by Lauren Dane
Liesl laughed, nearly choking.
“More whispering?”
Raven smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry, it’s all about you.”
The entire table got very quiet until Liesl just kept laughing.
Beth’s eyes widened and then Jack started to chuckle. “She’s got your number, duckie. Jonah, your lady will fit in here just fine.”
Jonah took her hand, kissing it. “Yes, I agree.”
The rest of the dinner was fine. The ease of conversation returned. Dessert was really good and served with hot coffee and brandy, though she skipped the latter.
But she was really ready to go by eleven when Jonah finally signaled it. Everyone shook her hand. His brothers all kissed her cheek. His grandfather, who’d told her some awesome stories about Korea, had taken her hands and told her it had been his pleasure to meet her. Even Beth deigned to kiss her cheek and say it had been nice to meet her and seemed pretty genuine about it. The woman had been a little nicer since dinner, not totally of course—there’d been a few remarks, but they hadn’t been as cutting.
Liesl took her aside as they were preparing to leave. “No one has ever taken her on like that for me. John defends me of course, but over the years it’s become an elaborate game.”
“Jeez. I’d suggest you try Monopoly or backgammon or something. Pick-your-family-apart seems like a sucky game to me.”
Liesl jerked just a little. “Charlotte never would have said anything like that.”
“Yeah, well, aside from Carrie, I can’t see much good in anything that money-grubbing skank has done, so forgive me if I decline to aspire to her level of behavior. My flaws are legion, but I’m not like her, nor do I ever plan to be. I can’t see the point in sitting around a table and cutting people apart. Unless I was a surgeon or something.”
“As it happens, I agree with you when it comes to Charlotte. Honesty is refreshing. I appreciate it. I do hope you come back to dinner soon.”
Raven lifted a brow and Liesl laughed. Jonah saw it and hurried to get free of his grandparents to make his way over.
“He’s worried I’m being mean to you.”
“I can handle you. I like your son a great deal. I respect his life and his need to lead it however he feels necessary. But I don’t think it’s a game to hurt people. It’s tiring enough to have to keep from blurting out everything I think. I don’t want to combine that with a meal. I like food too much to ruin it with this sort of thing. I’m not good at it.”
“Yes, I do believe you can handle me. How about if I promise to not make a game out of insulting you? Will you come to a Sunday dinner here next month? My son is in love with you. He’s satisfied with his life since you came into it. It’s been rough for him since that bitch ran off. You’re not the running-off type of bitch.”
“No. A different kind of bitch though.”
Liesl nodded, satisfied. “Yes, but that’s all right. You’ll be in good company.”
“I’ll work out schedules with Jonah about dinner.” She knew he wanted it and that meant a lot, even if Liesl hadn’t just sort of gone out of her way to give her the seal of approval.
“Everything all right here?” Jonah eased up, putting an arm around Raven’s shoulders.
“Yes, darling. I was just inviting Raven to Sunday dinner next month.”
He gave a sideways glance to Raven, who nodded.
He kissed his mother’s cheek and Carrie caught up with them, her coat in hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Grandmother.”
“All right, darling. Sleep well.”
Raven could dig a lady who got softhearted for her grandkid.
19
“So how did it go? At Jonah’s place, I mean.” Brody worked, chatting to her as was their usual rhythm.
“Most of it was fine. His kid is pretty awesome. I liked his brothers and his father and grandfather. But there were aspects of the evening that were like fucking Thunderdome. His mother and grandmother were all artfully cutting at each other. Mainly the grandmother. That part was not fun. But Liesl, the mother? She invited me to Sunday dinner, which I take it is the seal of approval. I may have to have a drink before I go over there. The stress of keeping my mouth shut probably takes years off my life.”
Brody laughed. “You really dig this guy. I like it on you.”
“He’s not like anything I’ve ever experienced before.” She paused. “Which sounds weird talking to you, but you have that with Elise so I figure you get what I mean.”
“I do. So he’s decent? I mean, he seems to make you happy. Seems to treat you well. Adrian even commented on that.”
She sent a raised brow to him at that comment. “Really?” Many years before, Adrian had seen her with another man at a club in Los Angeles. She’d been with Brody then. And though she’d always been up front with Brody about the fact that she wasn’t monogamous, Adrian had hated her pretty much ever since. She’d never lied, but that hadn’t mattered to Adrian, who loved his siblings fiercely.
“What happened, what he saw, well, that was between you and me. And he gets it. He’s protective of me. But he sees what you’re like with Gillian. And with Poppy too. He’s mellowing as he ages.”
“Hm.”
“Raven?”
She looked up from her client at Maggie’s hail of her name. Maggie stood at the front counter where she usually dealt with walk-ins and clients.
Raven stood, knocking the stool back and nearly losing her balance at the sight of the man standing there. It had been nearly twenty years since the last time she saw Mike Thompson, and he looked pretty much the same as he had then.
Brody was at her side immediately. Two other people were also working in the shop and they’d stood as well, looking back and forth between Raven and the man at the door.
“Mr. Thompson? What . . . Why are you here?” Sick dread filled her as the memories nearly suffocated.
“Raven? Are you all right?” Brody stood between her and Mike.
“He . . . That’s . . . I’m . . . I don’t know.”
Brody examined her face. “Sweetheart, do I need to call the cops? Do I need to beat this guy’s ass? What’s happening? You’re scaring the hell out of me.”
“I know Raven from Happy Bend.”
“Well, I know enough to understand that’s not a good thing,” Brody called back over his shoulder.
“It’s fine.” No. It wasn’t fine. But she didn’t want to get the guy beaten up by three burly tattoo artists. And Maggie held the phone in her hand like she was about to swing it into Mike’s face.
She pulled herself together. It was in the past. She had a future. She wasn’t going to let this harm her.
She managed to walk to the front counter as everyone got back to work, though they all kept an eye on the situation. That made her feel better. Brody was at her back, refusing to leave. That made her feel better too.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make a scene.” Mike licked his lips nervously. He had gray in his hair and in his beard. A bit of belly, though he would have been sixty or so by now, so she figured that was normal.
“Why are you here?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”
“Why are you here?” Raven repeated.
“It’s about your mother.”
She physically recoiled, moving back a step and hitting Brody. He took her shoulder in his hand, reassuring.
“Why don’t you use my office?” He spoke softly.
She nodded. “I need to finish my client.”
Arvin, who’d just cashed out his latest client, paused. “It’s a simple one, right? I can finish it for you if your client is okay with it.”
“Thanks. Mr. Thompson, I can talk to you in Brody’s office. Come on back.”
Her legs worked, which sort of surprised her.
Brody paused at the door, after she’d waved Mike to sit. “You want some company? Who is that?”
“My foster father. One of them.” She’d never told an
yone the whole story of just who he was and she wasn’t going to do it then either. “I’ll be okay.” She touched his arm. “Thank you.”
“Bang on the wall if you need me. Or call out. I’m just right here.”
She nodded and turned, closing the door.
She walked to the desk and sat behind it. The familiar furniture, the pictures of Brody’s women, Marti and Rennie, Elise, joined with others of Erin and Adrian. The room smelled like him. His jacket hung on a peg in the corner. This was her turf. It was her turf and it was nearly twenty years after her dealings with the Thompsons.
“I’ve upset you. Seems I’ve done enough of that and I’m truly sorry.” He spread his hands out, letting them drop to his lap.
“You said you were here about my mother?” She turned her emotions off. She had to or she’d suffocate.
“About ten years ago I went to therapy. After we lost Missy . . . after Bonnie and I split and you . . .”
“Were dumped back on the state,” she supplied.
He winced but it didn’t make her feel better.
“Yes, after we failed you. Anyway, I spent a lot of years in the bottom of a bottle. I lost one job after the next. I hit rock bottom and then Bonnie came to see me in jail. I finally got some help. Therapy. It was either that or lose everything. Bonnie and I had been talking again. I wanted her back, you see, and she said she wouldn’t consider it until we got counseling. So I went. She went. We both had it. I worked through stuff and faced the grief. Not just over Missy, but how we’d abandoned you like all the others had.”
She had her hands folded in her lap, her nails digging into her palms as she struggled to hold it together and keep a straight face.
“If you’re here for old home week, Mr. Thompson, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I got over Happy Bend a long time ago.”
He simply went on. “Bonnie and I, we started looking for you. To reconnect and see if we could make amends. Your kin, they weren’t much help. But we kept our ears open. Last year, one of Bonnie’s patients was a retired police officer who did private investigation as a hobby. We asked him to see if he could track you down. He eventually found you; we figured out you’d changed your name. But first, well . . . we found your momma.”
“Her grave?” Though she’d known her mother had died of an overdose, no one had known where her grave was. She had no plans to go leave flowers either.
“Raven, your mother isn’t dead. She’s in a mental institution where she’s been for the last eighteen years. Before that she’d been in another institution in Louisiana.”
Icy cold washed over her. “You’re telling me my mother isn’t dead?”
“I’m telling you your mother is alive. She’s . . . well, she’s not in the best shape, but she’s alive. In her lucid times, they told her . . . well, they did to her what they did to you I guess. She thought you were dead. They used the news about Missy—” His mouth wobbled a moment and then forged ahead. “They told her you’d been murdered. For the last nearly twenty years she thought you were dead. She tried to kill herself after that. That’s when they moved her to a different institution in Oklahoma City. She didn’t abandon you, darlin’. She had a psychotic break. Apparently she’s had mental problems most of her life. She’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia. It’s resistant to most treatment. She’s a threat to herself more than anyone else.”
“Who is they?” Hold on, hold on, hold on. “Who told her I was dead?”
“Your aunt. She wouldn’t speak to us when we went to see her. We tried many times. We tried to talk to cousins and they wouldn’t say much. One of them asked us for money to tell us and sent us on a wild-goose chase. He didn’t know, not really.”
“You saw her? My mother?”
He nodded. “She knows you’re alive. We told her we were trying to find you. I promised her when we did, I’d tell you about her. Raven, I know we did you wrong. It tears me and Bonnie up to know how wrong we did you.”
“Your daughter was murdered. You had enough to deal with.” Intellectually she understood it. Believed it. But her heart had broken just the same. She’d lost everything. For a time she’d had everything she’d ever wanted. A family at last. Her own room. A sister. Safety and stability.
“She was kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered. It’s taken me years of therapy to be able to say that out loud. But we fell apart and we tossed you back like you were an animal we took to the pound. We took a horrible moment in our lives and we betrayed you. We made a promise to you. We made you believe we were making a home for you and we didn’t. I will regret that for the rest of my days. We loved you, Raven. Bonnie and me. Missy too. You were meant to be our daughter and we failed you as surely as we failed Missy. We want you to know about your momma because we’ll be damned if we fail you again.”
For so long she had wanted them to seek her out. To know that what they’d done to her had devastated her entire life. She’d felt selfish even thinking it. Missy had died. And Raven hadn’t. Things had been bad, yes, but she was sitting there and Missy wasn’t.
Worse, this business with her mother was beyond confusing. Why would they have told her she was dead? She’d been all alone all these years in an institution and no one ever told her?
Everything she’d ever believed about her life crashed down around her ears. She hadn’t been tossed away by her junkie mother. Her mother hadn’t been able to take care of her. Worse, her family knew and didn’t tell her.
“Why would they do that to me? I don’t understand.” And then it fell away. All the energy she’d put into holding back her emotions simply wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing left but her emotions.
She started to cry, putting her head down on the desk. The sounds she made came from someplace so deep inside she didn’t know how to stop. The door slammed open and Brody bellowed at Mike to step back from where he’d moved to comfort her.
“No. Don’t.” She held a hand out.
Brody stared at her, never having seen her fall apart. He moved to the desk, picking her up and sitting, holding her in his lap, rocking her back and forth as she wept.
“Everyone get back to work.”
“Should I call someone?” Maggie asked from the doorway.
“Erin.”
She shook her head no, but Brody just grumbled and held on, rubbing a hand back and forth on her back.
Erin rushed in just a few seconds later. That day was one she staffed the café in the mornings. “What’s going on? Oh! What’s wrong? Who is this guy? What did you do to her?”
Raven lifted her head. “It’s not him.”
Erin came to her knees in front of where Brody had been holding her. She put her arms around Raven and held on tight. “What can I do? Tell me and I’ll make it happen. Do you want me to call Jonah?”
“I need a plane ticket to Oklahoma City.”
“I’ll go with you, Raven. Bonnie and I will be with you, right at your side. If you want us.” Mike spoke from where he’d sat, watching helplessly on the other side of the desk.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on.” Erin handed her a wad of tissues.
“My mother is alive and in a mental institution. She’s not dead. They lied to me.”
“Oh my god.”
He’d left several messages and she hadn’t called back. He’d stopped by her building but she wasn’t there. For the last several days he’d tried. They’d both been busy. She’d been pulling long days at the shop and he’d been working and spending time with Carrie before she’d had to go back to school.
But his general annoyance that they hadn’t connected had shifted to discomfort. Something was wrong.
He dropped Carrie at the airport and headed to Written On The Body to see what was up.
But it wasn’t open yet so he went into the café. Erin wasn’t there. But he knew where she lived, having gone there a time or two with Raven, so he headed there. If all else failed, he’d go to Bainbridge and to Gillian.
But he didn’t have to. Erin told the doorman to send him up and she met him at the door with a concerned look on her face.
“Where is she?”
“Come in. I’m going to have a cup of coffee. Want one?”
The place was quiet.
“Alexander is in preschool for a few hours today. That’s why it’s so quiet. Odd. I guess you’d know that too.”
“Carrie is always running up and down the stairs, on the phone, listening to music or watching television. It’s unnatural when she’s gone.”
He took the proffered cup of coffee.
“You’re here about Raven. I knew you’d come.”
“What is going on? I’m really alarmed now.”
“I’ve thought about what I’d say. I bounced ideas off Brody. Off Todd and Ben. You love her. She deserves that love and I know she’s told you some of her past, which says so much more about how she feels about you than you probably understand.”
He blew out a breath. “It’s hard enough to hear. I can’t imagine having to live through it. She’s gone for something to do with that? Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Two days ago she got a visit at the shop from a former foster father. He told her that her mother was still alive. In a mental institution in Oklahoma City.”
He sat, stunned. “Oh my god. She must be gutted. Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because your daughter was here. Raven wanted you to have that time with Carrie.” Erin smiled at him like he was a little slow. And he supposed he was. Of course she’d done it for that reason.
“She’s in Oklahoma City all by herself?”
“I offered to go. Brody offered to go. She refused. We have children who need us and she wouldn’t take us away from that. The foster parents offered to meet her and go. I don’t know if she took them up on it. She wouldn’t tell me anything about them. Something happened to her when she was fifteen. She’s mentioned it a few times, but never has told me exactly what happened. Maybe she’s told you.”
He shook his head. “She’s mentioned it. I asked but she said she doesn’t speak of it, ever. She’s told me a lot of other stuff. I know why she doesn’t sleep over. I’m trying to be patient and let her share as she can.”
