by Naomi Niles
“I won’t spare any words. I’m terrified. The last ride I had they had doctored the horse,” he told me. “It went wild, threw me off, and still came at me. They had to shoot it,” he said. He slammed his hand on the countertop causing me to jump somewhat. “Silver, I just cannot be a part of this anymore.”
“What do you plan to do?” I asked him.
“I have no freaking idea,” he said “I don’t have a college education like you do, you know. I pretty much raised myself, my parents had four of us, all boys. The rodeo was all I’ve ever known. I started there as a youngster and kept climbing through the ranks. I’m not really sure where that leaves me.”
“Have you thought about what you would like to do?” I asked him.
“It’s all I’ve done. I’ve looked around at what’s available and the best I can come up with is building a camp for kids. Isn’t that pitiful?” he asked me, his eyes almost mournful in appearance.
“Not unless you consider kids pitiful,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest.
“Hell no,” he said in a vehement voice. “I’ve always loved kids. In fact, you might say, there was a time not too very long ago I found a lady with whom I hope to have a half-dozen.”
“Is that so?” I looked at him, my conscience pounding at the temples of my head. Should I tell him?
“Silver, you know a lot about me. Do you have any ideas?”
“Well, I hadn’t really given any thought to that. I suppose you need to take a look at who you are and what sort of marketable commodities you have to offer. There’s your ability to ride, even if you don’t want to do it on the rodeo circuit. There’s your name, that’s still worth quite a bit on the barrelhead. I suppose you could look at some endorsements, as long as you keep up some sort of rodeo image. You’re an intelligent man. There have got to be things that you thought of doing at some point in your life. Think back to what those are. Nothing is impossible for you, Blake.”
“Except getting you to come back,” he said in a dismissive voice.
“Blake, you don’t want me. You might think you do but you don’t know what you’re getting into. I don’t come from good stock. Hell, if I had been a calf born on your ranch you probably would’ve shot me in the head at birth.”
“Don’t say that! I know all about your mother.”
“From whom? From Jill? Oh, I’m quite sure her rendition is a little bit different than the truth. Jill is actually very much like my mother. She wouldn’t admit there was anything wrong with mom. Her conscience wouldn’t allow that. That’s why she fights with me. I wanted out, to go to school and to make something of myself. Jill didn’t look that far down the road.”
“Is that so?” A voice came from the next room.
It was Jill. She walked to the doorway and gave me a really hard look. “I heard myself being discussed, and it didn’t sound very nice,” she said.
“You’re right; I’m sorry Jill,” I said. I walked around the counter and hugged her. “I’ve missed you, I really have.”
“It didn’t really sound that way when I came in the door,” Jill sneered.
I couldn’t blame her for being angry. It wasn’t fair of me to compare her to my mother; and certainly not fair of me to speak badly about her in any way. She was doing the best she could with what she had.
“Again, I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“Nope. But then you do that, don’t you?” Jill stabbed me verbally.
I looked up at Blake. “See what you would be in for if we both lived with you?” I tried to interject a half grin to lighten the situation. “We fight like a couple of cats,” I pointed out.
“Not anything I can’t handle,” Blake responded.
“So how are things going, Jill?” I asked, turning back to cooking.
“About the same as always; not worth shit,” she said.
Blake stood up. “Jill, where are your things? I’ll carry them in for you,” he offered.
“Just those two bags standing inside the door,” she said. “There isn’t really much to my life, Blake,” she said.
“There’s a lot more to your life than you realize,” I couldn’t help but say.
Jill shrugged and turned to get her bags, followed by Blake. I could hear them talking as he showed her to her room. I finished up the dinner preparation just as Jill walked into the kitchen
“Anything I can do?” she offered.
“You can set three place settings if you like,” I said, pointing to the drawer where the silverware was kept.
She nodded and quietly went about setting the places at the table. I pulled three plates out of the cupboard and filled them with food, loading them onto a tray and carrying them into the next room. “Dinner’s on, as late as it is,” I announced and waited until Blake had joined us before sitting down.
“I don’t suppose you want to pray, do you?” Jill asked. “Have you reformed?” she needled me.
“Be good, Jill. She’s only with us for a short time,” Blake mentioned.
We ate in relative silence. Blake made a few inane comments about the weather, the price of beef, and whether the Cowboys would make it to the Super Bowl. I couldn’t have cared less, but preferred not to say so. I knew he was simply filling the space with words. Jill ate in total silence, which was unusual for her. I suspect that this might be the first time in a very long time that she wasn’t high on something or other.
When dinner was finished, I stood up to clear the table. “You go on and visit with Blake; I’ll do that,” Jill said and there was actually a look of kindness on her face.
I nodded and followed Blake out onto the patio, pulling the door shut behind us so that we might speak more privately.
“Are you sure you won’t change your mind, Silver?” he asked me once again. “There’s plenty of room for you here. You can have your own room if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I can’t, Blake,” I told him.
“Is he this important to you?” he said, his voice ragged with emotion.
“Yes, he is. I can’t go into details, Blake. My life took some turns while I was gone. I have to see where those turns take me.”
“I understand,” he said in a quiet voice. “Silver, you need to know I will always be waiting here for you. You will always have a home here. Even if I move on, I’ll keep the place.”
My heart was aching. I knew that I loved this man and I also knew he represented danger to me. Perhaps more danger to Kirk. I would have to give this some thought. Marie came to mind; I would have a long talk with her and get her opinion. Once I let the cat out of the bag it would be too late to put it back in. I nodded.
“I guess I’ll be going now,” I said and stood.
There was a look of longing and sadness on his face. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” I said in a soft voice and stepped forward to kiss him gently on the lips. I could feel his body tense as he fought the impulse to wrap his arms around me and keep me against his chest. I knew this was hell for him. There was nothing I could do. He had to make decisions on his own. The time had come for me to leave.
I hugged Jill on my way to the front door. “I love you, sister. I will be in touch soon.” With that, I opened the front door and left two of the three most important people in my life behind.
Chapter 12
Blake
I watched Silver drive away. It seemed like everything that I’d held out for as hope for the future, left with her. I had no idea who the man was she had chosen to spend her life with; it hurt too much to even consider that. I hoped he would take good care of her; at this point in time I wasn’t even so sure I could do that.
I walked back into the house and saw Jill waiting for me on the patio. She waved me out and pointed to a chair.
“Sit down, will you?” she asked me in a very polite and very businesslike voice I’d never heard before. “You’re hooked on her, aren’t you?” she asked me
“Yeah, I guess
you could say that. She wasn’t here very long, but she fit in very well. I guess I let myself get carried away and started thinking of her in a permanent way. I had no right to do that. I never even let her know I cared until the day she left.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if I have to tell you about it, she stayed with me that last night. I told her as I fell asleep that I loved her.”
Jill rolled her eyes. “Of course she left. You just don’t get her. She doesn’t think she’s worthy of being loved by anyone. Most especially someone who is successful like you. She’s thought that her whole life. Any guy she ever went with had to be the scum of the earth or she couldn’t see herself with him. She became a writer because it allowed her to talk about her place in the world, the people with whom she was familiar and could relate to. It was cathartic for her.”
“What happened to your mother?” I asked her.
“My mother was a whore. There’s no better way to say that. She slept with anything that had a dime. One day a new guy picked her up off the corner. He was from out of town, at least that’s what I think. He spoke with a strange accent. I don’t know, maybe he was an immigrant. It doesn’t really matter. I never knew his name. He asked my mother to do something that was even beyond her ability, and that’s saying a whole lot. I think what he wanted was to have a threesome; her, Meli, and me. Of course my mother refused, and the guy beat her. Not just with his fists, but with anything he could get his hands on. Maybe he realized that what he had asked for was illegal; maybe he wanted no witnesses. I don’t know. The point is, he beat my mother to death. When it was over, she was lying naked on the floor and her blood had carpeted her body.
“Meli and I were hiding in a curtained closet so we were able to peer out and watch. I’m not really sure if he knew we were there, but we were. We had grown very good at being silent when mother was entertaining. Meli and I ran out of the apartment as soon as he left. Meli was thirteen and I was nine. The first night we stayed in the alley behind a restaurant. We ate from the garbage they threw out and Meli made us a kind of hut out of the empty food boxes. It was cold, I remember. I was shivering and scared. Meli wrapped her arms around me and sang little songs to me until I finally fell asleep. The next morning a garbage truck came and we had to make a run for it before someone saw us. If we were found out, Child Protective Services would’ve picked us up and we would have been separated forever. Meli promised me that would never happen.
“So Meli got a job as a dishwasher at the same restaurant where we’d slept the night before. They paid her $.50 an hour and all the food that we could eat. Before too long, she had talked the restaurant owner into letting us sleep inside the back room where the stacks of provisions were kept. He didn’t turn us in. He knew if he did, he’d be in trouble. He’d also lose the cheapest dishwasher he’d ever had.
“We moved from restaurant to restaurant, looking for a better job, a little more money, a little better place to stay. She got me through it, Blake. I’ve never truly thanked her for that. She carries the scars for both of us. Me? I carry my mother’s genes.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Jill said. “How could you?”
“What can I do to get her back, Jill?”
“Just love her. Let her know that you love her for who she is and all that she is.”
“I have told her. I just don’t know the right words. She’s got someone else, you know,” I said.
“And you believed her?” Jill rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue to indicate how big a fool I was.
“What do you mean?” I asked her, my heart leaping on the off chance that Silver had been lying. If ever I wanted to hear a lie, this was the time.
“You know her well enough to know she’s an honorable woman. If she had another man, she would not have come to see you. No matter how hard you begged. If her intention had been to come to see me, she would’ve come while I was still in the apartment so she wouldn’t have to run across you. You really are an idiot, you know?” she threw at me.
“I guess I never really thought of it. Once she mentioned another man, I just believed her,” I confessed to Jill as she puffed upon her cigarette in the darkness.
“Well, you’ll learn eventually, I suppose. In the meantime, I think you’re a good egg. I appreciate you trying to help me and I promise I’ll stay clean while I’m here. You won’t have any trouble out of me. I am a survivor; you know?” she posed her question.
“I think you both are. I could learn a thing or two from each of you,” I told her.
“I’ll help you try to get her back,” Jill promised. “I know her pretty well, but what I don’t know is how you treated her. If you were condescending in any way, you may have ruined it. So, just how did you treat her?” she prompted me.
I could hear suspicion in her voice. “Probably not as well as I should have,” I admitted. “I was an arrogant son of a bitch. I made her feel like she was ruining my career and yet I was magnanimous enough to give her a job.”
“You bastard! She didn’t deserve that.”
“I know that now, and I know I deserve what she’s dealing out to me.”
“Not sure what I can do for you, but I will try. You have my word on that. Now I’m going in and try out that new bed. It will be nice to not scratch tonight. Goodnight, Blake,” she said as she went indoors.
I said in the darkness by the pool for a very long time. I looked at the sky and pictured Silver driving beneath the same moon that I was watching. It somehow made me feel closer to her, even though she was driving further away. I recalled her words about drawing upon my own strengths. I had no business trying to get her back if I couldn’t take care of her. I would have to make some decisions, and no matter what, I would show her the respect she deserved. That’s when I realized that in many ways, I was like her. I had abused my body, my reputation, and the people around me because I felt as though I didn’t deserve to be treated well. She had taught me a lesson without even realizing it. Jill had been the one to help me see it. I owed her one, too.
Silver had talked about my reputation still having some value. I considered how I might put that to good use. I went inside and turned on the computer. I did a search for business ideas, and printed out pages of suggestions. I flipped off the computer and the light on the desk, picked up a pen, and went into my bedroom. I stayed up the rest of the night considering each of the business ideas and choosing which one might work for me. By morning, I thought I had found the right one. Only time would tell.
Chapter 13
Meli
Leaving Blake was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. I felt like I left a piece of myself behind. Add in my sister, and I felt like I’d just run away from home. It would have been so simple to go pick up Kirk, lock up the house and return to Dallas and the only sense of family I’d ever had. It made so much sense, so why didn’t I do it?
I wasn’t entirely obtuse. I understood where my problems had begun. The less explored about that, the better.
I stayed in a motel not far off the expressway that night. I stayed in the middle of the bed; it seemed less empty that way. I called Baton Rouge and had Sarah put Kirk on the phone.
“I’ll be coming home tomorrow, honey,” I told him.
“Sarah and I colored today,” Kirk told me in an excited voice. “We had a big storm. It rained really, really hard. Sarah and I watched it out of the window and when it was all done, I took a nap,” he added.
“That’s wonderful, darling,” I told him, loving the sound of his little voice on the phone. “I will see you tomorrow, I promise. I will bring you a surprise.”
I spoke briefly with Sarah to make sure everything was okay and then shut the phone off for the night and tried to sleep. The key word there was try to sleep. It was as if I were watching a film play before my eyes. The images began with Blake, his strong body mounted on the bull and his arm reaching upward to the sky. I remembered tha
t body lying atop my own that one night. I had never felt such emotion and love from any human being as I did from him. The danger flashed red lights over everything from that point on. He had so much potential. I could never hope to be equal to the kind of woman he needed; this much I knew.
Then I began a flashback. I saw Jill, as she was as a little girl. I remember the night that we had hidden in the closet. The strange man had beaten our mother and while I watched, I had choked back a scream. At the same time, I remember with an absolute guilt feeling that in a very small way, she deserved what she was getting. Even as a young girl, I knew that what my mother did was wrong. We had no friends. People wanted nothing to do with us. I was the elder, and I could take it. Jill, she only had me.
I remembered sleeping outside the restaurant that night; how cold it was and how Jill had clung to me. She needed me then and although she didn’t realize it, she needed me now. In an odd way, I had provided her shelter once again, beneath the roof of the man I loved, but could not live with.
Now Kirk needed me. He was my responsibility; the life I would have to protect with my own. If that meant being away from Blake, then so be it.
I tried to shift my thinking on to other topics. I thought about the new restaurant I had planned. I made a note that upon my return to Baton Rouge I would take a week and drive the town, enlisting the aid of a real estate agent so that I might find just the appropriate property. I had no idea whether this would entail taking over an existing building, or building my own. I hoped for the former, as the latter would take too long and was really not something I knew how to do.
I began to think about branding. The name of the restaurant had made sense when Maudie owned it, but now I was planning a chain. I would have to attach visual recognition to everything about this new one. I needed a logo, stationery, business cards, social media, menus; I needed everything from the ground up. Somehow I managed to divert my attention from my heart and eventually fell asleep.
