by Ren Benton
She hadn’t spent even a minute mourning her mother and the end of that bad era, but the demise of a possibility she hadn’t really believed in, hadn’t even contemplated before three days ago, left her numb with grief.
Not for Ben. She’d managed to survive all this time without the fantasy he would play a recurring role in her future. Hell, their entire relationship had taken place with the understanding he was just passing through on his way to better things than Westard and Tally Castle. She couldn’t miss what had never been hers.
The prospect of the endless, grinding monotony of life without even a temporary, occasional reprieve was what had her double-washing the counter after her leaky eyes dripped on it.
It wasn’t that Ben was leaving and never coming back and would never give a second thought to anything he left behind.
Courtesy of her zoning out and redundant scrubbing, she didn’t get home until after nine.
Her dad glanced at her when she came through the door, then returned his gaze to the cop drama on TV. “What happened to you?”
“I got disorganized.” She regretted prying off her shoes the instant blood surged freely through them, awakening nerves that had been deadened by the constriction.
“You should have called.”
“I should have.” If she’d thought he would watch Crime Scene Inspiration: Raped and Murdered Daughters Unit while waiting for his tardy child, she would have called to tell him to watch something less likely to raise his blood pressure. “I’m sorry. My head isn’t working right.”
“Are you all right, princess?”
Her eyes burned and her sinuses went all pins-and-needles and she hated herself for being a crybaby. She had a roof over her head. Nobody was beating the shit out of her. She had both her legs. Only an ingrate would complain. “I’m just not getting enough sleep.”
He made a dad-like noise suspiciously like a harrumph, which brought a weak smile to her lips. She bent over the back of the recliner to kiss the top of his head. “Everything will be back to normal soon.”
As she trudged down the hallway to her bedroom, he muttered, “I’m not sure that’s any better.”
Chapter 25
Ben really should have asked the reverend to pray for him.
The evening got off to a promising start. During the drive to the restaurant in Marion, his mother advised him on the houseful of equipment and supplies he would require in order to become Liz and Will’s go-to mutant-alien-blob sitter and then told him things about caring for babies that could not possibly be true because no one would deliberately bring such horrifying creatures into the world.
“Out my nose?”
“Like a faucet. You thought it was hilarious. I swear you were trying to aim it.”
While they waited for their table, they talked about movies they’d mutually watched.
“I felt the animosity toward the corporate executive was out of proportion to his actions.”
“It was the British accent. Even chimps know that’s evil.”
“They must sense it. Malfoy tried to pass for American, and they pegged him anyway.”
While their drab, ill-tempered crustaceans were whisked from the tank to receive their extreme makeover, the discussion turned to how much Westard had changed for the worse in the years since Ben’s last visit.
“There’s been some noise about closing the school.”
“And doing what with the kids?”
“Busing them down to Sterling.”
“Their school was always overcrowded. We got their overflow.”
“That was before the rise of the portable classroom. Plop one extra unit in their trailer park for each grade, and they can absorb our kids. Cheaper than maintaining our building and staff.”
“Then Westard will consist of the bar, the church, and the bakery.”
“And the post office. Pretty much how it started. Ashes to ashes.”
He thought that would be an opportune moment to suggest it might be the right time for his mother to move to a locale with more vitality.
He was mistaken.
Janine Fielder wasn’t one to cause a scene with her anger. She brutalized her lobster in stony silence. Her lips were too tightly sealed to order dessert and remained so throughout a tense hour in the car.
Ben had her home by nine.
He followed her into the house and shouldered the door closed. “Okay. There are no witnesses now. Want to yell or throw a punch or, I don’t know, talk to me?”
“Oh, are you suddenly interested in what I want?” she lobbed over her shoulder as she stalked toward the kitchen.
A defensive reply sprang to his lips.
But that was their rhythm, wasn’t it? She got angry with him. Rather than telling him why, she clammed up. Because he would rather fix a problem than pretend it didn’t exist, he pressed for an explanation until she snapped at him. Then the fight became about the fight, and whatever caused it in the first place went into hibernation to emerge hungry and meaner at some unforeseen point in the future.
He preferred to be mauled now. He pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table. “Yes. I am interested in what you want.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
He rubbed his eyes. “No, Mom. I sincerely have no desire to antagonize you, I’m sorry I did, and if you tell me how I did, I will attempt to avoid repeating my mistake in the future.”
She retrieved her ugly slippers from the laundry room and jammed her feet inside. “I want to see you one time without being reminded nothing here is good enough for you.”
He’d been bored, like every other kid in Westard, but he had his friends, his mom, Tally, football, work, and that had always been good enough for him. Everyone else — his mom, teachers, coaches, Tally — had insisted he was destined for bigger things.
He’d gotten the bigger things they’d wanted for him, and now she acted like he was the snob.
If he had stayed here, he’d know it was past time to get the hell off the sinking ship.
He wove his fingers together on the tabletop and spoke to them. “This town is dying. I can’t watch you being lowered into the grave with it and pretend that’s good enough.”
“People still live here.”
“Because no one will buy them out. Wayne said the Harris place has been on the market for four years. They’ve dropped the price to what the lot is worth, and they haven’t had one offer. They can’t afford to buy a new house without unloading the one they have. They don’t even have first, last, and deposit in the bank so they can rent somewhere else.”
“That’s one example.”
“I spent an hour at the post office today.”
Her lips pursed because she knew damn well that meant he’d listened to half the town talk about the other half and was now almost as well informed as she was. His mother would have the town to herself if poverty hadn’t rendered everyone else unable to leave.
“People don’t live here. They haunt it, going through the same motions day after day, because they don’t know what else to do and don’t have anywhere else to go. You don’t have to live that way. I can take care of you.”
Flags of color raised in her cheeks. “I can take care of myself.”
Of course she could take care of herself. It must be a cakewalk after taking care of herself and a kid for eighteen years. She didn’t need him.
It would be nice if she wanted him a little. “I know how strong you are. I just want you to know you don’t have to do all the heavy lifting yourself anymore.”
“I didn’t raise you so I’d have somebody to freeload off of in my old age.”
Fifty wasn’t old age, but maybe she felt the years differently. She’d gone straight from living under her overbearing parents’ roof to being a battered wife and mother. When she was his age, she had a ten-year-old she’d brought up without any appreciable help. She’d lost her youth. This was the closest thing to freedom she’d ever had, even if she looked trapped from where he wa
s sitting.
She’s a smart lady. She’ll ask for help when she needs it.
He continued to doubt her pride would get out of the way long enough for her to voice any need, but however noble his intentions were, forcing them on her was a dick move, and a wasted one, at that — she would not yield. The harder he pushed, the more distance he’d create between them, and the less likely she’d be to turn to him for anything. “Okay. I won’t mention it again, but if anything changes, the offer will always be open.”
She contemplated the scratched counter, the faded wallpaper, the refrigerator two-toned with age, then released a noisy sigh. “Do you know why I like these slippers?”
The things on her feet resembled stuffed animals won from a carnival game and washed until the cheap fur became matted and threadbare. “It’s not for their looks.”
“These are the only gift you’ve ever given me that shows you know me at all. I’m on my feet all day, and by the time I get home, they’re screaming. I’d rather have these ugly, comfortable slippers than some sparkly, frilly thing I have to make up an excuse to use so you can feel good about wasting money on it.”
Comfort didn’t have to be ugly and budget conscious. “You deserve nice things, Mom.”
“A fancy label and a big price tag don’t make a thing nice. The thought you put into doing something good for someone you care about does.”
She’d confessed something to him to calm the waters; it was only fair that he reciprocate. “The thought behind those ugly slippers was that I was pissed you never liked anything I gave you and wanted to show you what a crappy gift really looks like.”
“I know, sweetie. I laugh about that every time I put them on.” She kissed the top of his head, a display of affection he couldn’t remember receiving after the eighth-grade growth spurt in which his height surpassed hers. “You’re a good boy.”
He pressed his nose into the crook of her arm and inhaled the blend of soap, fabric softener, and lilacs that meant home. “My mama raised me right.”
“You were good even when I raised you wrong.”
“I have no complaints, Mom. Not one.”
She lingered with her arms around his neck for a few seconds before saying in a thick voice, “Some of us have to work in the morning. I’m going to turn in.”
“Some of us are bums this week. I’m going to go for a walk.”
She released him with a light smack between his shoulder blades. “So much for raising you right.”
He twisted in the chair to look up at her. “Meaning what?”
“You’re around that girl for a minute, and you’re crawling through the window in the dead of night reeking of marijuana.”
He last smoked pot when he was fifteen. He’d confessed to his mother, and she hadn’t been this critical of his budding juvenile delinquency then. She certainly hadn’t blamed Tally for his behavior. “I explained why I reeked and didn’t have my keys. It’s not Tally’s fault I didn’t lock the car or that the Townsend kid is an entitled little prick with too much time on his hands or that you locked the door for the first time in my life.”
Her flinty expression argued otherwise. “At least you still have the sense not to be seen in public with her.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“If she’s not the kind of girl you bring home to your mother, she’s not the kind you want anyone else to know you’re carrying on with, either.”
“She’s not the reason I don’t bring her home to you. Taking her somewhere I know she’ll be treated like garbage isn’t going to endear me to her.”
“She is garbage.”
He was so difficult to rile, his nickname around the office was Zen. They wouldn’t believe he could go from easygoing to absolutely fucking furious in three words. “Because she took off her clothes to support herself? Yes, she told me about that. I’ve paid money to do sleazier things, and I don’t feed hungry children in your cafeteria to balance the scales. Reverend Dunn told me about that.”
He shoved away from the table and shot to his feet. “The only reason they have a place to live now is because the money Tally earned taking off her clothes kept her drunken, abusive leech of a mother from burning through Wayne’s paycheck. The only reason Wayne isn’t drowning in hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt is because Tally works a hundred hours a week and shovels every cent she makes into paying bills that aren’t hers. Her dad told me that. What could you possibly add that would make that woman look like garbage?”
His mother stood stiff and — more to the point — silent.
“That’s what I thought.” He stalked across the living room. “I’ll expect to be burned at the stake for my pot smoking, fornicating, divorce, and other moral transgressions when I get back. Make the fire big, though, because every fucking person in this town is going to have to jump in with me.”
He didn’t slam the front door on his way out, but only because he stuffed his foot in the gap and sacrificed his toes so he could brag about being the civil one.
How touching that the community had stepped up to carry on Bonnie Castle’s work of beating Tally into the dirt, figuratively if not physically. She had to get out of this town before they eroded any more of her spirit, go somewhere everybody didn’t know about every fart that had ever come out of your ass, where people only knew what you chose to tell them about your past and judged you based on what they saw in front of them.
Who outside this town could find fault with a hardworking, responsible, generous woman who put others before herself and never complained? Hell, anywhere but Westard, she’d be called a saint.
In Westard, they called her garbage.
His driven stride carried him down the street and around the corner in half the time it would have taken to cut through the woods, but even that was too slow. The light in the front window winked out just as he set foot in the driveway of Casa Castle.
He unclenched his fists and shook the stiffness out of his fingers. Maybe he’d walk into town and see if the rave was still going on. Tally needed sleep, not the burden of clearing up the debris field after his collision with his mother.
She also deserved to end her day knowing at least one person understood how wonderful she was.
She wouldn’t be asleep yet. It would take just a minute to walk his understanding to her window and say goodnight.
Chapter 26
Tally crawled onto her bed and collapsed with her face in the pillow. In a minute, she’d take off her clothes, turn out the light, and pull the sheet over herself.
Screw it. Sheets were fabric, clothes were fabric — same difference, and she couldn’t see the light with her eyeballs mashed into a pillow. She had a dress and a pair of shoes that might be worth a couple bucks at the thrift store in Marion to cover the damage the forty-watt bulb would do to the electric bill during the next six hours.
A tic-tic-tic at the window spooked sleep away. Sometimes an airborne leaf got stuck in an abandoned spiderweb and swung against the glass. She’d go around the house with a broom and knock all the crud off the windows... eventually. Tonight — well, the wind had to shift sometime.
Tic turned to tap, deliberate and insistent.
She considered ignoring the summons, but as it was inconceivable that anyone might not leap at the opportunity to give attention to the Ben Fielder, he would escalate until he was sure he’d made his presence known. It always started with a whisper, then a tap, then pelting her with little balls of paper, then yelling her name so everybody looked at her.
He could pull a fade whenever he wanted, but by god, when he was around, he damn well demanded her undivided attention.
Fuck that. She jammed her fists against her ears to banish him to the back of beyond.
But she couldn’t be allowed the luxury of ignoring him. If his banging on the glass didn’t wake her dad, the neighbor’s dog would when it took notice of the intruder and raised the alarm.
She rolled off the bed, yanked the
curtains apart, and jerked the window open.
He stood in the lone moonbeam that deigned to grace the yard. It probably followed him there, trying to learn something about shining from that stupid smile of his.
“What are you doing?” she asked as shrilly as a whisper allowed.
“Being impetuously romantic,” he whispered back.
A chain rattled as the dog shook off its snooze and lumbered over to investigate. A great, wet buffalo snuffle along the bottom of the fence turned to a low rumble.
She popped the bottom of the screen over the lip holding it in the frame. “Get in or go away before you set Roscoe off.”
Ben indicated his preference by removing the screen and propping it against the side of the house.
She didn’t stick around to help him over the sill, confident he could manage on his own. Hers wouldn’t be the first bedroom window he’d snuck into.
She fell back onto the bed. Her head hit the pillow like a bowling ball. “I’m asleep. If you put it in me, use a rubber.”
He wasn’t graceful about it, but he got inside. He took his time wiggling the window down, half a sticky inch at a time, so she barely heard the noise from three feet away. His voice was barely louder. “Are you trying to out-romance me, you smooth talker?”
All the romance a man needed was a pulse. “I won that contest the first time I played my awesome knockers.”
“You think that’s how you got me wrapped around your little finger?”
It hadn’t been her sunny disposition that made him try to put a ring on her. “I know that’s how I got all my fingers wrapped around you.”
The window met the sill with a soft thud. The lock squeaked. The curtains swished back into place.
“Wrong.”
Chapter 27
