Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4)

by Sibylla Matilde

  My mind reeled with this information. Not only was Raven’s mom in the state mental hospital, but she had tried to kill herself. Raven glanced up at me, reading my look of shock.

  “This isn’t the first time,” she murmured warily.

  I slipped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head when she leaned into me.

  “At any rate,” the doctor said, “she’ll probably be waking up within an hour or so. Since she’s had a rough day, we’ll let you go into her room, but I would recommend that she wake up a little before you do to ensure that she is a little more stable.”

  “Or that she wants to see me.”

  The doctor gave her a grim nod. “Yes, there’s always that. You could go sit in the waiting area, and we’ll come get you.”

  We had been taken to a small waiting room, and Raven stood at a window, looking out at nothing, really. Sorta dazed and forlorn in appearance. I stepped behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, offering her some solace. She closed her eyes and leaned back against my chest.

  “So, wanna tell me a little?” I asked after a while.

  “My mom and my Uncle Joe grew up in Anaconda.” Her voice was low and flat. “Mom hated it, though. She was the daughter of a miner, blue collar and common, but she always dreamed of a glamorous life in the big city. She studied her ass off to get into college and to earn scholarships to pay the way to someplace really prestigious. In reality, though, she went more for a man then a degree. She met my dad.”

  She pulled away a little and turned to face me. Her violet eyes showed pain and loneliness that caused an ache to settle deep in my chest.

  “He was from a wealthy family near Portland,” she continued. “She took one look at him, at everything he represented, and set forth to make it hers. She played the role perfectly. She became exactly who she thought he wanted her to be. Gorgeous. Refined. Not a hint of the common, backwoods girl she had been. She became someone else.”

  “A little risky.”

  “She got everything she wanted at first. They got married in a huge, ridiculously expensive wedding. They honeymooned in Italy. They moved back to his hometown so he could take the reins from his dad as CEO of Northwest Insurance.”

  “Your dad is CEO of Northwest Insurance?”

  “Yup, a little family business,” she nodded.

  “A multi-million-dollar little family business.”

  She gave me a wry, sad smile and shrugged. “Doesn’t mean much to me. I think I’m written out of his will.”

  That threw me a little. “What? You're his kid.”

  “I’m the black sheep. The square peg in a house full of round holes.”

  “Because of your mom? Did her secret past come back to bite her in the ass?”

  “No,” Raven shook her head. “She was right there with him for most of my life, wishing me away.”

  “Jesus,” I exhaled. My family wasn’t exactly Leave It To Beaver, but at least they were just kind of absent.

  But this…

  “Look at me, Drew,” she said, stepping back and motioning from head to toe. “Look at me with my purple hair and my tattoos and my piercings and my love of all things goth and steampunk. Then imagine it. Imagine the perfect family—the strong, successful man with his little Stepford wife. Their perfect daughter, beautifully blonde with perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect teeth. Straight A’s and class president and homecoming queen. They should have stopped at one, but they wanted a boy. Instead, after a few years of trying, they got another girl… one that didn’t really fit in.”

  “I take it you’re the other girl.”

  Raven nodded. “Alessandria was my idol for a long time. I wanted so badly to be like her. Everyone else wanted me to be like her, too. I just never really could. She was tall, I was short. She was light, I was dark. The more my parents held her up as an example, the less I cared. The more I rebelled. She was teacher’s pet, I became the class clown. She was a cheerleader, I started smoking pot under the bleachers.”

  “You were probably a lot more fun,” I murmured and pulled her closer.

  “Eventually, the stain of my existence got to be too much,” she said, her voice muffled a little by my shirt. “When I was a sophomore in high school, I got caught with a bottle of vodka in my locker at school. It was rather scandalous for my snobby private school, and my parents were mortified. My dad gave a sizable donation to help avoid any public shame, but they were done. They made arrangements for me to come live with my uncle in Anaconda, to put me away so they didn't have to worry about how I reflected on them.”

  She looked up at me, and I tenderly brushed the hair from her eyes.

  “It was kind of a relief, really. Joe’s a truck driver, so he’s gone a lot. He was pretty laid back, much different than my parents. He was accepting and sweet. My aunt had died when I was young, but Lacey became like a sister, much more than Alessandria had ever been. They welcomed me in just as I was. They accepted me as myself. As… this.” She gestured down to herself.

  “So,” I asked, “with all that perfection, how did your mom end up here.”

  “Well, first of all, my dad’s an egomaniacal whore. My mom always knew he ran around on her, but one doesn’t air dirty laundry. She popped some pills and got Botox and boob jobs. As long as everything looked good on the outside, the inside didn’t matter, you know. But, then, about two years ago, he told her he wanted a divorce. He found a newer model.”

  “I take it your mom didn’t handle it well.”

  “She cracked. Completely. She went after his new piece right in the middle of the company Christmas party. He was appalled. So was my sister who, by this time, was married to his protégé. She didn’t want anything to do with her own mother.”

  “Pretty cold,” I empathized.

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “It got worse, too. Together, my dad and sister petitioned the court to have Mom committed. They claimed she was dangerous. I had moved to Billings by that time, so the attorneys contacted my uncle to try and find me. I guess they thought I would help their case, or something, although I’m not entirely sure how. It took some doing, but Uncle Joe convinced them to have her brought to Warm Springs, someplace where he could check in on her. She had turned her back on him, but she was still his little sister. She needed him, and he still loved her after everything she’d done.”

  “So you came back to help him?” I asked.

  “She’s still my mother.”

  “This was just over two years ago?”

  She looked up at me and nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “When you came to work for me.”

  “Yeah, that it was. I needed to be close, but I also needed a little space. I got the job at Ink and moved to Ophir.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Not many people did. I’m not an overly social person. I do much better at dark and gothic.”

  “Your cousin…” I began, prompting her for the name.

  “Lacey?”

  “Yeah, Lacey,” I nodded. “Did she know?”

  “Yeah, she was still living with my uncle. I stayed with them when I first came back, before I started working for you.”

  The door opened and a staffer poked her head into the room.

  “Ms. Pelletier? Your mother is awake. Dr. Reynolds said you could see her now.”

  Raven seemed to tense at the thought, her features drawing tight. I hadn’t noticed her relaxing at all, but I realized at once that she must have a little since we’d arrived. As though talking or just having someone around had been helpful to keep her from dwelling on the stressor in front of her.

  But now, she once again looked anxious.

  I laid my hand low at her back, a silent cue that I’d stand by her. With a quick glance up at me, she took a deep, shaking breath.

  “I’m right here,” I promised.

  Then we started for the door.

  The room was pretty simple. Raven’s mother lay in the bed
with restraints holding her back, even though she still looked a little out of it.

  She had long hair that could have been blonde with a little sun, but appeared drab and lifeless. Yet the woman who sat there in the bed seemed almost regal, even in her disheveled state. Her mannerisms didn’t exactly seem to be instinct, more that she’d practiced the poise for so long, it had become second nature.

  “Hi, Mama,” Raven softly said.

  “Oh dear,” her mother replied with a groggy frown. “Your hair is purple now?”

  Raven quickly glanced up at me through her lashes, then stepped forward, away from me a little.

  “It is. It was last time, too.”

  “You know, blonde would be much more becoming on you. You could be almost as lovely as your sister.”

  “Tried it once,” Raven replied. “It made me look kind of washed out.”

  “I’ll talk to Alessandria. We’ll find out where she goes to get her hair done. She has someone who is simply a miracle worker. Not that your sister needs it, but she took a friend there who was simply pitiful. By the time they were done, the girl looked like a model. She might be able to do something with… that.” She waved her hand around indicating pretty much all of Raven.

  I couldn’t help it. I was trying to, but it was starting to piss me off the way her mother was belittling her.

  “I love the purple.”

  Raven gave me a quick shake of her head, but it was too late. It was out there.

  And her mother caught it quickly.

  “Good heavens, who is that?” she asked, as if I were a panhandler on a street corner.

  “He’s a friend,” Raven replied. “His name is Drew.”

  Her mother wrinkled her nose. “You really need to start picking your friends more carefully. How will you ever fit in if you keep finding people with piercings and tattoos.”

  “I have piercings and tattoos, too, Mama.”

  “We can fix that. I'll talk to my surgeon. She can do grafts even. We can work with what you’ve got to make you almost as beautiful as your sister.”

  “What the—?”

  “Drew, don’t,” Raven whispered.

  I pressed my lips together and stood silently, trying to ignore the blatant insults and comparisons her mother tossed around. The woman was vile. No wonder Raven had been glad to leave. Granted, she was in a nut house now, but I got the feeling that the only difference between her jibes then and now were that she didn’t know she was in a nut house now.

  But, because I knew Raven didn’t want me to say anything, I didn’t. I bit my tongue. I toyed with my labret piercing and puffed up my chest with every dig, but I didn’t say anything.

  By the time we left, the sun had set. It was only just after five o’clock, but darkness came early on a Montana winter evening now that daylight savings had passed us by. After constantly being berated for the last hour or more, Raven appeared exhausted, so I drove her Jeep on the way back to Ophir. It was a quiet drive, sometimes with Raven gazing out the window, sometimes with her eyes closed and resting her head on the seat back. But, aside from shifting gears, my hand lay warm and comforting over hers on her thigh.

  “You gonna be okay after today?” I asked as I pulled up in front of Ink next to my pickup.

  “This isn’t really anything new, Drew.”

  “Can’t be easy, though.”

  “No,” she smiled sadly, “it's not that, but I’ve gotten pretty good at dealing with my mother. She’s actually a little better now that she’s lost the plot because she forgets a lot. The doctors keep thinking it will be good for her to see me, but I’m clearly not the daughter she wants to see.”

  “Yet you keep coming back.”

  “She’s my mom.”

  She said it with a shrug, and I gave her hand a quick squeeze before I opened the driver door and climbed out. She maneuvered out of the passenger seat to settle behind the wheel, then reached back to buckle her seatbelt.

  “If you need anything at all, I’m only a text away.”

  “I know.” She gave me a steady look, powerful in its directness. “Thank you, Drew,” she smiled. “Thank you for today.”

  I sat in the music room strumming along, working out some licks to tie together a song Denny had written.

  “Denny, dude,” Justin said from across the room, “why is your kid staring at me like that?”

  Denny, Cody, and I all looked over at Justin. Eoghan, Denny’s almost-two-year-old son, was watching Justin in awe, seeming enthralled.

  “Eoghan, come 'ere, ya little snapper,” Denny laughed. “You’re gonna give Uncle Justin hives by standin’ that close to him.”

  The dark-haired little boy ran across the room. He always seemed to run full-bore, no matter if he was traveling two feet or twenty. It was like the kid didn’t know how to walk.

  “You know, that kid is never going to know how to spell his name, right?” Justin scoffed. “Why couldn’t you just spell it O-W-E-N like a normal person.”

  “It’s Irish, ya eejit,” Denny replied.

  “Yeah, but you’re in America, you fucker,” Justin retorted.

  Cody, who was almost a stepdad to Ilsa’s little boy Max, piped in. “Justin, jeez… language around the little dude who’s learning to talk, huh?”

  Justin opened his mouth to reply, but closed it without spewing the usual slew of profanities. Maybe even he could be taught. Stranger things had happened.

  Right about then, Brannon showed up, smiling from ear to ear. The guy looked positively euphoric as he walked in the room and plopped down on the couch.

  All four of us guys, five if you count Eoghan, stared at him. He almost acted high.

  “What the fuck is up with you?” Justin blurted out.

  Okay, so maybe he couldn’t really be taught. Short-term memory.

  Brannon grinned up at us, all starry eyed. Kinda dazed. “I’m going to be a dad,” he murmured.

  “What the fuck?” Justin choked.

  Cody, Denny, and I took it a little better. Especially Cody and Denny, really. It was like Brannon was joining a club. They slapped him on the back and high-fived him.

  “Whoopity doo,” Justin said, evidently still kind of appalled, “Brannon and Sophie failed at birth control. I’m not sure this is really a good thing.”

  “We haven’t used birth control in a year,” Brannon replied with an airy grin. “We wanted this to happen.”

  “What the fuck?” Justin gasped in horror.

  “A fuck?” little Eoghan parroted. I tried, unsuccessfully to hide my amusement, but it was hysterical. None of us could really help but laugh a little.

  “Bloody hell, Justin,” Denny shook his head, doing everything he could to keep the smile off his face, “Fliss is going to kick my arse for that, d’yaknowhwhatimeanlike.”

  Eoghan, seeing all of us guys trying to hold it in, smiled wide. “A fuck?” he repeated. “A fuck… a fuck… a fuck…”

  Denny covered Eoghan’s mouth with his hand in an attempt to stem the profanity streaming from his lips. “You know, she’s never going to let me bring him back without her here.”

  “Fuck you,” Justin laughed, “he probably learned it from her. That wife of yours swears like a fuckin’ sailor.”

  “Not around him, she doesn’t. She'll be right cheesed off the first time that little gem pops out of his gob.”

  “Argh, speak English you fucker,” Justin shot back.

  Through all of this, Cody came out from behind his drums to shake Brannon’s hand.

  “Really, though, man,” he said, “that’s awesome. Congrats.”

  “Thanks, Cody,” Brannon grinned. He looked a little pale all of a sudden. “Shit, I’m gonna be a dad.”

  “You'll be a great da, Bran,” Denny nodded. “It’s not easy and your life will never be the same,” he looked down at Eoghan who now had his thumb firmly planted in his mouth, “but you'll never want it any other way.”

  The tone in Denny’s voice stayed with me
all through the weekend. I found myself thinking about it at work on Monday, sitting back at my desk as I sketched out a tattoo design. I remembered back when Felicity got knocked up, how Denny had been over the moon. The two of them had a rocky road, right out of the gate up until then. Denny was on the verge of being deported, and Felicity could have been charged with fraud.

  But that all came to a head when the irrefutable proof of their love became known.

  They were happier than ever. Happier than either felt they had a right to be, but both felt the other deserved.

  And Cody, by marrying Ilsa, was turning into a family man, too. Granted, that wasn’t a real shocker for any of us. If ever a guy was supposed to be a dad, it was Cody. They had filed adoption paperwork to make Max officially his by law, right alongside Ilsa. Cody couldn’t have been happier.

  And now Brannon. Sophie had been hinting for a while, but we all kinda figured they’d get married first. Oddly, it wasn’t former super manwhore Brannon who was dragging his heels, but Sophie dragging hers. In her mind, they already were committed. Together. Married by common law, even. She didn’t need the ceremony. She didn’t want the pomp and show of a wedding. She just wanted him. She wanted a family with him.

  They were dropping like flies. At least I could count on Justin not to get tied down. That fucker would probably still be sleeping around until he was ninety.

  Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even hear Raven come into my office. It wasn’t until she spoke that I realized she stood beside me.

  “That’s a nice one. Very gothic,” she murmured, looking at the dragon I’d penciled out. “Who’s it for?”

  “That guy who’s coming in at two. He kinda described what he wants when he made the appointment and asked me to draw it. He said it’s the beast that used to control him before he quit drinking. He’s gone a year without booze and wants to commemorate it.”