Man of Honor (Battle Scars)

by Diana Gardin

  Flipping the picture over, I run my thumb across the scrawling writing.

  Me and Richard.

  The picture is dated a few months before I was born.

  This guy…he looks like me. Same eye color. Same big build.

  I riffle through the box, searching for the DNA test that Ms. Ebbie mentioned. I find the envelope with the return address from a lab and pull out the document inside.

  Scanning it quickly, I come to the same conclusion that Ms. Ebbie did. My mother requested this DNA test. She submitted three DNA samples: one from Timothy Sullivan, the man I thought was my father; one from another male, who I’m assuming is this Richard from the photo; and one from me. The test is 99 percent conclusive. The DNA from the man I thought was my father is not a match for mine.

  Richard is my father.

  So many thoughts chase one another through my head at that moment. Who is this Richard? Why wasn’t he ever in my life? It seems apparent that the man who was married to my mother at the time likely found out that I wasn’t his son. So he bailed. And Richard must have known. This picture with my mother proves it.

  And in this picture, they appear to be so in love. Their hands are together, over her stomach. It looks like they both loved me.

  What the hell happened?

  I need more answers. So I grab the box and head for the hospital.

  When I arrive, I ask at the nurse’s station for the room where they’ve placed Ms. Ebbie. And I tell them I’m her son.

  Because now isn’t the time for technicalities, and they’ll still only let immediate family see her.

  Pushing open her door, I see she’s still, lying under the blankets. She looks small, frail, something Ms. Ebbie’s never been.

  Her head turns toward me as I pull a chair beside the bed.

  I reach for her wrinkled hand and clutch it.

  “You look good, Drake.” She coughs.

  Her words are slightly slurred, the wrinkled skin on one side of her face drooping slightly.

  “Thanks. There’s a girl back in Lone Sands who has something to do with that.”

  Ms. Ebbie beams up at me. “I’m glad to hear it, boy. A good man like you needs a good woman in his life. Now, tell me what was in the envelope in that box.”

  I arch one eyebrow. “How’d you know I opened the box?”

  She pshaws. “Can see the confusion all over your face.”

  “What am I supposed to do now, Ms. Ebbie?” I’m practically begging her to solve this problem for me.

  “There was some talk, years ago.” Ms. Ebbie coughs again. “There was a woman who was close with your mother while she was pregnant. They’d been friends since grade school. But after your ma fell apart, this girl felt she had to step away. I think if you go see her, she’ll have a story to tell ya.”

  I glance up. “What’s her name?”

  “Sheridan. Sandy Sheridan. And she lives over on Oak.”

  The turquoise blue front door creaks open. A slight, mocha-skinned woman stares out at me. Her long black hair is swept up into a ponytail, and impossibly dark eyes stare out at me.

  “Can I help you?” She leans against the jamb. Her hand grips the edge of the door, ready to slam it shut against the towering, muscled, tattooed stranger standing on her doorstep.

  “Ms. Sheridan? Sandy Sheridan?” I try to keep my tone gentle so I don’t scare her.

  Her eyes narrow anyway. Taking a step back, she prepares to close her door. “Do I know you?”

  Shaking my head, I try to appear as unintimidating as possible. I lower my voice, adopting a gentler tone. But I can’t hide my gruffness. It’s a part of me. “My name is Drake Sullivan. Miranda Sullivan was my mother, and Ms. Ebbie told me you used to know her.”

  Her eyes widen, and she glances behind me. Her house is on the very edge of town, explaining why I never ran into her. She’s completely unfamiliar to me.

  Stepping back from the door, she gestures inside the house. “Come in.”

  She leads me into a casual sitting room just off the foyer. A striped sofa takes up much of one wall.

  “Please,” she says without a smile. “Have a seat, Drake.”

  I do, folding my hands in my lap and scanning the room.

  Sandy sits down across from me, in an adjacent armchair. She mimics my posture, leaning forward. She searches my face. When recognition washes over her features, I sit up straighter.

  “You have her eyes, you know? They used to be alert and clear, seeing everything. Just the way yours are now.” Sandy’s voice is full of the memories showing up as moving pictures inside her head. She loved my mom, at least at one time. It’s there in her eyes.

  “You knew her well?” I try to keep the ball of emotion at bay, but damn this is hard. I’ve buried feelings about my mother for so many years that now they’re rushing to the surface, tiny air bubbles of emotions that I can’t ignore.

  Sandy tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “We were best friends in high school. Before that, even. Can you tell me why you’re here? Is there something you want to know?”

  I allow the silence to stretch between us before I run both hands over my face. Sighing, I nod. “Yeah. My mom kept this photo in a box in her closet. It’s her when she was pregnant with me. But it’s not Timothy Sullivan, who I thought was my father, in the picture with her. Do you have any idea who that man could have been?”

  Her expression doesn’t change, and I know she was expecting the question. She’s not surprised by it, nor does she have to sift through her memory to find the answer. She holds up one finger, leaving the room. I stand up and begin to pace. My body can’t stay still; it’s full of nervous energy that forces me to move. When Sandy returns, she startles when she finds me prowling her living room like a caged panther.

  Moving back to my seat, I incline my head toward the large book in her arms. “What’s that?”

  Taking a seat beside me on the couch this time, she smooths a hand over the front of the burgundy book. “It’s our high school yearbook.” She opens to an earmarked page full of smiling faces. Senior portraits. She points toward the picture of my mother. Glancing at it, my heart constricts. God, what must she have been like at this age? Full of life, full of hope? A different person from the broken woman who raised me. Her eyes were bright and shining, her smile beaming out from the page.

  “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” Sandy’s voice is sentimental. “Charmed every single person she came in contact with. But it was this year that she met Timmy. And he was bad news for her.”

  I look sharply at her. “What do you mean?”

  Sandy’s gaze is steady, intense. “I mean they started dating, and it was like he took possession of her. He wanted her all to himself, didn’t want to share her with anyone else. Not even me, her best friend. We tried to tell her that he was no good, but she didn’t want to listen. I think she saw something light underneath all his layers of grime, and she thought she could shine him up until he was brand-new again. But it wasn’t possible. Not with Timmy Sullivan.

  “She married him right out of high school. He went to work at the tire plant, but he wouldn’t let her work. She was home all the time in their little trailer out by Route 11, and none of us knew what to do to help her. Her mother, your grandmother, tried to go over there one day and pack her bags. Timmy came home and kicked her out, told her he never wanted to see her on his property again.”

  My jaw is clenching so hard my teeth are starting to ache. “Did he hit her?”

  Sandy’s eyes fall downward. “I’m guessing he did. If he didn’t, he sure put the fear of God in her, and that was enough. I would call her, but she’d beg me to stay away.

  “One Friday, Miranda called me. She said that Timmy was going to lay pipe for another company for the next week, and she just wanted me to take her out of there for a while. I was ready to get her as soon as he left, and she stayed with me. It was like old times…well, almost. She was still Miranda, but Timmy had dulled her shine. Sh
e was the same, and yet she wasn’t. One night we went over to Athens for a girls’ night out, and she met a man there. If she had only let Timmy go back in high school, she could have had a chance with this one. I knew from the moment they met that they were perfect for each other. He was going to college at UGA, and he was a real good guy. They exchanged numbers that night, but Miranda didn’t tell him she was married.”

  My mind is swirling, a tangled mess of confusion. I’m trying to grab hold of this story, comprehend what it all means, but it’s so hard. I can’t imagine what my mom was like back then, stuck in a marriage to a bad dude like Timothy. A man she didn’t love. A man who hurt her, scared her, intimidated her.

  And no one could help her.

  The situation was like stacking kindling on a fire, slowly but surely. No matter what happened, as soon as someone lit a match, the whole damn thing was set to burn.

  “What happened between them?” My voice is ragged, dry. I cough, trying to clear my throat.

  Sandy notices. “Would you like some water?” Her tone is sympathetic. It must be showing all over my face what this story is doing to me.

  Nodding, I try to give her a grateful smile. I think I fail.

  When she returns with the water, she settles back onto the couch. Turning the yearbook to another page, she pulls out a photo of my mother and the man she met in Athens.

  She hands the photo to me. I study it, marveling at how happy she looks. She’s riding him piggyback style, and her chin is resting on his shoulder as they both smile.

  “I took that,” offers Sandy. “They were so happy. And I kept Miranda’s secret. I never told him what her real life was like back here.”

  I must look bewildered, because she rushes on. “Timmy took a job with the company laying pipe permanently after that week. So he was gone for two weeks at a time. During those two weeks, Miranda would spend every second she could with Richard.”

  I look up, startled. “Richard?”

  She nods. “Richard. That was his name. And…as you can probably expect, Miranda got pregnant with Richard’s baby.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. Me. She got pregnant with me. Richard is my father. Where did it all go wrong? Why didn’t he try to help her? Why didn’t he stay with her?

  Staring at the picture of my mother, I can only imagine what her life would have been like if she had left Timothy and stayed with Richard.

  “Well, naturally, she couldn’t hide a pregnancy. She had to come clean to Richard about Timothy and her life here in Blythe. He felt lied to, cheated. And I guess in a way that was true. But Miranda’s heart belonged to him. He just couldn’t see it at the time.”

  Rage fills me, and I suck in a deep breath so it doesn’t explode all over Sandy Sheridan’s living room. “He ditched her?”

  She shakes her head, her expression forlorn. “He couldn’t. He loved her. He tried to talk her into leaving Tim, moving to Athens with him. He was going to finish school and make a life for them.”

  I lean back against the couch. Suddenly, I’m weary. This story is making me feel tired, and sick, and just strung out. I was only a blip on the radar at that point, but I’d never known any of this as a kid growing up. And I was so miserable with my own circumstances, I never stopped to think how miserable she was. About how she got to the place she was in.

  “What happened?” I whisper.

  Sandy places a hand on my knee. She seems to realize that I’m falling apart on the inside, and one reassuring squeeze from her hand is enough to give me a little fortitude. She continues.

  “She told Timmy that she was leaving him, and that the baby wasn’t his. He threatened to beat that baby right out of her if she tried to leave him. I would have thought that he’d let her go, once he knew that the baby she had growing inside of her was another man’s, but he wouldn’t. He just held on tighter, wrapping a noose around her neck so tight that she could barely breathe. He told her that if she left him, he’d hunt her down. He’d kill her, the baby growing inside her, and the man who put that baby there. It was enough to terrify her. It was enough to make her stay.”

  Sandy brushes a stray tear that had left her eye and had begun to coast down her cheek. She sniffs. “She broke it off with Richard. She feared for his safety, she feared for yours. She knew Timmy well enough to know he’d never let her go. So she sent me to Athens to tell him that she’d lost the baby, and she didn’t want to be with him anymore.”

  And there it is. That’s the reason he never came looking for me. That’s the reason he never stepped up and became a father. That’s why he never lifted a finger to help my mother.

  He didn’t know.

  It’s like a drumbeat pounding inside my head. I have a father out there, and he thought I died when I was still inside my mother’s stomach. Nausea rolls inside me, and I take deep breaths to try and keep it down. I take another sip of water. Cough.

  Sputter.

  Swallow.

  Repeat.

  “What about…what about after I was born? Tim left her, right?” I don’t recognize my own voice. It’s full of rage. Of hatred. Of despair. All the emotions I’m feeling are rolling around inside me like an unsettled sea, threatening to pull me down into the deep, dark depths.

  Sandy can’t stop the flow of tears now. “He was such a bastard. He made sure she severed all ties with the people who loved her. He made sure she couldn’t depend on anyone but him. He watched her suffer. He watched her die inside because she couldn’t be with the person she truly loved. And then, a year after you were born, he left and never looked back. He was picked up a few months after that for armed robbery, and I hear through the grapevine that he’s been in and out of prison ever since.”

  “Shit.” It’s just a breath of a word. “Why didn’t she go back to Richard after that?”

  “She thought about it. She went looking for him, brought you with her. But he’d graduated from school and had started living and working in Athens. He was engaged to someone else. She was heartbroken, and she left before saying anything to him. Then she came back to the house where she raised you. It belonged to her mother, who died right before you were born. She was a wreck then, and none of us could ever help dig her out of it. So we eventually just stayed away.”

  I stand up then, because if I don’t move I might burst into flames. Angry, raging flames that’ll burn up anything and anyone in my path.

  “I’m so sorry, Drake.” Sandy’s voice drops to a whisper. “What she was like after that…she was never the same person. She didn’t want my help or anyone else’s. So I stayed away. It broke my heart, but I stayed away.”

  I give her a hard look. “Yeah, I was pretty broken, too. But I guess you couldn’t have known about that, because you ‘stayed away.’ Thanks for the information. I have one more question.”

  She looks miserable. “Anything.”

  “What was Richard’s last name?”

  She looks into my eyes, sees the intention in them. “His last name is Walsh. Richard Walsh.”

  I don’t know what I said to her after that. I just knew I needed to get out of there, breathe some fresh air, and let the thoughts floating around in my brain either eat me alive or guide me toward my next step.

  As soon as I slam the Challenger’s door behind me, I lean my head against the steering wheel and roar. It’s a scream of pain, of regret, and of loss. It’s a shout of pure pain for my mother, for the life she was deprived of. If Timothy Sullivan wasn’t sitting somewhere in a prison cell, I would have hunted him down in that moment.

  But as it is, I can’t get to him. So I beat my hands against the steering wheel of my car, and I roar.

  I roar until the shouts turn to sobs.

  26

  Mea

  Wrapping my hands around my decaf latte, I allow the steam from the mug to waft up and warm my face. Despite the end-of-March warmth outside, I’m shivering right down to my bones. Without even thinking about it, one hand drifts down to my belly. I rub it gently.<
br />
  When Aunt Tay sits down in front of me, I smile at the woman who opened her home to me when I was just a messed-up teenager she’d never met before. Sure, we were family, but I will never be able to thank her enough for taking in Mikah and me.

  “How are you, Tay?” I ask, my voice sounding haggard and weary to my own ears. “It couldn’t have been easy, hearing from that man.”

  She shakes her head, shuddering at the very mention of my father. “He’s an awful man, Mea. I’m so sorry I didn’t rescue you from him sooner. I didn’t know…”

  I place my hand over hers. “I know you didn’t. Now tell me what he said to you.”

  She takes a deep breath. Scanning the coffee bistro, she notes that it’s mostly empty. The patrons are taking advantage of the weather and sipping their drinks and eating their sandwiches outside today. We’re almost the only customers inside. She lowers her voice anyway.

  “First, he put on his charming act. He was contrite, saying that he learned a lot while he was locked away and that he knows how many wrongs he has to right. He asked for me to give him your contact info so that he could apologize for the pain he caused you.”

  Now I’m even colder than I was a few minutes ago. I rub my arms, trying to circulate my blood so that they don’t go numb. There’s no way Carlos Sanchez wants to “right his wrongs.” If he wants to know where I am, it’s for no other reason than to hurt me.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Closing my eyes for a moment, I try to gather myself. I haven’t been to a doctor, and I know I can’t be more than a month along, but stress probably isn’t good for the baby, right? I have to think about more than just myself now.

  “You didn’t give him my number or tell him where I am, right, Aunt Tay?”

  She shakes her head, a violent motion that sends her long dark hair flying. Her skin is a shade darker than Mikah’s and mine. Our mixed heritage makes our tones lighter than hers, but the family resemblance is still there.