by Liz Talley
“But what if you’d been kept in the dark? It’s not pleasant to be lied to.” The dual meaning lay there like a dirty, wet towel, staining the conversation with what he hadn’t intended. And that was the main reason he could never have a good relationship with his brother and Courtney. Too much icky.
Courtney sniffed, and he could tell she was trying to keep it together. “Just give me a little more time, that’s all. Time will fix this. The doctors feel like the new antibiotic is working. Ben’s blood work looked better this morning.”
“Is he still on the ventilator?”
Silence was the answer.
“Fine. I won’t say anything to the kids, but please consider telling Michael. He’s hurting with the unknown and that could be worse than knowing the truth.”
“The truth’s not always the best, Luke. Don’t you remember how much it hurts?”
Oh, he remembered. The truth about Ben and Courtney had crushed him, not so much with what he lost in a future with Courtney, but in the loss of his brother. Yeah, the truth hurt, but it was a hell of a lot better than lies. “Just think about it.”
“I will. How’s my girl?”
“Right now she’s digging for worms.”
“Worms?” The sob ended with a choke of laughter. “Well, I guess there are worse things. Why’s she digging for worms?”
“Well, Chris had a little accident yesterday. Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“An accident? How?”
“He forgot your neighbor had a greenhouse built in her side yard and took the dirt bike for a spin.”
“He’s not supposed to ride the bike without adult supervision.”
Lucas started to mutter, “No shit” but bit down on the smart-ass comment. “I was inside wiping Charlotte.”
“Charlotte knows how to wipe herself.”
He allowed silence to speak for itself.
“She likes attention.” Courtney sighed. “I wish I could have given you a handbook instead of a page.”
“No shit.”
“Well, there’s one thing I know about you, Lucas—you’re highly competent. I know you’re not comfortable taking care of three headstrong kids, but you’ve always been the kind to dig in and not give up. I’m sorry I had to ask you, but with your parents in Europe, I…I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to farm them out to friends. No one is that good of a friend…” Her voice faded.
“I don’t know shit from shinola about raising kids, but we’re all making do. I can handle it.”
“What about the greenhouse? Is Addy pissed?”
“No. We’re working on the repairs now. Chris’s dirt bike is in the garage, and I’ve hidden the key. We’re good.”
“Apologize to Addy for me and keep the receipts for the repairs. I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed. I gotta go. The nurse just motioned for me.”
Lucas hung up, not feeling comfortable with continuing to lie to his brother’s children but having no recourse. It wasn’t his call.
Lucas walked to where Michael sat tapping on his phone and looked down at the kid. “Guess we better start demoing the damaged parts of the greenhouse. I’ll grab Chris since he caused this mess. Can you dig the shears out of the bag so we can cut away the torn plastic?”
Michael looked up, angry, feral, a dog cornered. “Get them yourself.”
Lucas wanted to reach out and take the kid by the neck and shake him. He tried to remind himself that the kid was frustrated by the entire situation, mouthing off because he couldn’t control his world. Or at least that’s what it had said in the article “Decoding Your Teen.” “I think you need to-”
“I think you need to leave,” Michael interrupted.
“I wish I could. You think I’m having fun?” Lucas turned and walked away before he did something he regretted. Like do what his own father would have done which was taken off his belt.
But he wouldn’t or couldn’t do that. So instead, he walked to the front of his brother’s house. Away from Michael. Away from Chris, Charlotte, and the dotty old lady trilling encouraging words to the kids. Away from Addy and her prickly demeanor.
He needed air. And space. And peace. And quiet.
And maybe some bourbon.
Addy set the orchids she’d gathered on the fresh newspaper she’d spread out. She’d wrapped the roots in the wet print and tucked them beneath the blooming azalea bushes framing the back stoop until she could safely replant them in pots. Thankfully, Cal, the guy who made gorgeous pottery along with inexpensive clay pots, had plenty of selection. She always liked the simplicity of terra cotta for orchids.
For the last few minutes, she’d tried to forget about Lucas and the guilt she felt over being overly defensive. She hadn’t meant to play the role of cactus, but the fear inside her over the stupid wildflower tucked beneath her windshield wiper had hooked into her gut and twisted her intentions. When fear came knocking, it was hard to not open the door. So she’d lashed out at Lucas, which was ironic considering her first thought at discovering the “gift” was to call Lucas. Something about the man with broad shoulders and hard jaw struck something within her, something that told her he could give her shelter.
But she had run from him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lucas pocketing his phone and approaching Michael who sat sullenly beside the lumber. A few words were exchanged and then Lucas turned and walked away, moving to the front of the Finlay house. Toward his truck. Something in the slant of his shoulders had her dumping the orchids and following him.
Surely he wasn’t going to leave?
Sure, dealing with kids was tough, but he’d made a commitment, right?
He must have heard the crunching of the gravel beneath her feet, but he didn’t slow up or turn his head. She breathed a sigh of relief when he passed his big truck and hooked around the front of the house. Lucas climbed the front porch steps and sank into a rocking chair that needed a new coat of paint.
Hesitating on the steps, she looked up at him, not knowing what to say.
Lucas studied the floating clouds beyond her head. After a few seconds ticked by, he said, “This was a mistake. I’ve got to get out of here. I’m not the right person to take care of these kids.”
Addy started to open her mouth to deliver platitudes but snapped it closed. Truth was usually better in these circumstances. “Maybe you’re not cut out for it, but you’re all they have.”
“I need clean air and a clear landscape sitting outside my door. I can’t breathe here.”
Something about the longing in his voice touched her. He felt trapped by the world. She knew a little about being confined to a smaller world.
A full minute ticked by as the sounds of the neighborhood waned and an even smaller world was formed right there on the front porch. A line of black ants squiggled across the top porch step. A spider clung to a web in the camellia bush, and the rocking chair creaked with the slight motion Lucas gave it. Small, closed in. Intimate in a way she hadn’t experienced in a while. Raw emotion pulsed, and she knew it was seldom Lucas admitted defeat, admitted any weakness.
He didn’t look at her, at where she stood slightly to his left, near the line of overgrown bushes that had needed pruning back in the fall. Addy knew at that moment Lucas was mentally picking up the scattered bits of his emotions and trying to tuck them into the strong box of his soul.
Like recognized like.
Something inside her stirred, then stilled. Certainty of what she needed to say settled in her gut.
“I’m sorry about the way I acted earlier. Something happened on Wednesday that shook me up, and I allowed a remnant of that emotion to spill over into today. Wasn’t well done of me.”
He shrugged away her apology. “No problem. You were right. I don’t have any business prying into your life. We’re not friends. We’re just people stuck in this situation. Bottom line.”
Something in the casual dismissal pricked her. She didn’t want to be nothing to him, and
that surprised her all over again. She took a deep breath. “I’d like to think we are friends.”
His gaze swept to meet hers. “I guess we are. In a way.”
“I’m about to be vulnerable with you, and that’s not easy for me, but for some reason, you need to know who I am, to understand why I acted the way I did when you pushed me.”
She saw the muscles in his neck move as he swallowed, as his gaze reflected a question. She didn’t understand the desire to tell him about Robbie. Maybe she needed him to know that parts of her were broken and might never be fixed.
“When I was in college, and home for the weekend, a neighbor—a guy I thought I knew—broke into my house, held a knife to my throat, and sexually assaulted me.”
Lucas’s hands tightened on the rocker. “What?”
Acid ate at her stomach. Her hands trembled so she tucked them behind her before meeting Lucas’s stunned gaze. “When I was a senior in high school, I had this need inside me to be rebellious. I had always been a good girl, the quintessential overachiever with a pretty face and a bright future. There was this older guy who lived down the street who caught my eye. He was five years older, cute in a boyish way, rode a Harley, and sometimes hung out at my dad’s garage. He flirted with me, I flirted back, and then one night I snuck out my bedroom window and climbed on his Harley with him.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “You seem so levelheaded. I can’t imagine you sneaking out with an older guy.”
“Of course. I’ve changed. But we all have some wildness inside us. I just chose to be wild with the totally wrong guy.”
Silence sat for a moment.
“Eventually, being a naughty girl got old. I didn’t really like him as much as I liked the feeling of being daring, of having some say-so in my own life. Eventually, I stopped opening that window. But Robbie wouldn’t accept I wasn’t into him. I tried to tell him I had prom coming up and college. I told him we had no future together. He didn’t like it, but he seemed to understand. But then….”
“What did he do?” Lucas’s voice was soft as the day, like sunlight falling on the emerging green of spring.
“At first he said ugly things. Then he showed up at my high school and watched me with my friends. He slashed my tires, wrote me violent letters, and called my cellphone and hung up several times a day. I didn’t tell my parents because I knew they’d be so disappointed. Oh, and because I’d be grounded for life.” She offered him a wry smile.
He didn’t smile back.
She took a deep breath. “It wasn’t constant. He got a girlfriend. I went to college. For a few years, he moved away. Seemed like that ugliness was over. But one day, my senior year of college, I came home and he was in my dad’s garage. I brushed him off. He didn’t like it. Then the stuff started up again. He started calling me, leaving messages through my dad, ones that seemed innocuous, but I knew what he was doing. My daddy used to call me his brown-eyed girl, and Robbie twisted that into being his brown-eyed Susan. He used to pick those flowers for me. He would leave them on my car when I was home. One day I found one on my pillow. Just stuff that scared me.”
“You didn’t tell your parents?”
Addy shook her head. “Sounds stupid, but I felt like I deserved it. I had disobeyed my parents by letting Robbie into my life. He’d been my first, um, you know, sexual experience. I was ashamed, and I just hoped eventually he’d get tired and see that I wasn’t interested and move on. At that time, I didn’t understand what stalking was. How that mindset works.”
“Then one day I came home from school because I had a doctor’s appointment nearby. No one was home, and I didn’t think twice about climbing into the shower. That’s when he broke in. Luckily, my father had left something at the house—a flyer he needed to print for the Rotary Club. Funny how I remember exactly what was on that flyer—a crazy-looking clown advertising their charity circus breakfast. Seems silly to remember the way the clown looked, but I can’t seem to forget anything about that day. The soap I’d used in the shower, the way my favorite jeans lay crumpled on the bathroom floor, the way the blade felt at my throat. I got away, ran into the kitchen, and grabbed a knife. I’d seen too many B movies and thought I could protect myself, but Robbie took it from me. The knife cut me here.” She rolled up her right sleeve to reveal the pink line that ran from midforearm to her bicep. It had faded, but the memories had not. Then she pulled down the collar of her shirt to show him the scar on her shoulder. “And here.”
“Addy.” Lucas leaned forward, hands clutching the broad arm of the chair. He looked as if he might get up, as if he needed to do something. He also looked like she’d pulled a rug from beneath him.
She tugged her sleeve down over the reminder of what Robbie Guidry had given her which was not just the wound but fear itself. “He pinned me down in the kitchen, touched me, did things that I had to have a lot of therapy for.” She stopped because she had to. Sucking in a deep breath, she averted her eyes.
“You can stop if you want. If it’s too hard.” Lucas’s words were like hot tea and sunshine in the darkness of her soul.
“No, I’m good. My dad saved me. He hit Robbie with the baseball bat my brother left in the corner of the kitchen. My mother must have told Jay a million times to take that bat to his room. Thank goodness my brother had selective hearing. All this happened long ago, but it changed me. I’m cautious, and I fight being afraid every day. I go to group therapy and function quite well, but the fear sometimes jumps out at me. It’s just part of who I am.”
“Jesus, Addy.”
“I don’t know why I told you. It’s not something you tell people who are just in a ‘situation together.’”
His face softened. “Yeah, sorry about that. But I appreciate you trusting me.”
“Watching you struggle, feeling trapped, and very much, I don’t know, alone? Guess I wanted you to understand why I’m private. Why I’m not a girl who can open herself to just any guy.”
Lucas watched her, his hands still clasping the sides of the chair. He looked shell shocked. And a little angry. “It explains a lot. The way you reacted to me the day Michael crashed into the greenhouse, the way you kept looking at the door that night when I came for the kids. I’m sorry that happened to you.”
She pressed her lips together, embarrassment creeping in. Or maybe not embarrassment so much as vulnerability. She hated feeling the eternal victim.
He lifted a hand and ran it through his dark hair, making it stick up, softening his normally hard look. “So is this guy still in prison?”
She nodded, anxiety once again filling her at the thought of Robbie Guidry and the scare tactics he employed from behind bars. Seemed ironic he could still bait her from that locked cell.
An overwhelming feeling crept over her. She shouldn’t have said anything to Lucas, should have marched her hind end up those stairs, changed into work clothes, and rebuilt the stupid greenhouse with him. Good fences make good neighbors… even if he wasn’t her true neighbor.
After all, what did she care if he thought her a rude bitch? He might pack up and leave the next day, so why bother giving him a glimpse into her world?
“Good. I hope he rots.”
Addy swallowed the inclination to give him more details. She’d said enough. The less she gave Lucas, the more she held of herself. “So now you know why I get a little rattled when strangers burst into my world. I try not to allow the past to affect me, but I accept sometimes it does.”
He nodded, his gaze dipping. She knew his thoughts. She dressed to fade into the background. Her long gray dress wasn’t particularly flattering and the comfy black Mary Janes weren’t anything close to sexy. She’d pulled her dark hair into a low ponytail and tasteful silver hoops dangled from her ears. Her only cosmetics consisted of a good moisturizer, under eye concealer, and cherry Chapstick. Plain and unassuming. Designed to be overlooked.
So different from that seventeen-year-old girl with her teased hair, red lips, and tight clothing who ha
d climbed onto Robbie Guidry’s motorcycle. The Chalmette High School homecoming queen had faded into a shadow of her former self.
But Addy embraced that change. She owned her neurosis about not standing out and drawing attention to herself. Many would say she limited herself, but she valued comfort over being some symbol. So she didn’t buy miniskirts that highlighted her trim legs, wear pretty blouses that plunged, or brush on sparkly eye makeup that made her brown eyes more golden. Once upon a time, she’d loved those things, but she couldn’t make her brain understand that it wasn’t her fault Robbie had done what he’d done. She merely felt safer not drawing attention to herself.
“I’m sorry he hurt you,” Lucas said, standing and crossing his arms.
“Yeah, I am, too. But our past doesn’t dictate our future. It’s hard to remember that when those feelings creep in and take over.”
Lucas held himself silent, a lone figure once again contemplating the horizon with its puffy clouds. “The past defines us, becomes part of us. We can’t change that.”
“No, we can’t. We have to accept what happened and try to be the best we can and still be comfortable within our parameters. That’s what I do.” She glanced down at her unpainted nails, noting the dirt beneath her pinky one.
“Thank you for sharing your past with me.”
“I wanted you to see it wasn’t you. It’s me.”
“That’s a breakup line.”
Addy smiled. “Yeah, but it stands true in this situation. I sometimes protect myself when I don’t need to.”
“I see that now.”
“So you ready to repair a greenhouse?”
He nodded, but the troubled expression on his face didn’t ease. His escaping to the porch wasn’t only because she’d lashed out at his questions. The kids and the situation he found himself in had pecked at his confidence and sent him scurrying for breathing room.
Addy propped a Mary Jane on the bottom step and gave him a little smile. “Ready to double team some kids?”
Lucas shook his head. “I’m so not cut out for this.”
