When I see him emerge from his new apartment, I latch on to him as tight as I could. His glasses almost fall off of his strong face as he wept. I hugged him so tightly when I saw him walk out of that prison too. We hugged each other and cried to each other for a very long time. We walked to the car, and he sat in the back with Anna. He talked baby talk to her the entire trip. Janie and I smiled at each other, and she reached over from the steering wheel and squeezed my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay,” She says with her eyes on the road, with a tear in her throat. She takes my hand and holds it for a while.
We pass the threshold of the familiar cemetery. I haven’t been here since that very dark day. We find the tree where the grave is, and park the car on the side of the dirt road. I walk by a few old tombstones and see the white tombstone we’re looking for.
I hold my child against my chest. A single tear rolls down my face. My father puts his arm around my shoulder and says, “She was a very wonderful person, and I fell in love with her every single day.”
PATRICIA RENE GREENE BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, it reads. My father lays down flowers over her stone. The grass hasn’t yet grown over plot where my father’s empty casket used to lay. His tombstone no longer bears a year for his death. When he does pass, he will lay next to my mother. Janie places her flower on top. I kiss her gravestone as we stand there, crying silently. Anna starts to giggle and smile as if she’s being played with.
In the recent excavation, my father requested to collect the belongings inside before it was sent back to the military for a real soldier’s death. He gave me a key that was once hidden inside my childhood journal. It was a set of safety deposit box keys that was buried in a lockbox that my mother had put in the coffin. He had left my mother clues, including a note in their joint deposit box. The other key was lost. He explained to me that the reason he couldn’t tell him where the money was, was because he didn’t want my grandparents that he had slain to die in vain. If he had given up the money, they would have. He said he didn’t honestly believe Rob would kill my mother. After he actually did kill her, he didn’t want Rob to win. In the end, he didn’t win.
He wanted me to retrieve the contents because he had put it in my name. If there’s money in it, I don’t know what to do with it. I have an appointment with the bank this afternoon.
We leave the cemetery, as tears still flow from tired eyes. We drive to a hotel nearby. My dad and Janie watch Ana, and I arrive at the bank at 1:32 pm. I wait for the teller to sign me in. The chair I’m sitting in has patterns on the armrest, and I trace them with my fingertip. I start to think about Ward and his smile. I think about his sultry voice. I start to think about the last time I saw him. In the hospital, he was being rushed to surgery. I was helpless. I wanted to be with him. They had to restrain me to keep my IVs from coming out.
I was so lost in thought, I didn’t hear the teller come up to me. “Miss Greene?”
“Oh, sorry hello,” I snapped out of it. I picked up the large green beach bag from the ground that I had with me. Her blonde hair is pinned so tightly to her head, it’s a wonder the teller doesn’t look like her face is pulled with it. She signs me in at the desk, we walk over to the gated vault, and I give her my key. The key fits into box number 572. It is a very large door that swings open. I help her pull it out, and I walk to the safety box room, close the door, and lock it. After I lock the door, I turn around and stare at the green metal box for a minute. It was heavy, so there’s something in it. My father told me nothing, and I didn’t want him to tell me. I wanted to know if this money that my mother had died for, and my life had gotten flipped around by; was real.
Shaky fingers flip back the latch, and I slowly open the top. Neatly placed rows of strapped hundred dollar bills were secured at the bottom. Each strap showed ten thousand dollars. It’s real. I reach down and pull a stack of old bills out. They look like they were just printed yesterday, but the date on each one is over twenty years old. I decide to take a few packs and shove them in my bag. Almost eighty thousand dollars. In the back of my head, guilt ravages my mind. This is blood money. I push the thought out of my head, and justify it immediately when I think of my daughter, Ward, my father and my mother. I decide to keep the rest in the box and have the teller put it back. I signed out and left the bank.
I get back to the hotel and tell my father.
“There has to be at least a quarter of a million dollars in that box,” I said.
“I’ve never counted it, and I haven’t even touched it since I put it in that box.”
“I know people are going to wonder where the hell this money came from,” I say sternly.
“That’s why you use it in small quantities, and never deposit more than ten thousand in the bank,” He sat on the hotel bed, staring at his hands that are placed in his lap.
“I didn’t take it all, I took enough to get us through for a while.”
“Us?” He looks up.
“Yes, us,” I say confused.
“That money is my gift to you and my granddaughter. I will be just fine here. I have a new job, new apartment, and I want to stay close to your mother. I was hoping you’d come here. If you don’t, I support any decision you make.”
I reach into the bag and pull out two packs, twenty thousand dollars, “Here,” I reached my arm out.
He put his hand up to me, and pushed the money back towards me, and stood up. “Listen, Hayden, I’m trying to make things right. I’m trying to turn all of this around. I want to get back on my own two feet. I know the last few years have been very difficult for both of us, but you and your daughter need it. You need to make a life for yourself, and I want my baby girls to have the best possible future.”
“Please just take something. I don’t want you to go hungry again. I know you were struggling, and this should last you for a very long time. It would give me peace of mind to know that my father, who has been through so much, is comfortable and safe. I know they’re still out there. I know they’ll still come after us. Especially since we put away their leader.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about them since Rob is locked up, the brotherhood is either falling apart or struggling to find another leader. If they’re trying to find another leader, they’ll fight each other over it, and will eventually fall apart. We are safe for now, but I need you to think about keeping yourself and that baby safe. Do not worry about me, I can handle it.”
“Please, take it.”
“Stubborn like your mother, fine,” He snatches the money from my hands and puts it on the dresser in a playful manner.
“Thank you,” I smile and hug him.
We make the trip back to the panhandle in the morning after I’m done nursing. My father drove the first half, and we dropped him off at his apartment. I stayed in the back with Annabelle.
Exhausted, we finally arrive at home around dinner time. Ms. Gar greets us and takes Annabelle. She loves her so much. It has been a while since Ms. Gar had been in the house by herself for that long. Chase loves his new wheelchair. He has the biggest smile in the world sewn into his face when he sits in it, as we wheel him around. Jessica and Hannah have graduated high school, and both were accepted to the same college and had gotten an apartment together in Atlanta; along with Hannah’s daughter. Janie and I have converted the main floor toddler’s room into a shared bedroom. It has a full bathroom in it, and we decorated it with pink zebra items.
After everyone is down for the night, and Annabelle is fed and changed, I walk up two flights of stairs. I pass the shower door and turn to the right. I stand at the door and put my palm on it. I close my eyes, and hear him in my head, telling me he loves me. The door opens with a squeak. A familiar room comes to life when I flip on the light. Everything is the same. I sit on his bed and run my hands over his blue comforter. The rain pelts the window behind me. I bring up a stained white pillow to my face and sink my nose in it. I smell him. I start crying softly as I remember his face the last night I saw him.
I cried for hours in that hospital bed while Janie, Jessica, Hannah, and Ms. Gar tried to comfort me. I wasn’t allowed to see him, even after I was discharged from the hospital. He had survived the surgery to remove the bullet from his chest, and when he recovered he was whisked away to jail for kidnapping and other charges. The news didn’t even tell the whole story. They said I was a classic ‘Stockholm Victim’, and they didn’t even bother mentioning the connection between Ward and Rob, and the Brotherhood at the time. Just in recent months, they started to air Rob’s trial, along with other convicted members of the cryptic brotherhood, and the truth between us finally came to light; after the media painted Ward as a demonic human being.
The day Ward’s trial started was the day I found out I was pregnant, and it was an extremely high-risk pregnancy. I was bed ridden for weeks. They announced the sentencing two months after the trial. I was supposed to be a witness at the trial. I couldn’t, so I had to do a written testimony. His lawyer initially brought forth the connection between Ward, his involvement in the brotherhood, and the vicious twenty-year journey of the money that now sits in my bag. He portrayed Ward as a victim, forced to participate in the atrocious acts leading up to his demise. Ward’s lawyer apparently did a very good job re-painting his image to the jury. Ward’s second letter to Janie helped also. It read, “I am being forced to. Please forgive me.” He received one year in prison, plus eighteen years, time served.
I’ve written him ten letters. I told him about his daughter, and how beautiful she was. I’ve been denied visitation many times. Somehow, I think it is the remnants of the brotherhood lashing out on us because we put away their leader. These conspiracy theories spin in my head every day. He hasn’t written back yet, and I pray that he has gotten them at least. Because he’s an adult now, Ms. Gar is no longer his guardian, so she can’t do anything about it.
I put Ward’s pillow back in place, get up, straighten the bed up, and walk over to his closet where his clothes still hang. I take out his black shirt with the skull on it, walk to the door, turn the light off, and shut the door.
I stare at my beautiful daughter while she sleeps in her white crib for hours. I promise her I will always do right by her. I will never lie to her. I will never try and cover up anything. I decide that’s the best thing to do. I gently stroke her black hair to the side as she stirs a little, and then smiles. This brings me to tears.
My mind flashes back to the day when I found out I was pregnant. I was violently ill for about a week when I realized I hadn’t gotten my period in almost two months. I thought it was just stress. Janie convinced me to buy a pregnancy test, and I did. I was nervous. I knew there were a few horrible possibilities. I did have sex with Trevor, and Ward. The only time Ward and I had unprotected sex was in the storm shelter, but the haunting thought of my rapist being the father loomed over my head until the day she was born. There was no doubt in my mind she was Ward’s daughter as soon as I looked at her beautiful face. She was born three weeks early, and I still remember the day.
Janie and Ms. Gar ran around the house like a couple of mad women. Getting this bag, filling that bag. I knew it wasn’t the fake contractions I had because these were closer together. Being exhausted, and in labor for over twelve hours was reduced to nothing when I heard her little cry, and saw her bloodied face on my chest. When I was recovering, and learning to breastfeed, I saw Ward's face on the television screen. He looked beaten and tired. The memory of that haunting picture brings me to tears.
Janie must have heard me sobbing, because she is suddenly at my side, on the floor. Without saying a word, she hugs me. We rock back and forth for a while, crying in each other’s space. When Ward is finally released, I don’t know how I will react. I’m hoping he has read my letters and knows we had a child together. The alternative thought is he read my letters, and refused to read them or return one. So many possibilities and waiting for the truth is killing me inside each day.
Janie and I fall asleep on the cold ground for about an hour before Anna starts crying for food. I take my sweet baby in my bed and feed her, change her, and put her back to sleep. I’ve learned how to be a mother in such a short period of time, and I am so protective of her. I don’t want her to hurt. It kills me every time she cries, even though it’s normal. I feel like something is terribly wrong when she does, and I will do anything in my power to make her feel better. I often dream of an alternative universe where Ward is there by my side, holding my hand, as I push. I wonder every single day how it would be like to have him here for her first feeding, her first steps, or her first words. Having him here with us would make my little family complete. Even though my daughter fills up most of my heart, there is a little piece left inside for Ward. I’m also worried how he’d react if he didn’t know about her this whole time, and suddenly rejects both of us. That would tear me apart. These thoughts are all I have to go on right now, so I just suck it up and focus on putting away that scumbag.
I get a call a week later that makes my heart stop. Ward is being released in two weeks, and he needs someone to pick him up. I’m in the kitchen with Anna in her bouncy chair cooing away. I look at her and start crying. I pick her up and hold her in my arms as she wobbles her head around. I bounce with her as I cry.
Janie walks in from the study room, “What’s wrong? Postpartum?” She jokes.
I shake my head, no, and through tears, I manage to say, “I just got a phone call from Ward’s lawyer, he’s being released the Tuesday after next.”
TWENTY-SIX
That Tuesday, we pile everyone in the van with a giddy beat in our hearts. Before we leave, I go into the bathroom. In the mirror, I look into eyes that have seen some abhorrent things. I stare at myself for a few minutes before reassuring myself that everything is going to be okay. I prepare myself for everything that may happen. My stomach is in knots as we drive out onto the newly-paved road in front of the house. On the way, we pass an old wooden house with an air conditioning unit jutting out from the front window. The ‘for rent’ sign has been up there for three months now since Trevor was sent to jail. The twenty-mile trip takes a lifetime. Trevor tried to contact me a few weeks before he was arrested, which violated my new restraining order I’ve filed against him at the time. He pathetically apologized. I have found a way to forgive him, even though it was hard. It will be easy seeing those two men behind bars where they belong.
I focus on Annabelle, and her sleeping face gives me comfort.
We turn in the parking lot, and I don’t know how to feel right now. The fear takes over me. Has he moved on? It’s been a year. Is he angry that I wasn’t at his trial? Does he know that he has a daughter? Did he get any of my letters?
“Can everyone stay in here with Anna, please? I want to see him first,” I say. Janie and Ms. Gar look back at me and nod their heads okay.
The parking lot crunches under my flip flops as I walk towards the office. I see Ward’s lawyer in the distance, and from around the other parked cars, a figure emerges. He drops the bag from his shoulder when he sees me. I start running the ten yards to him, as he runs to me. A lifetime passes before I reach him. When I finally do reach him, I jump into his arms. His tightly-gripped hug makes the tears come faster. My legs wrap around his waist, and his more muscular arms hold them there as we kiss for the first time in over a year. It feels so good to be in his arms again. I feel my flip flops slip off and hit the ground behind him.
My bare feet find the ground. He holds my face still as he kisses my lips. “I’ve missed you so much,” he says as I find my shoes.
“I’ve missed you too, you have no idea,” I continue to kiss him.
“Did you get any of my letters?” He asks.
“No, did you get any of mine? I sent you ten,” I say.
“No, I thought you had forgotten about me,” He said.
“I could never forget about you,” I make him smile.
“Then why didn’t you come to my trial? You were supposed to testi
fy,” He asks, visibly hurt.
“You didn’t get my letters, so you don’t know,” I think out loud, “I think that was done on purpose,” I say, trying to delay the inevitable. I don’t know how he’ll take this news.
“Probably,” He shrugs, “But why-“
I interrupted him before he could finish. “Come to the van, I have someone I want you to meet,” I say nervously. He agrees, noticeably nervous. He picks up his bag, and we walk to the van with our fingers tightly intertwined. I notice his head is shaved. I also notice he’s bulkier than before, his muscles are noticeably larger.
Before we reach the car, I turn in front of him and say, “Wait here,” nervously.
“What’s going on?” He asks, reasonably confused. I put my finger up to him, as I went around the other side of the van, pulled the door open, and unbuckled our daughter. I wrap her in her pink blanket, set her on my chest, and walk around the van with my head holding her head in place. “You had a baby?” He asks quietly as I stand in front of him.
“Yeah,” I say, “Her name is Annabelle Lee, and she’s your daughter.” My voice is weak. My lip starts to tremble as I look up into his eyes. “I know this is a lot to take in right now, and I’m sorry you didn’t know sooner. I’m sorry you had to find out this way, Ward, and I-” I don’t know what else to say, so I just cry.
“Can,” He pauses, “Can I hold her?” I shake my head yes through the tears.
“She’s your daughter, of course,” I say through my blubbering. I lift her and help him adjust her in his arms. He looks down at her, and tears start welling up in his eyes.
“Annabelle Lee? Like my sister?” He asks.
“Yes, I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s perfect,” he says as she coos. He strokes her face gently and rocks her back and forth. He takes his other arm that’s not supporting her, and hugs me, then kisses my forehead. He takes a step back and looks at me with a face that is now dampened. What he says next breaks my heart a little, “I have a family now.”
Hot & Cold: Toxic Love Page 22
