The Rise of Ferryn

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "Take care of it," I repeated, sure I was not interpreting that right. "As in... get an abortion?" I clarified, dropping my voice in case Ollie was nearby.

  "Yep."

  "You can't be serious. They used to drag you to rallies against abortion."

  "Apparently, they are only devout when it involves someone else's daughter. When it is their own, they're hypocrites."

  "I can't believe they would come out and ask that of you."

  "Demand. They demanded that of me," she explained, shaking her head. "If I wanted to keep living there, if I wanted to keep having them cover my college tuition, then I had to get rid of 'my little mistake,'" she told me, the words coming out thick with distaste.

  "Who is the father?" I asked, not seeing a masculine touch to the house. The colors, the art, the fact that there was a box of tampons sitting on the kitchen counter, it all spoke of a very female household.

  "Elias Michael Schway."

  "Fancy name."

  "Fancy guy. Also another person who wanted me to take care of it. Though he offered to pay to do so."

  "How generous."

  "In his defense, it was a one-night thing. I was tired of being known as the only virgin in my dorm. Went to a party. Got it over with. Of course, right at first, I wasn't thrilled either. I was too young. I had just started school. I had no family support. But this baby fought its way through two forms of birth control. I felt like that is just fate right there. I just... I wanted her. I wanted her and I was terrified."

  I'd had several moments over the past couple of weeks while reconnecting with my family when I felt shitty. When I met children I hadn't even known were born. When I saw the faces of kids I had known, but didn't recognize thanks to the passing of time. When my mother told me she'd made me a scrapbook for each year I was gone, so that when I came back, I could see what everyone had been up to.

  This, though. This might have been the worst gut-punch.

  Iggy had been a sister to me, the one person I trusted with all my secrets and hopes and dreams, the person I shared the most inside stories with, the first person I told good or bad news to, my partner in crime, my 'person.'

  And the one time when she really, truly would have needed me, I hadn't been there for her. I hadn't even known.

  "Iggs... I'm so sorry," I told her, reaching across the table to put my hand over hers. "I should have been here for you through that."

  "I wanted you to be, I won't lie." We'd always been honest with each other, even when the truth hurt. I appreciated that she wasn't going to be more reserved with her feelings out of fear of me wanting to rush off again. There was no stepping on eggshells with old friends.

  "What did you do?"

  "I called Vance. He came back to town for a bit. The band was so pissed. But he came because of course he did. We sat down and figured out how I could make it work. Then, when he was back on the road, he sent me some of his money so I wouldn't worry in those early days."

  "What did you guys decide?"

  "That I would quit school. There was really no way around that. I couldn't afford it. I didn't really like what I was doing anyway. I figured I could always go back or do something online when Ollie got older. And then the first five months, I worked my ass off while renting a room in someone's spare bedroom. Waitress, dog walker, stocker at the grocery store, a gift wrapper over the holidays. You name it, I did it. And I socked every penny away so that I could take some time off when I had Olive."

  "I hate that," I admitted, shaking my head, thinking of an eighteen-year-old Iggy working sixty-hour-plus weeks for the first five months of her pregnancy.

  "Honestly, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I was determined. The harder I worked, the more I saved, the longer I could be home with my baby. It was actually while I was serving tables that someone gave me a brilliant idea."

  "What brilliant idea?"

  "He said I had a great voice, and should do some voice acting."

  "You do have a great voice," I agreed, always having been envious of it. She had a smooth, almost polished voice.

  "So I went home and figured I could look into it. I did my first sample recording on my ancient iPhone. But I got offers. And then more offers. And then so many offers that I had to invest in some good recording materials and soundproofing. And, well, it became a business. I am not rolling in it, of course, but we are comfortable enough in our little life. And I can be here for Ollie. You know how school is. Off all summer. Spring break. Winter break. All the friggen teacher conferences and minor holidays. Plus sick days."

  "How'd you manage to find quiet time?"

  "It wasn't easy at first. Ollie wasn't a very happy baby. Always with the reflux, crying until I was sure I would go half-mad. The only way it worked was when she was sleeping and I had to lay her across my lap like a cat. But it worked. Now, it's easier. She goes to school for six hours which gives me a ton of time to get some work in."

  "What kind of books do you narrate for?"

  To that, her lips curved up, mischievous and familiar. "Mostly romance. Really smutty romance," she added, grinning.

  "Oh, your parents must have hated that."

  "They do. I made sure I told them about my new job in a Christmas card. And included a few titles with it. 'The Virgin's Beast,' 'Shared by the Biker Club,' 'Drilled by the Mod Boss'..."

  A laugh bubbled up and burst out at the idea of her ultra-conservative parents opening up a harmless Christmas card to read titles like those, to know the daughter they had pushed away had done the voiceover for them.

  "To be a fly on that wall, right?" she asked, smiling. "I send them an updated list every year. I swear I sometimes take a job just because the title is so raunchy that I want to write it down for them."

  "I always hoped you would find that rebellious streak I knew was in there somewhere," I told her. "I'm not happy I missed it."

  "Oh, it is an ongoing process," she shrugged it off. "Did you notice how I didn't make you take off your shoes when you came in the door?" she added, voice grave in an imitation of her mother.

  "That was one I never thought you'd break. You took your shoes off at the clubhouse."

  "We have three dogs. It is idiotic to make humans take off their shoes when dogs run in and put their filthy feet over every surface."

  "Wait... dogs?" I asked. "Where?"

  "You'd never know, right? Lazy, fat things they are. If we got robbed, they'd snore right through it. They're a trio of bulldog siblings we came across at an adoption fair. Olive insisted that they had to grow up together. So... we got three dogs. They're probably sleeping in my bed right now, drooling all over my pillow. They have the life we all dream of."

  "So, what happened to Olive's dad after you decided to keep her?"

  "Nothing. He walked away. Got his degree. Is working in some big firm in the city."

  "He doesn't want to meet her at least?"

  "He probably forgot she exists, to be honest. If he wants to meet her some day, I am open to that, but I am not going to force it. And, quite frankly, I don't want to have to deal with him in court over child support. Me and Ollie, we are perfectly happy with just the two of us. Well, and Vance," she said, eyes going soft.

  "He comes over often?" I asked.

  "Every weekend. More if he has nothing else going on. I hate that he had to leave his dream behind, but I am not going to lie, I am a bit selfishly glad he settled down in Navesink Bank so we can see him all the time."

  "I brought donuts!" Vance's voice boomed into the room, making me jerk back a bit. Because we hadn't gotten to that part yet. I meant to tell her. I just wanted to hear what she had been up to first.

  "Uncle Vance!" Olive's voice cheered, feet slapping down the hall once again, this time followed by the tap tap tap of dog feet.

  "They heard the word donuts," Iggy told me, nodding. "You think I'm joking," she went on, shaking her head. "You'll see."

  Then there was Vance, walking in, trailed by three extremely fat bulld
ogs with comically hideous overbites and corkscrew tails, sniffing the air, looking up at the box in Vance's hand.

  His other hand had his niece snagged around the middle, flipped completely upside down, making her squeal uncontrollably.

  I expected the somewhat neurotic Iggy, the girl I used to know, to squeak about dropping her on her head or something. Instead, Iggy gave them a soft smile and reached down to pet the head of the brindle colored bulldog that sat near her feet.

  Vance dropped the donuts down, then flipped his niece over his arm and back onto her feet before moving over toward me.

  "Oh, yeah, Vance, look," Iggy said, completely in the dark.

  "I got your old lady ass one of those stupid sour cream ones you like," Vance told me, pressing a kiss to my temple as he moved past to sit in the other open chair.

  "If you warm them up, they taste a lot like funnel cakes," I insisted.

  "Yeah, sure, Ace. I'm going to eat a coffee roll like a normal human being."

  "Oh. My. God," Iggy gasped, mouth open, eyes huge, her head shaking a little like she wasn't sure she was actually seeing what she was seeing. "Ohmygod," she added, slapping her hand on the table.

  Olive, oblivious to the big reveal moment, steadily ripped a glazed donut into four pieces, handing one to each dog and then herself.

  "Yeah," I said, lips curving up tentatively. "I was, ah, going to get to that."

  "Get to that," she squeaked. "This is the kind of information you use to cut into my monotonous dialogue. Holy shit."

  Iggy, as a rule, rarely cursed. Vance had told me it was something that was still the same about her. So the fact that she was cursing was just proof of her excitement.

  "Guess who was at the clubhouse when she finally rolled her ass back into this town?" Vance asked, giving me a smile.

  "Okay. Okay. I am going to need this story from the beginning," she decided, reaching for the jelly donut—sugared, not powdered, because she had very strong opinions on such things.

  "Ollie, didn't you say you were working on getting those fatties to lose some weight?" Vance asked, nodding down at the dogs she was handing more donut pieces to.

  "That's not a nice word," Olive insisted, giving her uncle a firm look.

  "No, it's not," Iggy agreed. "But now that they are full of donuts, maybe you can go run them around the backyard for a little bit," she suggested.

  Ollie, clearly a wild, outdoors sort of kid, took off full-tilt, the dogs barreling behind their reckless leader.

  We waited until we heard the screen door smack against the frame before we went into it.

  All of it.

  My past.

  The homecoming.

  The build-up between me and Vance.

  Iggy was silent afterward, her jelly donut still in her hand, uneaten.

  "So," she said finally after sorting through her thoughts. "What I am hearing is, I get to be a maid of honor in the near future."

  "Iggs..." Vance tried.

  "What? That's what I heard. And just so you know, if you expect Ollie to be a flower girl, you are going to have to let her dress the dogs up in dresses and walk down with her. That's... just the way it is going to have to be."

  "Iggy, things are new," I insisted.

  To that, she rolled her eyes.

  "New," she scoffed. "I believe you told me you were going to marry Vance when we were all of, what, thirteen years old? This is the oldest of old news, if you ask me. Oh, what did your dad say?" she asked, looking between us.

  "He said it made sense," Vance answered.

  "It does though. So, what is the color palette for the wedding? And who is in charge of the bachelorette party?"

  "God, I missed you," I told her, the words bursting out from somewhere deep.

  "I missed you too," she said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. "And I kind of wished we knew you were coming..."

  "You have something going on?" I asked.

  To that, her smile spread, eyes bright. "Krav Maga class for me. Karate for Ollie."

  My own smile curved upward at that, my eyes getting just the tiniest bit glassy.

  Iggy had been the one to help me shave my head, to feed me after I escaped the basement, to give me what precious few valuable possessions she had so I could hock them for bus and food money while I ran off to find my new path in life. And my parting wish had been to beg her to join a self-defense class, to make sure she could handle herself in a fight, to make it so no one could ever snatch her up off the street.

  She took that to heart.

  And she hadn't just gone for a couple weeks after I left out of respect for my request.

  No.

  She was still going nearly nine years later. She was bringing her daughter too.

  "Your aunt Lo is still giving us both free classes. In exchange for advance copies of the audiobooks I narrate."

  Some things never changed.

  Aunt Lo and her deeply rooted love of all things romance.

  The unshakable bonds of true friendship even when life tears you apart for a long span of time.

  And the mushy-heart feel of your first true love, I added to myself as Vance's hand squeezed my thigh under the table.

  I had been so terrified to come home, so uncertain of what I might come back to.

  As it turned out, it was exactly what I had left behind.

  Family.

  Friends.

  Love.

  "Good timing, actually," Vance said, swiping through a text with his free hand. "Chris wants to talk to us," he said, glancing at me. "She's at our place."

  "Do you hear that, Ferryn? Your place," Iggy said, placing a hand over her heart, faux swooning. "It's all our girlhood dreams coming true."

  "Rein it in a little Iggs," Vance demanded, but was smiling as he did it.

  "Go go, be in love. I will start picking out bridal magazines. Good timing, Ollie," she said as her daughter came rushing in. "We have to get ready for class. Say goodbye to Uncle Vance and Aunt Ferryn. They have to go and nest."

  "Nest? Like birds?"

  "Something like that," Iggy agreed.

  "Are they going to have babies?"

  "Not yet," Iggy said, shooing her daughter up the stairs to go change. "Okay. All teasing aside, I love this. I love the both of you. And I expect to see the both of you here for Taco Tuesdays."

  "Have you met her?" Vance asked, wrapping an arm around my hips, pulling me to the door. "She never passes up a meal. We'll bring the dessert," he added, moving outside, closing the door behind us.

  "We just became Taco Tuesday people," I said, a little dumbfounded as we stood there watching the slow trickle of traffic pass us by.

  "You love it," he countered.

  "I kinda do," I agreed, smiling when he hauled me closer to his side, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "What did Chris want?"

  "She said she solved the problem," he told me, leading me over to his bike, climbing on, then waiting for me to slide on behind him. And because it was him, because I knew he wouldn't judge me for being just the slightest bit clingy, I wrapped my arms around him tight, resting my head against the cut on his back.

  "Let's see what she has to say," I said before he drove off.

  When we got there, Chris was standing in the open doorway, not touching even the doorjamb.

  "This place is, ah, kinda gross," she told us, nose scrunching up.

  "She's not wrong," I agreed, climbing off, moving over toward her.

  "There are like, two-hundred places in this town you could be staying instead. Just... give that some thought. The water in your tap is gray."

  "Great?" I repeated, confused.

  "No. Not great. Gray. It's gray. Please tell me you aren't drinking that."

  I didn't know Chris.

  Not like I knew Iggy, like I knew Vance, like I knew half the people up at Hailstorm where she worked.

  We'd spent time together in that basement, but the vast majority of it, she had been lost inside
her own mind, trying to escape the horrible reality she faced daily.

  I didn't know what to expect from her as a person when I returned. And I wasn't entirely sure if who she was now was the same as she had been before she had been dragged down in that basement and brutalized.

  Apparently, though, who she was now was a tad bit uptight and controlling with a bit of a mom-vibe. Which, well, I was kind of digging.

  "I will compile a list for you," She went on, reaching for her phone, tapping at it for a second before tucking it away.

  "You said you had an answer to our problem. What problem?" I asked, moving inside, watching as she cast wary eyes around the room, deciding against trying to sit down anywhere, crossing her arms over her chest like she was afraid she might accidentally brush against the wall or the couch.

  "Right. The problem. The 'you're here now and won't be as active on the missions' problem."

  "Chris, I said it won't be a problem."

  "Yeah. But it will. I prefer being proactive."

  "I'm starting to get that," I agreed, nodding. "So, what did you come up with?"

  "So, I looked for some men and women."

  "Men and women who... do what I do?" I clarified.

  "I figured you could show them the ropes. Take them on a few missions. Get them used to it. I mean these are men and women who have killed before anyway. I drew up a psych eval to give candidates to figure out who would be the best fit."

  "You created a psych evaluation?" I repeated, not sure if I was impressed or a little intimidated by her productivity. Or both.

  "Yeah. I mean my mom has a bunch of different ones. I kind of just meshed some, took out other questions that were irrelevant. It wasn't that big of a deal."

  "And Aunt Lo is okay with this?"

  "She is coming to terms with it. So long as I come up with the funding, she is going to let me run with it."

  "And how are you going to come up with the funding? I mean my medical bills alone were astronomical. And the more people you put on these jobs, the more those numbers are going to rack up. Plus hotels. Plus food. Gas. Weapons. All that shit."

  "This is the fun part," she declared, giving us a strange little smile, moving toward the door. "Come with me," she demanded, moving outside, waiting for us to follow. Which we did, brows furrowed, unsure what she had up her sleeve.