Bitterroot Queen

by Jove Belle

  “You’re up. Good.” Seeing Beth left no room for the soft pleasure of her dream. She was suddenly wide awake and all the good feelings from it dissipated, replaced with the hard reality of what they both faced.

  Beth’s smile fell. “I’m sorry about last night.” She didn’t offer any excuses or rebellious arguments, which was a welcome change, but Sam wasn’t as concerned about Beth breaking curfew as she was with the secret she’d revealed.

  “How’s your head?”

  “Olly gave me some ibuprofen, so it’s not pounding quite as hard.”

  “You need to drink water. Alcohol dehydrates you, and that makes you feel sicker.”

  “I will.”

  It wasn’t until Sam turned her attention to Olly that she realized they were stopped at the very outer edge of the lot. Olly kept her gaze focused intently on the windshield, a small scowl creasing her brow.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam followed Olly’s line of sight. Someone was seated on the sidewalk in front of the lobby. “Who’s that?”

  Even when she first met Olly, when Sam had threatened to pepper spray her, she’d never seen Olly look unhappy. Cautious, yes. Serious, sure. But never this weird emotion that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Wary, maybe? Possibly angry. Definitely not okay.

  Olly eased her car forward, and the person stood. The details of her appearance came into definition. A woman, dark hair, Mediterranean complexion, and a dangerous smile similar to Olly’s, but without the underlying humor and good will.

  “Olly, who is that?”

  “That is Gen. My sister.” Olly’s mouth was set in a grim line and she rolled forward at a crawl.

  “Whoa,” Beth muttered.

  “Your sister? Were you expecting her?” Sam vaguely remembered Olly mentioning a sister, maybe. But she was pretty sure she hadn’t mentioned her coming to visit.

  “No. Somehow, I never am.” Olly took a deep breath and visibly squared her shoulders. “Might as well get this over with.”

  She parked and climbed out of the car and Rampart jumped out after her. Beth climbed over the side of the Scout, landing softly on the gravel. Sometimes, the girl had the grace and fluidity of a ninja. Or a cat. A cranky, teenage ninja cat. She skirted around the front of the vehicle to join Sam.

  “What’s going on?” Beth asked in a stage whisper.

  “I have no idea.” Sam didn’t bother with being subtle. Olly and Gen were right there. They could hear anything they said, whisper or not.

  The woman pulled Olly into a bracing hug and clapped her hand against her back. Olly returned the embrace with decidedly less warmth and enthusiasm.

  “What’s happening,” she said over Olly’s shoulder, “is I’m here to surprise my baby sister.” She released Olly and extended her hand. “I’m Gen.”

  Sam returned the handshake and introduced herself and Beth.

  Gen clapped her hands together. “Well, should we go inside?”

  “Oka—”

  “No,” Olly interrupted. “We need to get going.”

  “Fair enough. Sam, Beth, it was very nice meeting the two of you.” Gen swung an army-green duffle over her shoulder and went to the Scout. She tossed the bag into the back and climbed into the passenger seat.

  “I’ll talk to you later.” Olly stared into Sam’s eyes, her look penetrating and deep and a complete mystery.

  Sam nodded slowly and said, “Okay.”

  Olly smiled tightly and gave her a curt nod. “Come on, Rampart.”

  Moments later, Olly was gone. She left a wake of dust behind her.

  “That was weird,” Beth said as she unlocked the lobby door.

  Sam stared after the Scout, acutely aware of Olly’s absence. As she followed Beth inside, her earlier weariness returned. Nothing about life in Bitterroot had been as simple and easy as she had hoped.

  “I know you don’t feel well, but we need to talk,” Sam said. “Are you ready?” she asked, not sure if she herself was.

  Beth looked at her askance. “I suppose I have to be.”

  “You’re right. You do.” Sam looked around their room. The floor still awaited a coat of finish, their furniture was still in the storage container, and there wasn’t a single place they could sit comfortably and chat. She sighed and hoisted herself up onto the kitchen counter. She needed to be seated for what came next. “Do you remember anything from last night?” she asked.

  “I remember the party and hanging out with Rachel. She’s really nice.”

  “I’m sure she is. What about after you got home?”

  “Mom, I really am sorry about last night. I was so out of it. Olly told me that she’s the one who brought me home. I don’t know why I called her and not you. And I would like to check in with Rachel. She was pretty wrecked when I called her earlier.”

  “You can do that after.”

  “Okay.” Beth drew the word out and turned it into a question.

  “You don’t remember saying anything to me?” Sam asked the question again, worded slightly differently than the first time. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around the possible reality of Beth being pregnant. Saying it out loud was just beyond her at the moment.

  “I don’t remember much.” Beth tugged on her lip, a new nervous habit that Sam hadn’t noticed before.

  She stared at Beth, looking for signs that Beth was different, as changed as her confession the night before implicated. She looked like the same kid, a little belligerent and snarky, with threads of sweetness throughout. Sure, Beth had some bad habits, like talking back, rebelling against everything, and smo—

  “Did you quit smoking?” Sam asked, dreading the answer. She didn’t want Beth to smoke, but she also didn’t want to think about why she might quit.

  “Yeah, about a week ago.”

  “Why?”

  The blood drained from Beth’s face, and she looked at Sam with wide-eyed fear. “Mom...”

  “Why, Beth?” Sam started to tremble. What the hell was her fifteen-year-old baby going to do with a baby of her own? “I need to know.”

  “Christ.” Tears pooled in Beth’s eyes and then slid slowly down her face. “I’m not even sure if I’m going to keep it.”

  “So it’s true, what you said to me last night. Whether you remember it or not.”

  Beth nodded and whispered, “Yeah, I’m pregnant.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Please don’t be mad. I didn’t do it on purpose.” Beth sounded truly panicked. Her tone, like a cornered animal that was about to bolt, jolted Sam out of her own head. She looked and sounded terrified, and it was Sam’s job to help. If she’d been more present, better at communicating, maybe Beth wouldn’t be in this situation.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m not mad. Okay, that’s a lie. I was mad. Really mad. But more upset than anything else.” She slipped off the counter and opened her arms.

  With a sob, Beth crushed herself against Sam and buried her face in Sam’s shoulder. Sam hugged her and whispered nonsense words until Beth’s tears subsided. As she held her, all the obvious clues Beth had dropped since they’d moved landed with a thud in Sam’s mind. The terse, crying conversations with Denmar. The vomiting. The smoking. Even the change in appetite. It all made sense and Sam felt like the worst mom on the planet for not realizing how much her daughter needed her.

  Beth eased away from her with a loud snuffle. Her eyes were rimmed with red, but she managed a timid half-smile.

  “Denmar?”

  “Yeah, he’s being an asshole about it, saying awful things to me about how I’m a whore and it’s all my fault.”

  “That little bastard.”

  “I know, right?” Beth laughed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He’s the only guy I’ve had sex with, so it’s his.”

  Thank God there was only one. Sam would take that as a slice of good news in this.

  “He said he’d send me money to pay for an abortion, but he wants nothing to do with being a dad. I told him if he didn’t want to be a dad, then he
needs to think about where he sticks his dick.”

  Sam’s eyes widened and Beth’s face fell.

  “It’s my fault,” Beth said. “I had the condom out and then things got...” she looked at the floor. “I forgot, and by the time I remembered, it was too late.”

  “It’s his fault, too. Sex is a huge responsibility for the people having it. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clearer, or really sit down and talk about it more with you.” Her throat tightened.

  Beth sighed. “All the talking in the world wouldn’t make his reaction any easier to take.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know. I’m fifteen. I don’t want to have a baby. But I can’t even think about...you know, terminating it or whatever. I get this rolling knot in my stomach, and it feels like my skin is stretched too tight and all my insides are trying to get out. I have no idea what to do.”

  “Is this why you asked to do school online?”

  “Yeah, mostly.”

  Sam nodded, understanding.

  Beth closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her eyelids. After a moment, she looked at her with bare vulnerability. “I’m really scared, Mom. What am I going to do?”

  “You want me to decide for you?”

  “Not really. But I guess I need to know what you’ll do if I decide to keep it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, will you kick me out?”

  She stared at her, horrified. “God, no.” Sam pulled Beth into another tight hug. “Never.”

  Beth clung to her, thankfully without the tears and the snot this time. “Will you help me?” Beth asked, her voice small and insecure as though she thought Sam would actually refuse.

  “Jesus, Beth. I’m your mom. I know I’ve screwed up, but I will always help you however I can. I know what it’s like to be a young, single mom. I wouldn’t let you face that alone.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.” Sam had a million questions, a million things she wanted to discuss with Beth. Had she thought about all her options? Abortion seemed to be off the table, but Sam couldn’t tell for sure. What about adoption? That would be emotionally more difficult than abortion, probably, but it would give Beth the time she needed before becoming a parent, and it would help another couple realize their dreams.

  If she decided to have the baby—and keep it—had Beth considered everything she needed to do now in order to prepare? Such as no more parties. Prenatal vitamins. Doctor visits. Sam was overwhelmed by the possibilities, so Beth was probably drowning in them.

  For now, however, it seemed to be enough for Beth to know that Sam would support her, no matter what.

  ∞

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Olly had waited until they were on the highway to speak. As much as she loved her sister, she hated the things she did more. “I told you, I wanted to see my baby sister.” Gen smiled in that charming way of hers that disarmed most people but left Olly with a cold pit where her stomach should be. “Bullshit. You told Linda about this place, didn’t you?”

  “Now, Olly, why do you automatically go there? I—”

  “You did, didn’t you? And she sent you here to case it. Un-fucking-believable.”

  Gen continued to smile half a beat longer and then her expression sagged. “No, I promise. She just kept poking for information about you, so I bailed. I’ve spent the last three days stowed away on those intermodal train cars and hitchhiking. I’m tired, hungry, and I smell like things I don’t even want to think about.”

  “That’s really fucking unfortunate.” The longer Gen talked, the angrier Olly got. It wasn’t a reasonable response, she knew, and she wanted to believe her. History, however, told her it would be stupid to do that.

  “Come on, Ol, don’t be like that. It’s not all bad. You missed me. I know you did. And I missed you. So, why is it so bad for me to be here?”

  “Because you’re going to fuck it all up.”

  Gen sighed. “Can’t we just head back to your place? I could sleep for about a year.”

  Olly’s foot slipped off the accelerator. She just realized that she couldn’t take Gen to George’s farm, and that’s exactly where she was headed. She flipped around in the middle of the road and headed back toward town.

  “I don’t have a place.”

  “What? I thought you worked something out.”

  “Nope. That fell through. The Scout isn’t big enough for you, me, and Rampart, so you’ll have to get a room. There’s a hotel by the college.” If Olly got lucky, she’d be able to get herself back to George’s. If not, she’d sleep on the side of the road somewhere rather than turning Gen loose on a guy like George. The idea that she should call George, let him know she might not be home tonight, crept to the front of her mind half-formed. The implications of the thought disturbed her almost as much as Gen showing up unannounced. At what point had she started casually thinking of the loft as home and George as someone she checked in with?

  “But what about... Look, I don’t have any money.”

  Olly glared at her. “Of course you don’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Gen sounded believably insulted, but Olly knew her too well to fall for it. This was the part Gen had been cast in for this town and this time. Olly was consigned to a role opposite her, a puppet in an act she wasn’t interested in.

  “It means that you better check your bra or your shoe or wherever else you’re hiding it, because there’s no way I’m paying. You came here. You figure it out.”

  “Don’t be like that. I don’t have any money.”

  “Stop it.” Olly pounded the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. “I was trained by Linda, too. Remember? You have money. We both know it. And pretty soon, that hotel clerk is going to know it.”

  Olly drove fast, well above the speed limit, too angry to care about potential speed traps and tickets. All she wanted was Gen out of this town. With her arrival, all the things that Olly had thought of as beautiful and green were now tarnished, tainted in some inexplicable, yet irreparable way. The hotel marquee came into view, and Olly slowed. She pulled into the lot and then into the valet drop off and pick up zone.

  “Get out, Gen. Maybe we’ll talk tomorrow. After I’ve had a chance to cool down.”

  “Olly, I know you think I’m here to hurt you in some way. That’s not the case. Linda’s worrie—”

  “Don’t bother finishing that sentence. The only thing Linda worries about is herself. And sometimes her cat.”

  “Fine. Well, then, I was worried about you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Olly had been on the road since the day she turned sixteen and passed her driver’s test. “The first time you so much as say boo in the same time zone as me just happens to be the one time I say I think I found the place. That’s one hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “Well, when put like that, it does sound a little suspicious.”

  Olly shook her head. The only thing she’d gotten from Gen so far was a mouthful of half-truths and the beginnings of a migraine. With anyone else, Olly would question how Gen found her so easily, how she knew to look at the Queen. With Gen, though, it was a given. Her sister had a ready smile and easily charmed information out of others. Olly had told her Bitterroot, not expecting Gen to do anything with it, and that had been enough.

  “Out.” Olly pointed at the building.

  Gen looked like she was considering another approach, but finally snapped her mouth shut and climbed out. She collected her bag from the back seat and said, “I wish it wasn’t like this.”

  “Yeah, me too.” She pulled out of the lot before Gen made it inside the building.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Olly paced the length of the loft. The place already had so many little pieces of her, as if her belongings had already decided to put down roots in this town. What the hell had she been thinking when she told Gen about Bitterroot? She loved her sister, and part of her was really
happy to see her. But that was snuffed out with the implications of what her arrival really meant.

  Frantic energy, verging on panic, buzzed through her. She couldn’t talk to Gen while she was like this. As was her habit, Olly went to work. She’d sweat out the negative vibe that was wrapped tight around her chest.

  She gave herself a moment to breathe. Deep inhale, calm exhale. Even in her agitated state, Olly knew working on the stairs while distracted was dangerous. A broken bone would only make matters worse.

  When she felt calm enough to focus on the work rather than her family, Olly climbed down to the ground. Through great foresight, George had installed a pulley system that helped move heavy objects, such as bales of hay, into the loft. She used that, along with an extension ladder, to maneuver the top set of runners into place. Normally, she preferred to use screws, but in this instance, the pneumatic framing nail gun was faster. With a few well-placed stud nails, the boards were at least temporarily secured.

  She followed up with a combination of metal strapping and screws. She worked methodically, giving herself over to the process. Once, she’d ended up in the middle of a Buddhist compound. While there, she’d learned a lot, not the least of which was the value of active meditation. With that one simple life philosophy, her life had changed. She’d always recognized her need to move, but active meditation—using work to clear her mind—gave her permission to stay long enough to figure out what she really needed from a situation.

  As she worked, Rampart moved with her, restless and uncertain, reflecting her own mood. When she started laying in the steps, he rested with his head on her feet. It was awkward as hell, and she stopped working long enough to pull him into a hug.

  “Sorry, Ramp. I’ll figure it out soon. I promise.” She buried her face in his fur, and he sighed.

  After that, he let her finish. She inserted the last screw in the safety railing just in time to head inside to fix dinner. Her body was a lot sweatier and, as predicted, her mind much clearer.

  George was seated at the kitchen table with an assortment of hunting knives and a sharpening stone laid out in front of him. “Hey there. How was Missoula? Find anything good in that old building?”