It was a support center for women who’d been sexually abused while in service. All in all, about twenty percent of women had been sexually assaulted while serving their country. I could hardly believe it the first time I heard that number. That’s one in five, and those were just the ones who’d reported it.
When I understood what the center was about, my initial thought had been that Mom was wrong, that I wouldn’t be able to deal with it, but I did. It was misery that allowed me to get angry instead of sad, and I was angry a lot while I was at work. I mostly dealt with the practical things and the fundraising, but I still got to hear a lot of the stories. In a strange way, I liked it, because it was women supporting each other, and I found that encouraging.
I’d started working around the same time as the center was opened, and not long after, the men started calling to ask where they could get support. I’d been shocked, which I guessed was something like reverse sexism from my side. Soon, we had a few support groups for men, but most didn’t dare to actually come to the meetings. They didn’t want to be labeled as ‘buddy-fuckers.’ We had a phone support as well, and that, along with the group meetings for men, was held at a different location, since the women who came often didn’t feel comfortable around men.
We had a support meeting that day, and I prepared the room with coffee, tea, and cookies—and Kleenex. We went through Kleenex at an insane speed, and we bought bulks of cartons each month. There was always a therapist and a psychologist at the meetings, but sometimes I was in the room as well, just to make sure everyone had what they needed.
As always, I felt drained once the meeting was over. My boss, Helen, stopped me on my way out for a few words on what was coming up next week.
“How’s Felix doing?” she asked when we were done. She often did, and not in a nosy way; she just took a genuine interest. I liked her a lot.
“Okay, at the moment.”
“Have you heard anything about a kidney?”
“Actually,” I started and cleared my throat, “I found his dad. Turns out he was pretty close by.”
“That’s really great,” she smiled.
“Yeah. He’s at our house now, to get to know Felix. He’s been over a few times, but I think it works better for him if I’m not there. I’m not really his favorite person right now.”
“It’s easy to judge when you don’t have the details.”
“I know. I just don’t want to give him the details, and I’m not convinced it matters. I should’ve told him a long time ago.”
“Probably, but as someone who has the details, how would you have dealt with it all back then?”
“I didn’t deal with things back then.”
“Exactly,” she smiled and gave me a hug. “Don’t judge yourself too hard. Others will do that for you, and if they don’t have the particulars, they don’t really have the right.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll see you next week.”
I said goodbye to the others and took the car home. It had been just over a week since Tommy had met Felix for the first time, and he’d been by twice since then, but never when I was at home. Mom kept pointing it out, though, when he’d been there and how great it had been. Felix talked about it, too, but the way he talked about Tommy was much less annoying.
His third visit had taken place earlier that evening, so I assumed that my evening would be spent with me listening to Mom as she told me about everything that had happened in great detail. I decided that I’d just hide out in Felix’s room if she went on for more than an hour. That would be my Tommy Miles limit for the evening.
I was in luck, though. When I walked into the kitchen, it was Dad who was waiting for me.
“How was work?” he asked me when he noticed me, but his eyes didn’t leave the paper he was reading.
“The usual,” I answered and poured myself a cup of tea before sitting down opposite him. “How was your day?”
“The usual,” he smiled and neatly folded the paper before placing it in front of him.
Dad had been very opposed me taking the job at the center. He didn’t think it would do me any good. He had no problem with me working, but he didn’t see any use for me ‘wallowing in guilt and pain’ while doing it. When I’d insisted, prepared for a fight, he’d backed off. He did that a lot more often these days—backed off.
Everyone in the family had changed when Zach died, but Dad had changed the most. I didn’t think the differences were obvious to anyone outside the family, and it wasn’t anything profound, like he’d suddenly developed a sense of humor or started believing in God. It was small things, like how he chose his battles more carefully, and how he to a much greater extent just accepted people as they were and their wishes. Not that he’d been some kind of dictator before that, but he’d had a way to firmly steer you into whatever pursuit he thought would fit.
I had revolted against that in my late teens, which was how I’d ended up in the Navy. He’d had no problems with me pursuing a military career, but he hadn’t thought the Navy was the right choice for me. When I took my discharge, I had dreaded the talk we’d had, but he’d surprised me. He wouldn’t let me say that he’d been right. My problems hadn’t had anything to do with me being in the wrong place, according to him, and even if I didn’t fully believe him, it was still nice to hear it from him.
He’d told me, with no uncertainty, that he was proud of me, and that my service record and what I had accomplished was a testimony to how well I’d done. I didn’t agree with that statement, though. On a number of occasions when I’d had the opportunity to stand up for myself or my friends, I hadn’t, simply to not be seen as a problem. I’d actually been surprised by how much of my time had been spent following orders and not questioning morons, to avoid being labeled as ‘a problem.’ It was a lot easier to be regarded as a problem if you didn’t have a penis. Complaints were also definitely seen as nagging rather than an actual legitimate complaint when they came from a woman.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“She fell asleep with Felix, so you’re off the hook.”
“Wanna give me the short version of what Tommy’s visit was like? Just so I don’t have to get it from her tomorrow.”
“It was good. They watched a movie, played some cards, and Tommy took him outside to show him his bike.”
“Outside?”
“The yard, Sparks, they didn’t take a ride. They sat outside for a while by the bike, just the two of them. I thought it was a good thing.”
I hesitated, but finally nodded in agreement. It was a good thing if they found something just for the two of them. I just hoped Tommy was serious about Felix, and that it wasn’t just a temporary thing. I didn’t think that was the case, but I was still worried.
“It was a good thing,” I finally answered with a nod. “Is he… Do you think…” I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence.
“He’s not going anywhere. And if he does, I have a gun and a couple of platoons at my disposal. I might’ve retired, but my men liked me.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I laughed. “It’s not really fair, though. He hasn’t stayed away by choice.”
“I know that, but now he knows. So far he’s been a man about it, and I hope it stays that way.”
“I think it will.” I was slightly surprised by how it was all of a sudden me who was defending Tommy, and when I saw Dad’s smile I knew he’d tricked me into it. “Damn,” I chuckled.
“He’s a good guy, we both know it, and we’ve both known him since he was a toddler.”
“You have.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I know I did. Can’t let my kid die just because I’m too chicken shit to tell his dad the kid exists.”
“How much does Tommy know?”
“Not much,” I answered, because I didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. “Nothing about that.”
“So why would he think you stayed away?”
�
�We had a bad fight, I said some shit, so that would be the reason, in combination with me being a complete bitch, I would assume.”
Dad studied me. “You don’t have a problem with that?”
“Honestly, as long as he sticks around and gives Felix a kidney, I really don’t care what he thinks about me. Words won’t change anything anyway. You know that as well as I do.”
Dad nodded. He wasn’t a man who put much trust in the power of words. Deeds were what mattered, and even if I to some degree had grown out of believing in everything Dad said, I agreed with that. I knew Tommy did, too, so no matter what I told him, he wouldn’t give a shit.
oOo
TOMMY EXHALED IN RELIEF and then pointed at the door.
“We’re done.”
The girl left without a word, and he took another deep breath. Since Billie’d shown up, he’d had a tight ball of anger in his stomach, and getting off was the best way to loosen it up for a little while. The more time he spent with Felix, the tighter the ball of anger got, though. He was such a great fucking kid, and Tommy had missed so much.
He hadn’t seen Billie since he’d been at Clyde and Leah’s place for the first time and she left for work. He hadn’t even talked to her. Not that he’d had anything to say, and if he did, he just said it to Leah. He assumed she relayed any messages to Billie.
He’d missed the Jensens, and it was great being back with them even if it didn’t include Zach and Billie. It was sad in another way; talking to Clyde had always been like talking to an older version of Zach, and now it was a reminder that he would never see that—the older version of Zach. The past couple of weeks he’d missed Zach like hell.
With a sigh, he got out of the bed and reached for his jeans on the floor just as his door flew open.
“We’re at the table,” Bull said. “And we’re hitting The Booty Bank later.”
The Booty Bank was the strip club the Marauders owned, and it was just around the corner from the clubhouse. Most of the strippers were also sweetbutts, so it was a great place to pick up a girl for the night, or to just sit and watch them dance while waiting for them to have a few minutes to spare for a free lap dance.
“I’m in,” Tommy nodded and pulled his t-shirt over his head and took the cut from the back of the chair.
“Heard anything from the doctors?” Bull asked as they walked through the hallway towards the Chapel.
“I have the first appointment next week. They’re taking some blood to see if I’m a match.”
Bull nodded. “I hope you are. We’ll all cover for you, you know that, got nothing to worry about.”
“Thanks.”
Bull wasn’t much for words, something Tommy shared with him, so he knew that even if it might sound a bit cold, coming from Bull, what he’d just said was pretty much Bull’s emotional equivalent of taking it up the ass.
They were the first ones at the table, and Tommy lit a smoke while they were waiting for the others.
One of the things he’d liked about the Marauders from the get-go was that they had a clear chain of command. He was used to it, since that was how he’d lived a big part of his life.
They had the president, Brick, and the VP, Bear. When those two gave him an order, he fucking did as he was told, and he wouldn’t dream of questioning it. He knew his value in the club was based on the fact that he had muscles, and that he knew how to use almost any weapon known to man. He trusted those two guys knew that about him, and they definitely had the heads to know where he was best utilized. He gave his opinion on things when it was asked of him, but they had smarter guys in the club, more experienced guys, so along with the rest of the muscle—Bucket, Mace, Dawg, and Wrench—he mostly sat silent at the meetings.
Mech, the tech guy, was also in some ways just muscle. But his leverage was information. He was probably the member Tommy had talked to the least, mainly since he wasn’t a very talkative guy, but also because they had absolutely nothing in common. When Mech was at the clubhouse, he was mostly in front of the computers, and otherwise he was at home with his high school sweetheart, with whom he had two, almost adult, kids.
Sisco was the treasurer and took care of the finances, which Tommy assumed meant he had a slightly elevated position in comparison to the soldiers, but he never gave any orders as such. Besides his work as muscle, he mostly just kept them informed about the finances, something Tommy didn’t really give a shit about. He assumed he got the money he should get, it was at least more than enough money to keep him afloat, so that was good. He liked Sisco, though. Just like Bull and Wrench, Sisco was single and was often at The Booty Bank with the others.
Mac and Mitch were in some weird borderland that sometimes confused Tommy. He sort of counted those as the brain trust of the club, but he wouldn’t just follow their orders without confirmation from one of the three Bs. They had been born into the club, since they were Brick’s kids, and Mac was also married to Bear’s youngest daughter. They had absolutely no respect for the chain of command, and Tommy wasn’t even sure they knew what it was. They had a unique standing in the group, but didn’t seem to be aware. There had been some talk about the two of them one day taking over the club after Brick and Bear, with the younger son, Mitch, as the president, and Mac as VP. It might sound weird to others that the youngest son would take over, but Mitch was probably the smartest guy Tommy’d ever met. He liked him a lot, and wouldn’t mind having him as President. He was actually the only one of the current members, besides Brick, that Tommy could imagine as his leader.
Once they were all inside, Brick slammed the gavel.
The meetings were the biggest difference compared to the Marines. In the club, everyone got information about everything, and not just what they needed to know. He missed being on a need-to-know basis.
“It won’t be a short one tonight, gentlemen.” Brick lit a smoke and leaned back. “We’re gonna talk expansion.”
There was a unison groan from the rest of them. They’d been talking about expansion and the Smiling Ghouls every fucking meeting for years. Literally years. To Tommy, it felt like they spent more time discussing the Ghouls than their own goddamn club. It also felt like they were talking in circles. He knew they weren’t, but it sure felt like it.
They, as in the Marauders, were expanding, and it was going well. They’d already patched over four other clubs, and they were looking at fifth, which Tommy assumed was the reason for Brick’s warning. Tommy never chimed in on those discussions, so he logged out a little during the meeting.
He picked up some of it, though. Russ, the Nomad President, had scoped out yet another club on Brick’s request, one the Marauders had worked with a couple of times before, and they were almost all of them veterans—which was what they were looking for. All the possible clubs were discussed at length, and that was where Tommy was completely useless. Besides the Marauders, the Smiling Ghouls were actually the only club he really knew anything about.
The guys they worked with, and did the expansion for, weren’t the Smiling Ghouls as such, but the Dutch part of the Ghouls, and he liked them. They were originally an American club, and even if he liked the Dutch, the American side of the club were idiots.
While the Marauders were in Holland, two years earlier, Brick and some of the other Marauder presidents had started to suspect that the Dutch side of the club was planning on breaking loose. As a part of their detachment, they had suggested it would be good if the Marauders expanded their club to go along a pipeline from the Mexican border up to Oregon and the Port of Portland.
Tommy hadn’t really had an opinion about whether that was good or bad, but he understood that expanding along the West Coast, or just east of the West Coast, as it were, would be easier while they still officially had the US Ghouls on their side.
He knew Brick and some of the others were a bit anxious about how it would eventually pan out, if there would be a full-out war where they had to do the fighting for the Dutch guys, since they’d be safe on the other si
de of the Atlantic.
Tommy wasn’t that worried, but as opposed to the other guys in the Greenville Marauders, he’d been in a war, and that was his main purpose in the club—fighting. Since he’d saved Mitch’s old lady, Anna, Brick had turned to him for some planning. Tommy could help when it came to tactics, actually engaging in battle, and possible some training, but long-term planning wasn’t his thing. He was a grunt, a footman, and he didn’t know much about overview long-term planning. If he had a blueprint of an area, knew how many men he had, and approximately how many enemies they were facing, he was more than capable of pulling together a good plan for how they could take over the place or defend it—but that was it. The way he figured it, long-term war planning was more about politics, and Tommy didn’t know shit about politics. He’d never even voted.
He’d trained the others on how to take over and defend a room, a house, or just an area. Taught them what to look for, how to look, and how to move. It had been pretty fun, and the others had been impressed. It was always strange training for those things. On one hand it was fun, on the other hand it was the kind of thing you trained for but hoped you’d never have much use for. Given what the club was up to and what was going on, Tommy had a feeling they might have use for it, though, so they needed that training. They might be decent shots, and even if they had some basic knowledge of battle, the others still pretty much sucked. He hadn’t said that, but they did. Maybe a little less than before, and he thought they at least had an understanding about their limitations and why they should pay attention to what he was saying by now. So they kept having exercises—well, some of them; Brick didn’t like the exercises much, probably because he wasn’t good at taking orders—and they were getting better.
Resonance (Marauders #4) Page 4
