to what I saw in front of me. My breath caught in my throat and the tater tots balled into a knot inside my stomach. That dread. That fear. Not even close to the reality.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the image.

  His brown eyes. His blond hair.

  I felt myself slipping into a full-on panic attack. My chest hurt. It hurt so very bad with every beat of my heart.

  Lucky had a child.

  He had a child with someone else.

  After all the different women through the years splashed across the magazines, none of those images scratched the surface to the sudden pain twisting up inside of me from this photo. This I didn’t expect. This I wasn’t prepared for. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  I looked up at him as a single tear rolled down my cheek. My emotions were sudden and very deep. I couldn’t stop them from betraying my devastation.

  “That’s Sam,” he whispered.

  I swallowed hard and nodded. “He’s um . . . he’s cute. Looks just . . . just like you.”

  “He’s not my kid, Katie.”

  “What?” I shook my head, staring at the image. “But that’s you. I mean. That’s you. How is he not your son?”

  “He’s my nephew. My sister’s little boy.”

  Our eyes locked onto each other. Another tear fell down my cheek. “Wait. What? I don’t understand.”

  A layer of pain spread across his face. I read every broken line as they cracked. I could tell he was pushing back his own tears. “My birth mother contacted me.”

  I blinked at him as I counted my breaths. “Oh my gosh.”

  “A few months ago, she sent a letter to my mama.”

  “I can’t believe it. After all these years.”

  He nodded absently. “I didn’t know what to do. But it hit me hard. I couldn’t shake it. So I went to find her. She lives out in the country. Back in some hills. It’s a really poor area. And I saw her.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah.” He gritted his jaw. “When she opened the door, I just stood there. Staring at her. She didn’t have front teeth. They were rotted out. And she had chunks of hair just missing from her head. I felt so . . . I couldn’t understand how that person could possibly be my mother.”

  Part of me wanted to comfort Lucky. And if that dark-brown console hadn’t separated us, I would have wrapped my arms around him. Instead, I reached for his hand. He clasped it hard, looking back at me. “I thought I didn’t care, Katie. But I did. And seeing the truth. It hurt pretty damn bad.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what to say to him. It was hard. I knew it hurt.

  “Her name’s Trenda. And mine’s . . .” He let out a deep breath, rubbing his thumb over my fingers. “And mine is Bo.”

  Our eyes caught. I think a person’s identity is deeply defined by their name. You answer to it when someone calls. You write that name on every important document. Some people change it when getting married as an act of unity. And sometimes fathers pass their name on to a child with a sense of pride.

  Whether you liked it or not, the name picked by your parents defined you. And for Lucky, I knew his name had meant something very deep. He loved what Colleen had decided to call him. But more importantly, he loved the reason she gave it to him.

  “You’re not Bo,” I whispered.

  He swallowed hard. “There’s nothing in me that feels any connection to what I saw. Or what she said. But I know on the inside, I’m connected to her. And it makes my fucking skin crawl.”

  I guess sometimes the pain of not knowing was easier to swallow than finding out the truth. “Did she tell you why she did it?”

  He nodded. “Trenda said it wasn’t on purpose. She had to run an errand. I don’t know what kind. But I’m guessing drugs. Who knows maybe she was . . . meeting someone.” His eyebrows knitted up as he took off his cap. I followed his train of thoughts right to a place that was even worse than meth. He mashed his hat back down in frustration.

  “Trenda said she just left me at the entrance of the church for a few minutes. Thought I’d be safe. Told me not to move. But I must have wandered inside the door. When she came back, she saw us. Me with Colleen. She said everything just clicked. Just made sense. So she left and never looked back.”

  “What about your father?”

  He shook his head, looking away. “She doesn’t know who my father is.”

  “I’m sorry.” I saw the pain he tried to push back down inside of him. He was broken in so many ways. Maybe more than he realized. This was really bad. All of it. “So how did you meet Sam?”

  “Trenda brought him out. She said I had a half-sister named Leah. But she’d overdosed last year. And she was tired of taking care of her kid. That’s what she wanted, Katie. That’s all she wanted. After all this time, she didn’t give a shit about seeing me. Trenda just wanted to get rid of another kid. She wanted me to take Sam. That’s it. Nothing else. Which is fucked up. All of it. And money. She had the nerve to ask for fucking money as she pawned off another kid.”

  And suddenly it all made sense. The house. Moving here. All of it. “You took him?”

  “What the hell else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t leave him. Not there. Not with her in that shit-hole. I gave her a fucking check, and we left.”

  “Where is he right now?”

  “At my mama’s. She’s been helping me until I can get this all figured out. I mean. He needs someone. And when I look at Sam. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I see me. What I must have looked like standing there. And I know it’s what I need to do.”

  “So you’re going to do it? You’re going to be his father?”

  His smile was bittersweet. “I became his father the moment I put him in my truck. I’m just not a very good one.”

  “You will be,” I whispered. “It just takes a little time.”

  “That’s why I wanted to call you. For weeks, I wanted to call you. I just wanted to talk to you about it. But it’s not something you just drop on someone. I’ve been terrified and happy. And confused. I don’t want to fuck this up for him.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re the only person who really ever knew all of me. Who knew me when . . . who almost did this with me.” His jaw clenched. “I just wanted to talk to you about him.”

  “We’re talking now.”

  “I know, but that’s not the only reason I wanted to talk to you.” Lucky turned in his seat so that he was facing me. He wrapped both of his hands around mine. “I’m doing what I can. But it’s hard. And I’m not enough. Sam needs a mother too.”

  I blinked at him a couple of times as his words circled around in my mind. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting . . . I shook my head, feeling the panic building. “What are you saying?”

  He was looking at me again with that familiar look, the one that made my heart melt. It was mixed with the pain of the story he just told me and the longing that always appeared right before he kissed me breathless.

  Lucky lifted my hand up, putting his soft lips against my fingers. “I want you in my life. Both of our lives. I don’t want to do this with someone else. You and me. We could take care of Sam. I know it could work.”

  I yanked my hand free of his grasp. “You want me to be his mother? Have you lost your mind?”

  “No, I think for the first time, in a very long time, I’ve got my head on straight. I want us to be his parents. I know you’d be good at it. Just meet Sam. You’ll see what I’m talking about. We can do this, Katie.”

  “Do what? Pick up like the last eight years didn’t happen?”

  “Well, I know you didn’t marry Ryan because you still love me. We can start with that.”

  My nostrils flared in anger, and I pointed a finger at him. “Whoa! Don’t go there. I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. I saw it in
your eyes. I heard it in your voice.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t confuse the past with the present. I’ll always care about you. But we walked away from each other for a reason. And you know it.”

  “I didn’t walk away from you, Katie. You said leave. So I did. You were sad and . . . and broken. I didn’t know what to do. So I didn’t do a damn thing. I let you decide our future. It was the worst mistake of my life. And believe me. I’ve made some pretty damn bad ones the last few years. But none of them compared to me leaving you. To just giving up. I don’t plan to make that mistake again. Not this time.”

  The burning panic got stronger as we stared at each other. “You have your career because you left. That was your big break. You would have eventually hated me. Resented me. You had a dream. And I would have taken that away from you. But none of that matters right now. This is bigger than you, Lucky. Bigger than concert stages and tours. Bigger than who’s to blame for the past. We are talking about a little boy. You’re a father now. This isn’t about us. This isn’t about me.”

  “But I want it to be about you.”

  “Well, I don’t want it to be about me.” I looked out the window into the dark sky. My heart was beating fast, and I was so very confused. “I think you need to take me home. You’ve got somewhere you should be tonight, and it’s not out here with me.”

  He didn’t answer nor did the truck move. I looked over at him. “Why are you grinning?”

  “Because I think we finally had our first fight. After all of these years. And we survived.” He looked around the cab and then back to me. “No broken windows or busted taillights. I’m disappointed. It would have made a great song.”

  My head fell back against the seat. “You are so impossible sometimes.”

  “You have no idea how impossible I can be now.” The emotions flickered in his eyes as he stared at me. “I’ll take you back home. But we ain’t done with this yet.”

  “Yes, we are.” I glared at him.

  He just smiled. “No, we’re not.”

  Lucky drove back to my house, thankfully with the radio on instead of more talking. He parked in the driveway. I saw the lights on inside, which meant Peyton was home.