What You Don't Know (True Hearts Book 6)

by Jaxson Kidman

  “And now?”

  “I’m good.”

  “You’re good? Drinking?”

  “Not like I used to.”

  “So, you’re a functioning drunk?”

  “I don’t drink at work. I take pride in this job.”

  “And the other shit?”

  “What other shit?” Mom asked defensively.

  “You know what I mean. Who was that guy?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  I laughed. “Look at you. You can’t even tell the truth. Ever. I just watched you score and you’re trying to lie to me.” I ran a hand through my hair. I dropped my smoke to the ground and stepped on it. “Fuck me, right? Fuck me for coming here. Fuck me for wanting to see what would happen. Fuck me for wanting to tell you everything I had been holding in for years.”

  “Like what?” Mom asked. “You come here to accuse me…”

  “The baggie fell out of your back pocket,” I said.

  Mom slapped her hand to her backside and spun around.

  The baggie didn’t fall out. But she was hooked enough on that shit that it mattered. When she didn’t see the baggie on the ground, she reached into her pocket and pulled it out.

  I grabbed her wrist. “You fucking liar.”

  “You just lied to me,” she said.

  Our eyes met again.

  Her eyes. My eyes. Matching eyes.

  “You’re my mother.”

  “So?”

  “You let her die,” I said. “Your own daughter. You let her fucking die.”

  “You were home the night she killed herself. You should have been watching her.”

  “So, this ends just like the last time?” I asked.

  Mom swallowed hard. And she burst into tears.

  “That was my little girl,” she cried. “My only fucking little girl. Ever.”

  I let her go and she stumbled. She clutched her baggie to her chest.

  “I lost her,” Mom said. She exhaled and snot collected around her nose. “I fucking lost her. I remember holding her. Loving her. Trying to take care of her. But your father was gone. And I was… and you… you were out of control.”

  “Always out of control,” I said. “Keep blaming me, Mom. Keep blaming me.”

  “I didn’t know she would get like that,” Mom cried. She tried to sit in a chair and missed it. She fell to her ass on the concrete, hugging her knees, a baggie between her fingers. The cigarette I gave her rested on the ground, smoke curling into the air. “If I knew… or thought… I would have…”

  She cried harder.

  I looked at her. At the drugs. At the cigarette on the ground.

  Slowly, I crouched and reached for the smoke. I held it out for her to take.

  She took it and sucked on it.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “But I wear it every single day of my fucking life. Every single day I think about what if I didn’t leave that night. Just a regular fucking night… and I left. And my little sister felt so alone and hurt and confused that taking her own life was the only option in front of her. That’s when she needed a mother. Her mother. She fucking needed you. And you were probably sitting on some guy’s lap, taking a shot, snorting something, messing with a needle. And look at you now.”

  “Just go,” Mom said. “Just fucking go, Travis. This is what you wanted to see. So here you have it. I’m a fucking mess.”

  I stood up and stared down at her. It wasn’t the first time in my life that I saw her like this. Maybe it was going to be the last.

  All I knew was that coming back here was a bad decision. Going to see the house was a bad decision. Coming here to see my mother was a bad decision.

  She sat there and wept, sucking on the cigarette I gave her, her hand tight around the baggie of garbage that was going to shut her demons up for a little while.

  I turned and walked away.

  My demons were all around me. Pushing. Pulling. Screaming.

  The logical thing was just to get the fuck out of town.

  But I had one problem with that.

  I didn’t want to leave alone.

  15

  Expired Coupon for Bedtime

  WILLOW

  I knocked on the door out of respect. The door to the house where I grew up. Because if I didn’t, and Mom was in a mood, then all hell would break loose. One little nudge in the wrong direction for her and she would go off for hours.

  After waiting a few seconds, I opened the door and walked into the house.

  I heard the yell of a cartoon character and smelled some kind of salty meat and garlic.

  “Mommy!” a voice cried out.

  Turning my head, I saw Wren sitting on the floor with a blanket over her head. Or at least I assumed it was Wren.

  Max pulled the blanket down and Wren let out a goofy sounding yell. It made Max laugh as he stepped back and fell to his butt.

  “Wren! I’ve got the cards ready!”

  I looked forward and saw Mom sitting at the kitchen table. She stared down intently at a handful of playing cards.

  There were a lot of different situations I could have walked into coming to the house, and at least this was one of the more pleasant ones.

  “I have to go and play with Ammy,” Wren said to Max. She was on her hands and knees, crawling toward him. He grabbed her hair and let out another laugh. “But I’ll come back to eat you…”

  “No!” Max playfully cried out.

  Wren climbed to her feet and moved her messy hair out of her face. When she turned, she spotted me.

  “Willow. Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “When did you get here?”

  “Two hours ago,” I said.

  “Funny,” Wren said. “Want to come and help me?”

  “Yeah. Let me see Max for a second.”

  “Auntie Willow,” Max said. He quickly climbed the couch and tried to jump over the back.

  “Don’t let him fall off the back of the couch, Wren,” Mom called out.

  I was there to scoop Max up into my arms.

  “She still has eyes in the back of her head,” Wren said.

  “Kind of creepy,” I said.

  “What’s creepy?” Max asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. I looked at Max, putting his forehead to mine. “Did you sleep good last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you eat breakfast?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you… make your bed, pay your bills, feed the dog, shovel the snow, and get the oil changed in the car?”

  “Huh?” Max asked, frowning.

  I laughed. “I’m messing with you. I missed you.”

  I put Max down on the couch and he did a spinning move to fall to the floor.

  “What game were you playing with Mommy?” I asked.

  “Just blanket monsters,” he said and shrugged his shoulders.

  “That’s good,” I said. “Enjoy your show, Max. I’m going to go and say hello to Ammy.”

  Ammy… that’s what Mom was called. Max could definitely say any full name now, but when he was younger, he could only say ‘ammy’ which just stuck.

  In the kitchen, Mom put down a four, five, six of hearts. Then she discarded a jack of clubs.

  Wren quickly went for the jack and put down three jacks.

  “Damn,” Mom said. “I should have known better.”

  “Hey, Mom,” I said.

  “Willow, hold on a second,” Mom said in a serious voice.

  I looked at Wren.

  She rolled her eyes.

  I smiled.

  “Okay,” Mom said. “I’m going to take the entire pile.”

  “Oh, now you’re living dangerously,” Wren said.

  “Shut it,” Mom said.

  She took the pile of cards and sifted through them all.

  “Rummy?” I asked.

  “A very heated game,” Wren said. “I’m closing in on four hundred points. Mom is behind by a hundred.”

  �
��Not for long,” Mom said.

  I stood there and watched as Mom put down a bunch of cards, taking this game very seriously. It reminded me of Saturday nights when we had nothing else to do. If Mom was in a sad mood, we’d sit at the table and play rummy until two in the morning. Then I’d get up at seven and make a big breakfast for everyone. Mom always went to rummy because that was our father’s favorite card game.

  “You’re coming in on the next one,” Mom said. “Once we finish this hand.”

  “I’m playing?” I asked. “I haven’t played rummy in a long time.”

  Mom looked at me. “Do you have something better to do?”

  “Actually, I don’t,” I said.

  Wren raised an eyebrow. “You don’t? Why not?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m going to go and check on Max and then I want in.”

  “This is the last hand for this game,” Mom said.

  “You just put down a bunch of cards,” Wren said. “You just want to win.”

  “I am going to win,” Mom said. “Deal with it.”

  “You’re brutal to play with.”

  “Because I’m damn good.”

  I walked into the living room and realized something.

  The house had a sense of peace to it. Even if rummy was a sign that Mom wasn’t feeling too hot mentally, it was still calm.

  It took my mind off Travis and the fact that he had bolted on me. I think I was more upset that nothing happened between us before he left versus him actually leaving.

  I sat on the arm of the couch and lost myself in a daze as Max’s cartoons echoed around with the mix of Wren and Mom playfully arguing over a good hand.

  I was lost in Travis.

  He had started to open up to me and then closed right back up. Then disappeared. Part of me wanted him to trust me enough to let it all out. Not to convince him to stay in this town. That would never happen. Not when he had the beach life waiting.

  So why did it matter to me?

  Because he was my first love? Or was it because some of those feelings were still alive and well?

  “Hey, Willow,” Wren called out. “Ready to play?”

  I shook my head and stood up.

  I looked down as Max looked up at me.

  “I’m going to go kick their butts in cards,” I whispered. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

  Max giggled and covered his mouth.

  At least I had a family… for the moment.

  The score was tight.

  I was at four-forty. Wren was at four-seventy-five. Mom was at four-twenty-five.

  “Last hand,” Mom said with a grin.

  I eyed Wren.

  Mom had a terrible poker face.

  The hand lasted all of five minutes. Mom put down three aces, which was forty-five points right there. My hand was terrible. I ended up with four-seventy. Wren got to five-fifteen. And Mom came through with a monster hand, hitting five-thirty-five.

  She stood from the table and put her hands out.

  “Congrats,” I said, clapping my hands together for her.

  “There’s dinner in the oven,” Mom said. “Pot roast. Carrots. Potatoes. Eat up.”

  “Where are you going?” Wren asked.

  “I’m going to give my grandson a bath and put him to bed.”

  “Okay then,” Wren said. “Thanks.”

  “Good game, Willow,” Mom said. “You were so close.”

  “I didn’t even get to five hundred,” I said.

  “You suck,” Wren said.

  Mom burst into laughter. She put her hand out. “Sorry.”

  “Oh, right, pick on me. You both had practice games before me.”

  “That was our fourth game, Willow,” Wren said, touching my hand. “You sucked in all four games.”

  “You actually got worse with each game,” Mom said.

  Now Mom and Wren were both laughing.

  I stood up and looked at them both. “You both suck.”

  “Don’t talk to your mother that way,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, Willow. Don’t talk to your mother that way,” Wren said.

  “She’s your mother too,” I said.

  “Fine. Don’t talk to my mother that way,” Wren said and kept laughing.

  “You two eat,” Mom said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “Hey, Willow, let’s order a pizza,” Wren said.

  “I heard that,” Mom called out.

  This was a very rare mood to catch Mom in. Happy. Laughing. Joking.

  And of course Wren would mention pizza, and of course that would make me think of Travis.

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “You want a plate?”

  “No,” Wren said. “I want to know why you’ve been lingering here for hours.”

  “What?”

  “Come on,” she said. “Something happened.”

  I swallowed hard. “Nothing happened.”

  “Wow, do you suck at lying,” she said. “You’re as bad as Mom.”

  “You took all the good lying genes,” I said.

  “That I can’t argue,” Wren said.

  I got a plate and opened the oven and was hit by the delicious smell of the pot roast. That was Mom’s favorite thing to make. We used to tease her that she made it five nights a week when we were younger.

  “I just hope that if something happened, you’d talk to me,” Wren said.

  She cleaned up the cards and turned in her chair to watch me as I stood in the corner of the counter and ate.

  “Wren, it’s fine,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I went down there to see Travis. It seemed like a good idea. And then he flew up here. And…”

  “You still like him, Willow.”

  “That was high school.”

  “Heart is still a heart,” Wren said.

  This was odd. Wren and Mom both acting normal.

  Hell, maybe this was a good time to play the lottery.

  “I’m not worried about it,” I said. “He doesn’t live here anyway. This was a quick trip and nothing else. I thought the sun and the beach and being away would help me…”

  Wren slowly stood. “Willow, you have to stop blaming yourself for what happened. You’re good at your job. You can’t let something like that…”

  “Stop,” I said. “Just please stop, Wren.”

  “You know what? I’m not going to stop. I’m your sister. We may argue a lot, but you’re still my sister. I’m standing on the sidelines watching this…”

  “Like I’ve been for you,” I said and raised an eyebrow.

  “No. You never stand on the sidelines, Willow. That’s why you always seem to get hurt.”

  “Great. Thanks for that. Maybe…”

  The doorbell rang.

  I could feel the tension wanting to creep between myself and Wren.

  I bit my tongue at my lingering comment.

  “Wren! Someone’s at the door!” Mom called from upstairs. “Find out who it is!”

  “Tell them I’m not here,” Wren whispered.

  “Tell them I’m not here!” Mom yelled.

  “I wish she would get over that,” Wren said.

  “You realize the last time she answered the door to someone she didn’t know was coming over was…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Wren said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I thought the doorbell ringing was going to save the night.

  It was about to destroy it.

  Wren went out on the porch and shut the door behind her. Which meant one thing. It was Brendan.

  I cleaned my plate and cleaned up the dining room table a little, waiting for Wren to come back inside. I respected her privacy as she stood outside with Brendan. That was sort of our sign to leave the other alone. If we answered the door, went outside and shut it, that meant we were outside with a boy and leave me alone.

  I went upstairs to check on Mom and Max.

  She had Max on his bed, helping him wrestle his arms through a pajama shi
rt. His hair was wet and moppy, looking like Wren’s hair when it was wet.

  Mom finally got the shirt on Max and she looked and me and sighed.

  “I don’t remember it being this hard,” she said with a smile.

  “You were younger back then,” I said.

  “Are you calling me an old woman?”

  “Nope. Just an amazing grandmother.”

  “Bedtime story?” Max asked.

  “Of course,” Mom said. “Go and pick a book off your shelf.”

  Max rolled off the bed and slammed to the floor with a hard thud. Mom and I winced at the same time, but he popped right up, not bothered. Maybe for some kids, a bath was soothing and relaxing, but for Max, it was like a cup of coffee. He got a second burst of energy. Luckily, lights out and a bedtime story usually took care of that.

  Below us, I heard the slam of the front door. That was followed by Wren screaming the word asshole.

  Mom looked at me.

  “Brendan,” I whispered.

  “Great,” she said. “That’s who was at the door?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll go and deal with her. You stay up here.”

  Max returned with a book.

  “Hey, Max,” I said. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” he said.

  I blew him a kiss.

  He blew a kiss back to me.

  I left the room and gently shut the door.

  Downstairs, I found Wren in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, chewing on her nails. She was seething. Her cheeks bright red.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She froze and pointed at me. “You did.”

  “Me?”

  “You. What did you do to Brendan?”

  “What?”

  “He’s all busted up because of you.”

  “I didn’t do a thing…”

  Travis did.

  “Travis,” Wren growled. “What did you tell him? Brendan said he was trying to get a pizza and you and Travis went after him. That Travis verbally attacked him. That he tried to walk away, but Travis threw him into the glass door.”

  “Wait a second, Wren,” I said. “Listen to me.”

  I reached for her and she swung both hands at me, slapping my hands away.

  “Don’t touch me,” she squealed. “You fucked everything up.”

  “I didn’t…” I sighed. “Wren, I’m sorry. Travis asked questions. Okay?”