Since I was the youngest, I knew she had always felt an extra sense of protection with me against our father, especially when he started turning his anger on us. But she just never got to know me very well, so our relationship had always been tense and awkward.
“I’ve been watching all your games on TV, hon,” she said to me, dabbing her cigarette into her ashtray. “You’re looking really good. Best season I’ve seen you play.”
I felt an irrational feeling of pleasure snake through me with her praise. I was no longer a nine-year-old kid. I didn’t need her compliments, didn’t need her to watch my games and be proud of me.
But the truth was, I appreciated that she’d been watching and paying attention. That deep down, she really did care enough about her kids to follow their lives.
“Thanks.”
“Got the ALDS next week, right?” she asked.
Again, she had managed to surprise me by asking about the American League Division Series. I nodded. “Yeah. Got a long month ahead of us.” Then, I added, “Hopefully.” Because there were never any guarantees in October. Not with this sport.
“I’d love to come see you play,” she said quietly, thoughtfully.
My head snapped up in her direction, her comment throwing me off-guard. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I responded with the first thought that came to mind. “Well, you know you’ve always got a seat saved in the stands for you, Mom. Anytime you want to come to a game, I can make it happen.”
I wasn’t positive why I’d said it. But the idea of her coming to one of my games was appealing to me, tempting me to even smile at the thought.
She met my eyes and smiled, allowing me to see a glimpse of what I assumed she used to look like, back when she was a healthy, loving mother. “I’d like—”
“Sandra!” came an ugly, raspy voice from one of the back bedrooms, cutting her off. “Help me change into a different shirt! You didn’t clean this one well enough!” Her eyes flickered away from me and her entire face fell. The kitchen went still, everything quieting as his voice lingered in the air.
You could tell she was trying to put on a brave face in front of us as she stood up and started to head down the hall. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as she was out of sight, all three of us blew out huge breaths as if we’d been holding them since the second we’d entered the house. I looked over at Mason and noticed his rigid shoulders.
“You okay, man?” I asked him. I knew that although he was five years sober, he still struggled with temptation on a daily basis. And being in this house, surrounded by booze and pills, was probably wreaking havoc on his self-control.
He nodded and dug in his pocket, pulling out a pack of his cigarettes. “Just peachy.”
Dawson sat at the table with a hard jaw, looking around the room as if he wanted to burn the whole place down so he wouldn’t have to be reminded of the years we spent here. I wouldn’t have stopped him if he wanted to either.
Hell, I’d be right there with him, lighting the damn match.
Needing something to do, I looked over at the kitchen sink and felt inclined to fall into very old habits. I walked across the yellowing linoleum floor and immediately got to work, filling one side of the sink with hot, soapy water while straightening the dirty dishes on the other.
It didn’t take long for the memories to come.
I could barely reach over the kitchen sink to wash the dishes, so Dawson brought in the stool that I had to use in the bathroom to brush my teeth since I couldn’t reach that sink very well either.
I asked him why I was smaller than most of the other boys at school, and he told me that I’d get taller and bigger in a few years. Said that I was just a late bloomer, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I wasn’t a flower or a plant, but I listened to him. I trusted him.
I trusted both of my big brothers, no matter what.
Mason had detention after school today, so it was just me and Dawson in charge of cleaning up and making dinner. Dawson said Momma got another job as a waitress at some diner, but it was a different place than the last time she had a job. Dad didn’t always like the places she worked, so he’d yell at her and hurt her until she quit them.
But when the fridge was empty, she’d find another job somewhere else until there was a little food and then Dad would make her quit again. I hoped the place she was at now served pie and she could bring some home. One time, she worked at a diner where they would just give the slices of pie that weren’t eaten to some of the workers to take home.
I could still remember the night Momma brought home half of a coconut crème pie. We were all so happy and smiling and we ate every single bit of it. It was probably the happiest I can remember us being, especially since Dad wasn’t there that night to share it with us. We didn’t get treats like that very often, unless I was over at Clay’s house. His momma made really good food all the time.
Dad hadn’t gotten home yet from the bar or wherever he went to when he wasn’t home, and Dawson said we had to make dinner. We usually did when Momma had a job or when she was too tired from taking those pills of hers to cook. Since I was little and they said I shouldn’t mess with the stove or oven, Dawson or Mason usually did the cooking while I cleaned the dishes.
I hadn’t liked doing it at first but had gotten used to it. Momma tried to keep our house clean, but Dad always made a mess and she was too tired to clean when she got home from work so I liked to help her. And I liked cleaning stuff, making it look nice because most of the stuff in our house didn’t. Not like at Clay’s house.
But tonight, Dawson was making one of my favorites. Macaroni and cheese. I was excited.
“Hey, Parker, you want hot dogs in your macaroni?” Dawson asked.
I turned around to see him standing at the fridge with a package of hot dogs in his hands. “Hot dogs with the macaroni? Won’t that taste funny?” I’d never eaten anything in my macaroni before and I didn’t want him to ruin it.
He smiled—not something he did very much—and set them on the counter next to the stove. “You’ll like it, I promise. Plus, we don’t have a lot of meat and you got to have something to help you grow, put some fat on those bones,” he said as he came over and poked me in my ribs, making me laugh.
“Okay. If you say so.”
I went back to washing the dishes and heard the front door open a few minutes later. I knew it was too early for Momma to come home so it had to be either Mason or Dad. I had my answer when I heard his heavy footsteps go across the living room and down the hallway to his bedroom. Those were too loud to be Mason’s feet so I knew it was Dad.
My stomach immediately started to feel funny—like I might be sick—which was usual when Dad was home. I didn’t want to be scared of him. I wanted to be brave like Dawson, but I still didn’t like it when our father yelled.
“You almost done over there?” Dawson asked.
“Yep. Just need a little more soap for the last of it.”
I made the mistake of holding onto the bowl I was currently washing as I reached across the other side of the sink for the dish soap. When I leaned forward slightly, my foot slipped on the stool, and when I tried to catch myself on the edge of the counter, the bowl in my hands went crashing to the floor, shattering in a hundred pieces, the sounds of which could be heard throughout the entire house.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and hoped I was dreaming. But when I opened them again and turned around to see the broken bowl on the floor and Dawson rushing around to clean it up, I knew the whole thing was real.
“What the hell was that?” Dad yelled from the bedroom. I heard his door slam open and then his heavy feet making their way into the kitchen.
I swallowed, bracing myself for whatever he would punish me with. Dawson scooped some of the bowl up and threw it away in the trash, but he was still trying to gather up the smaller pieces scattered across the floor when our dad came into the room.
Dawson immediately forgot about the bowl
and straightened his body, stepping in front of me as he stared Dad down. He was a lot braver than me.
“What the hell did you do?” Dad sneered at us.
I fought back tears and knew that I needed to be tough like Dawson. “I br—”
“I broke a bowl,” Dawson said, interrupting me.
But that wasn’t right!
I broke the bowl. I should be the one in trouble.
Dad looked at Dawson, then at me, and then at the sink still full of soapy water. “Looks to me like the kid probably broke it.”
Dawson didn’t sound scared when he replied, “He was handing me the bowl and I dropped it.”
Dad narrowed his eyes at Dawson and stepped toward him. “I think you’re a lying shit,” he said. Then, Dad made a move closer to me and Dawson stepped in front of him again. “Get out of my way, boy. He needs to be taught a lesson.”
Dawson shook his head. “He’s just a kid. It was an accident. He didn’t mean to.”
Dad laughed but it didn’t sound like a happy one to me. “Well, after I’m finished with him he’ll learn not to have another accident again.”
Dawson still didn’t move and the next thing I knew, Dad had hit him with the back of his hand so hard that he fell back against the cabinets, his hands whipping out to steady himself against the counter. “Parker, go to our room and lock the door,” Dawson demanded.
I shook my head, not wanting to leave my brother for Dad to hurt him some more. Dawson may have been tough, but Dad was still a lot bigger than him. “Parker, go!” Dawson shouted so I listened to my big brother.
I always trusted him.
Even as I locked myself in our bedroom and hid in the closet, listening to the sounds of them yelling, followed by a series of thumping noises and crashes, I still trusted my big brother.
My head started to clear as I came back to the present, the memory still fresh in my mind.
Dawson had taken the brunt of our punishments like that whenever he could, always wanting to protect us from our father’s rage. What flooded me with guilt, however, was the fact that Sal had still ended up coming for me later that night and had given me a black eye, rendering Dawson’s own beating pretty much moot. He could have avoided a fight if he’d just let Sal go at me in the first place.
But that just wasn’t Dawson’s way.
It had been hard to explain away that black eye to the school teachers and Clay’s parents. But as soon as Sam Masterson had gotten a good look at me, he marched into our house with a furious expression on his face and came back out the same way. I knew he’d spoken with my father, but I’d never found out what he said, nor did Clay.
Not that it had really stopped Sal from hitting us. He’d just paid extra attention after that to not leave any marks on our faces. He’d seemed afraid of Sam after that, though. It was the moment that I started to see Clay’s father in a whole new light and, in a way, began to replace my own father with him.
Luckily, there were so many dishes that needed washed, I was able to keep myself busy for the rest of our visit. By the time we left, the kitchen looked somewhat presentable, smelled a little better, and Mom looked just a bit more relaxed. Not much, but enough to notice that seeing her sons had a positive effect on her.
As we left the house and climbed into Dawson’s truck, I knew one thing hadn’t escaped any of our attentions.
We hadn’t once gone back to see our father.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Parker
We all needed a drink after the visit to our parents’ house—except Mason, of course—so we stopped at a pub in the old historic district and ordered beers and a Coke.
It felt like we’d been able to have moments like this with just the three of us more and more lately and I certainly wasn’t going to complain about it. Especially since I was going to have to go back up to Boston the day after tomorrow. We had a short break before postseason started up next week, and Bill had graciously allowed me to go visit my family after I explained the situation with my father to him.
Missing a couple days of practice was worth it if this trip allowed me to get my head together. Because between the stuff with Kinley and today’s trip down memory lane, it was turning into one huge clusterfuck.
“So, what’s up with you, man?” Mason asked, punching me lightly on the arm.
I looked up from picking at the label on my beer bottle. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged, his eyes studying my face. “I don’t know. You’ve been acting off lately.”
I shot him a baffled look, then turned it on Dawson who looked as if he agreed with Mason and wanted to hear my answer. “I’m sorry, was I the only one in that house?” I asked, pointing to the exit of the bar. “That kind of shit messes with a guy’s head.”
Both of their faces turned more serious but Mason still gave a quick shake of his head. “Not just today. You’ve sounded off on the phone lately, and anytime we’ve seen you it’s just not the normal dumbass Parker that we’ve come to love.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“He’s right,” Dawson chimed in. “You’ve sounded different. What’s up with you?”
I wanted to deny it, but Kinley’s words kept coming back to me. About how bottling everything up would one day drive me crazy. I think she was right because I suddenly felt like I was going to explode with everything I’d been feeling over the past month.
I wanted to get rid of all of this so that maybe my head wouldn’t feel so crammed with complicated shit.
“I was seeing someone,” I admitted as I took a pull of my beer.
They had matching shocked expressions on their faces as that sunk in with them. Dawson raised an eyebrow at me. “Was?”
I gave a curt nod. “Yeah. Things kind of went south about a month ago. Just having trouble dealing with it, I guess.”
“What did you do?” Mason asked knowingly.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Thanks for the loyalty, bro. What makes you think I had anything to do with what went wrong?”
He smirked. “Because we know you and we know that women like to talk about their feelings, which you don’t. I got a hundred bucks that says it had something to do with that. Things got a little serious, she wanted to talk about it, and you freaked.”
I wanted to be pissed but he was right. Dammit.
I hated when either one of these assholes was right. About anything.
“Plus, we got the news about Sal around a month ago, too,” Dawson added. “Understandable if that screwed you up a little. It messed with all of us.”
I didn’t respond to that, trying to get my thoughts in order. They were going in so many different directions, it was difficult to prioritize what I wanted to say or ask them first.
“Who is she?” Mason asked, sounding curious. “You’ve been with tons of women. What made this one stick?”
“Not a ton, asshole,” I shot back, making him chuckle. He threw his hands up in surrender. “Excuse me for offending your virtue.”
I sighed, running my hands through my hair in a nervous gesture. Here it was, the big reveal. “It’s Kinley Masterson.”
Silence.
At first, I was afraid to look at them. But when I did, I saw a delighted smirk on Mason’s face and the ever-present stoic stare whenever something serious was being discussed on Dawson’s.
“Holy shit, Parker,” Mason exclaimed, slapping me on the shoulder. “Nice going, man. Got to say, I wasn’t expecting that.” I smiled briefly at that, but then lost it as I remembered how my last encounter with Kinley had gone down.
“Clay know?” Dawson asked, staring at me intently.
I shook my head. “You guys are the first I’ve told.” Other than Moberly but I didn’t mention that. “We didn’t want to tell him or her parents before we knew where it was going. And the things that happened with us a month ago left everything up in the air.” I scrubbed my hands down my face, feeling tired and weary. “I don’t know where we stand right now.”
<
br /> “Have you talked to her since then?” Mason asked as he grabbed a handful of beer nuts and started tossing them in his mouth.
“No. I don’t know what to say. I don’t feel like I’ve worked anything out inside my head yet, and I don’t want to talk to her until I do. Both of us shouldn’t have to deal with my shit.”
“But you know that’s sort of the point of a relationship, right?” Dawson pushed. “You help each other out with your problems, you rely on each other. What’d you say to turn her away?”
Here comes all the guilt again.
I stared down at the table when I answered him. “I found out about Sal and, I don’t know, all this shit just bombarded me. Everything ugly in my life suddenly came to the surface and I didn’t want any of it to touch her. So, I just shut her out of it. Kept it away from her.”
They were both quiet as they listened attentively. “It pretty much hit a boiling point one day when she demanded to know what was wrong. That’s when I told her about Sal and she started asking a bunch of questions. Then, she got frustrated that I wouldn’t open up to her about anything, that I never do. I tried explaining why I didn’t want her to know about my past, and it just made her angrier.” I had trouble finishing the rest and just stopped.
“And then I take it she left?” Dawson clarified.
I swallowed, my nerves going haywire. “She…” I started but paused. I blew out a breath and tried again. “She said that if I didn’t start letting people in that I was going to start looking for other ways to handle everything. That I would start looking in other places.”
I waited for their reactions of outrage but their faces remained blank as they looked at me. “She was implying that I would end up like him, using alcohol to deal with my problems,” I said pointedly. “She basically said I was going to wind up like our father.”
Mason’s face turned skeptical. “I don’t think that’s what she was saying. But what she did say, I agree with her on.”
He couldn’t have shocked me more if he’d suddenly stripped off his clothes and started dancing on top of the table buck-ass naked. “What?”
Playing for Kinley (Cruz Brothers Book 1) Page 35
