“So that’s it?” Her tone hardened, her voice gaining volume. “A few days of taking Frankie to the park and out for ice cream and you’re done?”
Instead of yelling back, he nodded. “Probably best for everyone that way.”
“Bullshit. It’s just best for you.” She said, throwing another bottle in the trash. The curse jerked his gaze toward hers. He seemed surprised that she’d even think the word, much less say it out loud. “You’re leaving for the same reason you left before—because you’re too selfish and lazy to stay.”
“Really?” he said, sounding irritated all of a sudden. “We’re having this conversation again?”
“You think I like it here? You think I don’t have options? That I’m stuck here?” The sound of another smashed bottle punctuated her words. “I stay for them—and if you were a halfway decent human being, you’d stay for Frankie.” She had no idea why she was saying it—any of it. Hadn’t he been decent to her? Hadn’t he just helped her? None of that mattered. Right now, all that mattered was that he was leaving his sister behind and that made him a coward.
All he did was pull his hands out of his pockets but like before, in the parking lot of the diner, she fought the urge to flinch away from him. “But I’m not, am I?” he said, his lip curled up at her in a vicious sneer. “I’m not a decent human being—not even halfway.” His anger sucked the air out of the room, creating a vacuum that made it hard to breathe. “I’m a sack-of-shit loser who fucks up everything he touches, right? Right?”
Before she could answer him, her mother’s bedroom door opened down the hall. A few seconds later, Allen Wickem, one of Michael’s old drug buddies, strolled into the room, zipping up his fly. “I knew you’d change your mind,” he said, when he saw Michael standing there, shooting him a grin through the mess of lank brown hair that crowded around his face. He smelled like her mother. Marijuana, cheap vodka, and even cheaper sex.
“She’s all warmed up and waiting…” he stalled out; his gaze shifting to follow Michael’s which was still aimed at her. The grin on his face morphed into a leer. He gathered his greasy hair and tied it back with the rubber band he kept around his wrist, revealing pock-marked cheeks that were hollowed out by too many drugs and not enough sleep.
“Hey, Melissa,” Allen slurred, digging his hand into the front pocket of his dirty jeans. “I still got some money left if you wanna take a ride on my—” The loose change in his hand pinged and rolled across the kitchen floor as he was grabbed by his throat and given a rough shake. A nickel bounced off the leg of her pants and bowled along the floor before it dropped into one of the floor vents. She didn’t watch it roll. All she could do was stand perfectly still and stare, confused by what was happening in front of her.
“Apologize,” Michael growled, giving Allen another shake, hard enough that she was sure she heard his neck crack.
“What the fuck,” Allen gurgled, stunned as he clawed at the sudden grip around his neck. “I was just jokin’—”
“Am I laughing?” Blunt, steady fingers constricted, digging in tight enough to cut off Allen’s air supply. “Am I fucking laughing?” Michael whispered in his ear.
“No… no, Mikey,” he said, his Adam’s apple scraping against the vise-like grip Michael had on his throat. “You ain’t laughin’.”
“Apologize.” He said it again, his eyes never leaving hers.
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry, Meliss…” Allen croaked, his eyes wheeling around to find her, bulging in their sockets. “Mikey, I can’t breathe—I can’t—”
“If you ever come back here—if you even so much as look at her again,” Michael whispered in his friend’s ear, his tone dead calm, his eyes as flat and black as stones. “I’ll find you and break your goddamned neck.” Before Allen could stutter out a response, Michael spun around, tossing his friend in the direction of the front door.
Allen stumbled into it, knocking over the Louisville Slugger she kept propped in the corner. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He scrambled to pick it up, putting it back in its place. “I’m sorry,” he said a final time, throwing her a look over his shoulder, eager for her approval, before scrambling out the door.
For a moment they just stood there, neither of them moving.
“What was that?” she breathed quietly. Her hands rattled against her thighs, hanging from shock-slackened arms. “Why did you do that?”
“Shit…” The word came out, more sigh than curse. He shook his head, hand rubbing the back of his neck, jaw set at a dangerous angle. “I’m sorry. I just—”
She aimed her gaze at the floor. It was scattered with change and beer caps. Fast food wrappers and empty bottles. Things people discarded that no longer served a purpose. She thought about the nickel that’d rolled into the floor vent. It would rattle now, every time she turned on the heat. Remind her of what had just happened and how it got there.
“You’re still the same.” She looked up at him now. “No matter how different you think you are—you’re still the same.”
The look on his face said he agreed with her and he nodded, like she was right to be afraid of him, but when he opened his mouth, all he said was, “See you around.” He followed his friend out the door without bothering to look at her.
As soon as the door slammed shut behind him, Melissa moved. Unsure of where to go or what do, she stooped over to pick up a wadded up burger wrapper by her foot. Behind her, a sound reached out from the dark living room, the flick of a lighter followed by a plume of cigarette smoke.
“Sure you ain’t fuckin’ him?”
Pete. He’d seen the whole thing. Heard it all. Cheeks burning with shame, she dropped the wad of paper into the trashcan and turned toward the hall. Another sound followed her, pushing her to move faster and faster.
Laughter. Brutal and rough. Pete was laughing at her.
Telling her exactly what he thought of her.
She closed her bedroom door on the sound, thumbing the privacy latch before she slid the security chain across the jam. Fifteen minutes ago, seeing it made her feel safe. Now it made her feel stupid. A couple of locks weren’t going to keep Pete out. Nothing would.
Suddenly, Monday seemed a lifetime away.
ELEVEN
SHE DIDN’T SLEEP. Spent all night staring at the clock and listening to Pete move around the trailer. He walked up and down the hallway for what seemed like forever before he stopped outside her bedroom door to give the cheap doorknob and push lock a jiggle. It suddenly popped open and the door too, banging against the security chain she’d slid into place before she’d gone to bed.
“When I’m ready, there ain’t nothin’ that’ll keep me from it,” he said, laughing at her, face pressed into the wedge, the short length of chain holding the door closed strung against his cheek. “You ain’t stoppin’ me and neither will these shitty locks.”
She didn’t answer him. Didn’t want to antagonize him. She just lay there, waiting for him to kick the door in. To get it over with. He didn’t. He just stared at her for a few moments before he walked away, laughing.
So, she didn’t sleep. Didn’t move. Just stared at the gap his absence had created, willing time to move forward.
As soon as the clock said 5:30 AM she got up. Pete had been quiet for a few hours. Probably passed out in the living room or in her mother’s bed. Either way, she didn’t want to risk it. Dressing as quietly as possible, she woke the twins, remembering to slip the chain off the door before she left, out the window, to carry them through the woods to Mrs. Kirkland’s.
She made it to the diner by 6:45. Dale was there to offer her a grunt of approval before he disappeared into his office, leaving her and Tommy alone in awkward silence. She watched him for a few seconds while he scraped the grill and switched on the fryers.
“Morning,” he said to her over his shoulder like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t disappeared yesterday without so much as a word to her. Like they hadn’t been fighting the night before that.
&nbs
p; “Good morning,” she answered back, her tone stiff and polite. “How’s your mom?” she added and the question gave him pause. He stopped scraping and looked at her.
“She’s good,” he said over his shoulder. “Getting ready to leave for some kind of artist residency in New Mexico.” He cracked a couple of eggs onto the grill. “You want bacon in it?” he called through the pass-through. Confused, Melissa shouldered her way through the door while she tied her apron.
They opened at 7 AM on Sundays and there was usually a line of people at the door waiting to get in for breakfast before they hurried off to the nine o’clock church service. The fact that Michael O’Shea was sitting at the otherwise deserted lunch counter should have surprised her—but it didn’t.
“Come on—that’s not a real question, is it?” Michael answered back while he watched her over the rim of his coffee cup. He sounded like himself. Not the boy who’d installed her lock or defended her against his scumbag friend. He sounded like the old him. The Michael who drank too much and ended up in handcuffs. This Michael she knew. This Michael she knew how to deal with.
Tommy laughed while she stared back at Michael, trying to figure out what he was doing. Why he was here. He seemed to know it because he chuckled in her direction while he set his cup back in its saucer. “Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart,” he said to her. “I just stopped in for a breakfast burrito before I hit the road.”
An ugly, red flush stung her cheeks. To combat it, she pulled a to-go cup from the stack under the counter and filled it with strong, black coffee. She set the cup in front of him along with a plastic lid, and a pile of sugar packets and creamer cups. “For the road,” she said, her tone pointed and sharp.
He laughed at her again.
Just then, Tommy pushed through the swinging door, two large, foil-wrapped burritos in his hand. “Dale says they’re on the house,” he said, sliding them into a white paper bag and setting it on the counter next to the coffee. “He lost a son in Desert Storm.”
Michael stood, offering the both a grim smile. “I remember... tell him I said thanks,” he said, rolling down the top of the bag before fitting the lid she’d tossed on the counter onto the to-go cup. He took both and moved toward the door while Tommy headed for the kitchen.
It was seven o’clock so she followed him to the door to open it up for the day. Through the Mylared glass, Melissa could see a tight cluster of people waiting to get in. She reached for the deadbolt and twisted the lock to open the door. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said to her, leaning against the glass to push the door open with his shoulder.
“You’re welcome,” she said after him, feeling stiff and awkward as she watched him move across the parking lot for a few moments. Regulars filed in and she got to work, heading toward the counter where several people were already seated.
Lifting Michael’s cup from the spot he’d been sitting she started to wipe the counter but stopped short. Under the saucer was a hundred-dollar bill—the same bill she’d returned to him yesterday—something scrawled in heavy black marker across its face.
It wasn’t a mistake.
TERRY called in sick, so her breakfast/lunch shift stretched out until well after dark. It was just her on the floor and Tommy at the grill with Dale bussing tables. When she finally was able to flip the closed sign over and lock the door, her feet were throbbing. Including the money Michael had left for her, she had over four hundred dollars in tips stuffed into her apron pocket.
“Go on home, girl,” Dale told her, taking the cloth she was using to wipe down the counter out of her hand and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll take care of the rest—get some sleep.”
It was as close to a thank you as she’d ever gotten from Dale and she took it with a nod and grateful smile. “Thanks, Dale,” she said. “See tomorrow after school.”
“Go ahead and take it off—Terry’ll be here, even if I have to drag her in by her hair.” He was rubbing down ketchup bottles while he spoke. “Still need you for the day after though—Tuesday’s Bible study.”
Every Tuesday, the Baptist church’s women bible study group came in for lunch and gossip after they spent the morning extolling each other’s virtues. None of them liked her. She nodded, pushing a flat smile across her face. “I’ll be here.”
She lifted her purse from the hook and slung it onto her shoulder, moving slow—trying to give Tommy a chance to offer to walk her home. He didn’t. He just scraped away at the grill in front of him like his life depended on it. She left without saying goodbye.
Forty-five minutes later, she mounted the rickety porch steps with two toddlers in tow—Jason dozing, cheek pressed against her shoulder while she pulled a half-asleep Riley up the steps after her. Even exhausted, she insisted on walking on her own.
Inside it was dark and quiet. Sundays were slow for Kelly—family men tended to stay with their families. Lust-bitten high schoolers had school in the morning. Thinking of school and the homework she still hadn’t gotten around to, she shuffled in and closed the door as quietly as she could. Things seemed calm. She wanted to keep them that way. Homework could wait. Now she just wanted to rest.
Tucking the twins into the playpen in her room, she made quick work of gathering her tips—or most of them anyway. Leaving several random bills in her apron pocket, she stuffed the rest into the hole in her closet wall before she made her way back to the kitchen. She was tempting fate, she knew—but she was hungry. The last thing she’d eaten was half a club sandwich at lunchtime, stealing a bite here and there between tables. It was after ten o’clock now.
Opening the fridge, she remembered that she still hadn’t gone to the grocery store. All the stale-smelling space had to offer her was a gallon of milk with about a half-inch left in the bottom, a grubby-looking bottle of mustard and a few pieces of bologna that had started to turn brown around the edges. She left the milk for Jason and Riley, praying that it’d still be there in the morning. Grabbing the rest of it, she set it on the counter.
She found a few pieces of stale bread in the cabinet—the heels. Her mother hated the heels. She wasn’t a fan either but right now, she didn’t care. Squirting mustard onto the face of the bread, she built her sad sandwich in the dark, adding the bologna and more mustard to drown out its taste. If its smell was any indication, eating it was a gamble. She didn’t care about that either. Closing it up, the kitchen light snapped on, just as she lifted it off the counter to take a bite.
“Where you been?”
She lowered the sandwich and turned to find her mother standing in the middle of the kitchen, glaring at her. “At work,” she said. “Terry called in so I had to stay until close.” She watched as her mother yanked the refrigerator door open, aiming a disgusted look inside.
“Not one stitch of food in this house,” Kelly grumbled, swiping the near empty milk jug off the shelf. Lifting it to her mouth, she drained it, eyes locked on her the entire time. Her mother hated milk almost as much as she hated the heels of the bread. It wasn’t that she wanted it. It was that she didn’t want anyone else to have it. Not even her own children.
Kelly tossed the empty jug in the direction of the garbage can and missed. Droplets of milk splotched against the wall, adding themselves to the collection of near misses. “This place is filthy,” she said, itching for a fight. Kelly was a mean drunk. She was even meaner when she was dry.
Right now she was stone sober.
She thought of the twins, asleep in the next room. Little arms and fingers clutching at each other. Faces pinched with worry, even while they slept. Instead of fighting she tried to appease. “Dale gave me the afternoon off, mama. I’ll stay home from school tomorrow,” she said in a moment of inspiration. “I’ll clean, go to the store. It’ll be done by the time you wake up—promise.”
Kelly glared at her, blue eyes narrowed by hatred and something else. Something that shamed her. Made it hard to keep looking at her. “Tomorrow morning don’t feed me tonight, does it?”
; Her mother wasn’t hungry. Her mother wanted a fight and she wasn’t going to let up until she got one. Melissa held out the sandwich, offering it to Kelly, knowing what her mother would do before it even happened. Kelly’s hand lashed out, smacking the sandwich from her grip. It fell apart before it hit the floor, gravity pulling old bologna and stale bread, mustard-side down, onto the grimy floor with an audible splat, yellow ooze peeking out around their edges.
“I want real food—not this shit you keep buying.” Kelly’s eyes dropped to the front of her apron—to the pocket where she’d stuffed her tips. She held her hand out without saying a word.
Giving without a protest wouldn’t do. Her mother was mean but she wasn’t stupid. If she just handed it over, she’d get suspicious. Start wondering where the rest of it was. “Mama, it’s Sunday night. Everything is—”
Kelly’s hand lashed out, cracking across her face with enough stink to pop her eardrum and bring on the rush of tears.
“Gimme,” Kelly said, wiggling her fingers in a give it here gesture she knew well. Melissa hesitated for a few seconds, long enough to have her mother rearing back again, before she dug into her apron pocket.
“Here,” she said, shoving the money into her mother’s hand. “Take it.” A little over a hundred dollars. It was money well spent if it meant her mother would leave.
Kelly grabbed at the wad of cash, fast and sure. She didn’t drop a single bill. Looking down at it, she scoffed. “That’s it? You worked all day and this is all you made?” She said it like her daughter was a sucker for even trying.
“I had to pay Mrs. Kirkland,” she said, fast on her feet. She paid the sitter every Friday but her mother didn’t know that.
“That old bitch...” Kelly muttered, tightening her grip on the fistful of money. She glared at her for a few more seconds before she dropped her gaze to the ruined sandwich on the floor.
“Clean up your mess,” Kelly said before she walked out the front door.
Waiting In Darkness: A Sabrina Vaughn Thriller (The Sabrina Vaughn Series Book 1) Page 7
