by R. K. Ryals
“No one cares about me!” Mom yelled. “You want me to stay here, but you don’t have any idea what that’s doing to me.”
An arched entry separated the foyer from the living room, and I placed my hand against it, my fingers curling against the wall.
“What’s it doing to you?” I asked. “Go on, tell us.”
Mom’s head whipped around, her mascara-covered face transforming her into something out of a horror movie. Mom liked mascara. It made crying more dramatic.
“Eli,” she mumbled. Her gaze lifted to find Jonathan behind me. “Jon.”
“What is being here doing to you?” I repeated.
Pops stepped away from the fireplace. “Eli,” he warned.
I ignored him, my attention on Mom. “Do you want to break up with us?” I asked. “Do you want to end your relationship with your family?” I motioned at the room. “I know the speech by heart. How many times have you given it now?” My brows rose. “It’s not you. It’s me, you understand? We just don’t have enough in common. It’s like we’re from two different planets. I’m not doing this to hurt you. I’m doing this because it would be better to do this now rather than later, right?”
Mom stood, her face tightening in anger.
I held my hand up. “No … don’t come closer. It would just be too hard. This is hurting me just as much as it’s hurting you.”
“Eli—” Pops began.
“No,” I interrupted, my gaze finding his face. “You were the one that said we needed to work this out, right? You’re the one who brought her here.” My gaze fell back to her face. “Did you love any of us? At all? Or do we mean the same thing to you as your lovers? Awesome at first but growing old too quickly.”
“You have no right to speak to me like that!” Mom yelled. “I am your mother. I deserve more respect!”
My gaze fell, my shoulders slumping. Her words threw me back in time, threw me back into a scared and angry seven-year-old body.
“Take it, Eli,” Mom coaxed. “Just take it, okay?”
I pressed my lips together, my head shaking.
A tear slid down Mom’s cheek, leaving a black trail behind it. “Please, sweetie. I don’t like to see you cry. This will make it much better. Take it … for me.”
My lips trembled, tears chasing each other down my face. “I don’t want any, Mama. It tastes really bad.”
“It’s Ivy,” she reminded me. “I know you don’t want any, but it’s special. It turns you into a superhero.”
I eyed the spoon in her hand, the phantom bitter taste burning my tongue. I hadn’t even taken it yet, but I knew the flavor.
“Mama—”
“It’s Ivy, sweetie. Open up. Swallow quickly, and it’ll be all over.”
My lips parted.
Mom leapt, shoving the spoon into my mouth. I choked and swallowed. My tears turned into sobs.
Mom left me, pausing at my bedroom door long enough to say, “It’s going to be okay, Eli. You’ll feel better in a minute.”
Bile rose up in my throat, my heart pounding.
My eyes rose to my mother’s face. “There’s no feeling better anymore, Ivy. You can’t tell me to be quiet and then wait for it to work.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “Eli—”
“What are you talking about?” Jonathan asked behind me.
“Eli … please!” Mom begged.
I looked at Pops. “There you go. That’s all it takes. Threaten to turn her into a villain, and she shuts up.”
A sob fell out of Mom’s mouth, the force of it shaking her shoulders. “You are so cruel. So, so very cruel,” she gasped. Her angry eyes found mine. “You’re a disaster! Look at you! You smell like a sewer! And you … you …”
Her words were lost in the tears.
“You don’t want a hug?” I asked, my arms spreading. “Come on, Ivy. I’m your oldest child. I should at least get a hug.”
She recoiled, her sobs turning into winded gasps.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a travel pack of Kleenex and threw it at her. “Do you loathe me yet?”
“Eli,” Jonathan whispered.
I glanced at him.
His eyes were sad. “If I’d known you’d do this, I wouldn’t have asked you to help.”
The anger filling me ebbed away, leaving behind pain and guilt. I knew what Pops and Mom expected of me. They wanted my silence. If the secrets destroyed me, so be it. If the secrets turned me into a monster, then so what.
My gaze remained on my brother, but I spoke to Pops when I said, “You can’t make me forgive her. You can ask me to keep her secrets, but you can’t make me forgive her.”
“Not even for this family’s sake?” Pops asked. “It’s been years since we’ve all been able to be together in one place at one time. You can’t keep carrying this with you. You don’t have to like her. Just tolerate her.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Mom. “You need help.” My eyes flicked to Pops. “I’ll tolerate her if she helps herself.”
With those words, I slipped past Jonathan and left, Mom’s rising sobs chasing me. Some secrets were too much to bear.
Jogging to the guest cottage, I started stripping off clothes before I even made it in the door. My shoes left me on the porch, my pants in the front hallway. My shirt waved good-bye somewhere in the den, and the rest was discarded inside the bedroom.
Switching on the shower, I stepped into the spray, the hot water sluicing over bunched muscles and sweaty skin. My head fell, my hand pressing against the shower wall, anchoring me. My mind whirled with memories; good ones and bad ones.
I was, in essence, a confused, screwed up human being. It was hard being normal when the ability to trust people, especially women, was something I felt incapable of.
Taking a bar of soap, I scrubbed with it, digging my fingers into my body as if the pain could strip away the ruined layers of my heart. My skin reddened, scratched in places, but I continued to jab my flesh until the water had grown cool.
After that, I left.
I climbed free of the shower, pulled on an old pair of jeans and a wife beater, grabbed a pack of cigarettes I’d gotten at a gas station on the way out of Atlanta from the end table drawer, tucked them into my pocket, and I just … left.
Even the word-covered punching bag I knew hung in the house held no appeal. Only escape.
Jonathan’s Porsche sat in the driveway, his keys dangling from the ignition, either forgotten or because he was too naïve to remove them. He deserved his innocence. Screw mine.
Sliding into the driver’s seat, I started the car and pulled out of the drive, the windows down. Behind me, shadows loomed in the house.
The door flew open.
Jonathan stumbled onto the porch, his hands waving wildly. I barely spared him a glance. Suspended license or not, I couldn’t stay there. I needed … space.
For a long time, I drove, navigating the back roads until the edge of town loomed in the windshield. My foot pressed the brake, my gaze watching the side of the road.
The sun was setting, the dimming light throwing an orange veil over the earth. A sign loomed. Refuge Animal Hospital.
The car slowed, my eyes on the three buildings ahead. I passed them, went a little ways down the next road, and then turned around.
There, in an overgrown lot next to the clinic, I saw her.
Pulling the Porsche into a dead end road behind the space, I parked the car out of view, my gaze on the grass.
I should have left, but I didn’t.
If I had left, then the world I was comfortable with, the one I’d learned to survive, wouldn’t have changed.
And yet maybe this had been my fate all along.
Without thinking, I’d driven to the clinic. I’d gotten out of the car without help. I’d trudged through the overgrown grass of my own accord, and when I reached the cement block she sat on, I cleared my throat and said, “Hey, roof girl.”
SEVEN
Tansy
; There was too much tension in the house after work. Hetty spent the first hour lecturing Deena, her voice shaking as she spoke. I don’t think she expected the anger Deena harbored and the relief I clung to. It wasn’t the grief she assumed we’d feel after losing a parent. There was no way to predict our fears or our emotions.
I couldn’t take it.
After the lecture, the only topic of conversation was Eli Lockston, a spiel following a question Deena asked about the tall dude at the rescue. He’d been the one thing keeping her from running away, and she hated him for it. Ten minutes into Hetty’s answering prattle, we’d learned Eli was the second oldest grandson of Carson Lockston, a man who’d made his fortune off of luck and a well-managed casino. Redneck rich, Nana called it. Eli was redneck rich and apparently plowing himself down a dark, alcoholic path.
Silence followed.
Half an hour into a voiceless, glare-filled dinner, I pushed away from the table, asked for a notebook and a pencil, and excused myself.
The summer night embraced me, and I stomped barefoot through short grass to a stack of concrete blocks past the animal rescue. The blocks were on the street corner, stacked on an empty lot where there must have been some type of construction once, a house or a business. It was overgrown grass and bugs now. Fire ants marched in a single file line near my toes, and I picked my feet up to avoid getting bitten.
My eyes rose, my gaze roaming over the property. I’d been angry with Deena when I offered to landscape the lawn surrounding the clinic, house, and rescue, but I loved gardening. There was peace in it.
My fingers pressed against the notebook, my pencil flying over an empty page, making X’s where the buildings sat and lines where I wanted to make changes. Landscaping came easy for me, but I couldn’t draw worth a damn. The doodling was more a distraction. Little curly Q’s here, completely terrible flowers there.
Several hours passed.
Hetty walked outside a few times, glancing at me, before ducking back into the house. After the third check, she didn’t return. People didn’t fear me leaving. Honestly, they didn’t fear much from me. It was Jet and Deena who made waves. It was Jet and Deena people worried about.
Cars passed on the road, the darkening sky making their headlights brighter, like eyes coming at me in the twilight. I ignored them, doodling until the shadows were too much to draw by.
I stared into the dusk, the pools of changing light making me languid.
Another car zoomed down the road, but unlike the vehicles before it, this one slowed, drawing my attention. My gaze tracked it, unease trickling down my spine.
The car, a familiar red Porsche, crawled by, the noise it made fading in the distance. A moment later, it returned. A car door slammed. Feet rustled in the grass.
The unease grew, but I didn’t run.
A pair of tennis shoes, old but clean, came into view. My gaze swallowed them whole before trailing up long, jean-clad legs, over a wife beater to land on a rugged, hard face. Eli Lockston. The devil himself.
“Hey, roof girl.” His voice was low and rough, sucker punching me in the gut.
I stared. “Hey back, roof boy.”
He slid his hands into his blue jean pockets, his thumbs hooked over the edge. The muscles in his arms bunched, straining with tension. He had a lean, dangerous build, his height commanding more attention than the rest of him.
“Did you get lost?” I asked lightly.
He shrugged. “You could say that.”
Silence descended, filled only with night sounds. Bugs buzzed, crickets sang, and passing cars revved. A plane flew low overhead.
Eli shifted. Tugging a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, he slammed the bottom of it against his palm, and then freed one of the butts. Lighting it, he slipped it between his lips, drawing attention to his frown. The end sparked.
He exhaled, smoke curling into the night. “You make a habit of sitting outside?”
Furrows dug themselves between my brows. “I prefer roofs, but you know …” My shoulder rose.
A safety light came on, throwing a dim glow over the street.
I cleared my throat. “Look, I don’t know why—”
“So, your dad committed suicide?” Eli asked suddenly, cutting me short.
I froze, my shoulders stiffening. Deena had said too much when she’d verbally attacked me in the yard. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
He took another drag on the cigarette. “It’s not.”
That was it. No emotion. Nothing. Just “It’s not.”
My stomach clenched. I didn’t know why he was here, why the guy I’d first met on a roof was suddenly standing next to me, but there was something oddly confessional about it.
Standing, I stared up at him. “He didn’t … technically, he didn’t commit suicide. On paper, his organs failed, starting with his liver. Realistically, he killed himself. My mother died in a car crash three years back. Dad couldn’t handle it. He started taking copious amounts of medications, washing them back with alcohol.” Taking a deep breath, I breathed, “I guess you could say he died of a broken heart.”
Eli snorted, the sound throwing me. I hadn’t expected sympathy, but I also hadn’t expected the sudden flash of angry heat in his eyes.
“Women,” he spat. “It always comes down to women.” He laughed shortly. “So he killed himself over a woman.” His head shook.
Anger blazed a trail of fire through my veins, but I held it back, my curiosity over his sudden rage piqued.
“You don’t like women?”
He exhaled smoke into the air. “Depends. I like fucking them.”
The look he gave me spoke volumes. He hoped to shock me into silence with his words, but his declaration had the opposite effect.
“Someone really did a number on you, huh?” I mumbled.
Dropping the cigarette, he crushed it beneath his foot. “My mother drugged me when I was a kid. Codeine cough syrup.”
The way he said it, it was like he just needed to say it, like he needed to get it out there in the universe. It didn’t matter who was there to hear it. Like that day at the hospital. It could have been anyone on the roof, and I still would have talked. But it had been him. Today, I was that person. I was here. Right place. Right time. Or wrong … depending on how you looked at it.
The anger I’d felt before vanished, replaced with devastating disbelief. “Your mother?”
His lips curled. “Pretty fucked up, right?
I nodded.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Eli continued, distracted. “She can’t handle things. She likes being pampered, likes not having to deal with anything difficult. Children are difficult. My father, her first husband, had a bad temper. He trafficked drugs, and he was abusive. That’s how it started. She drugged me with cough syrup whenever she thought my tantrums would upset him, but then I guess she realized how easy that made me, and later my siblings, to manage.”
“Oh … wow.”
He wasn’t looking at me, his gaze on the dark sky. I wasn’t even sure he remembered I was there.
“When my father went to prison years later, she kept doing it. Until my grandfather walked in on her dosing me.” He laughed again, the sound full of anger. “Going through withdrawals at eight years old kind of destroys a kid, you know? Shit, she could have killed me. She could have killed any of us.”
My eyes went wide, the desire to touch him strong. “And that was enough to turn you off women?”
I didn’t know why I asked. It was definitely enough to turn him off. More than enough.
His gaze dropped to my face. “I was a reckless teenager. With my grandfather’s allowance, all I cared about was getting out of the house and drowning myself in women, in affection. I fell hard for a girl I met my senior year of high school. The ink was barely dry on our diplomas when I asked her to marry me. She was everything a guy could hope for … until she discovered I wasn’t interested in taking over a casino my grandfather owns. She
’s pregnant now with my cousin’s kid. They’re engaged.”
Nothing came out of my mouth. Saying “wow” didn’t seem appropriate. Saying “I’m sorry” just seemed ridiculous.
Rocking back onto my heels, I found myself muttering, “No wonder you’d rather just stick to screwing.”
Eli’s eyes changed. For the first time since saying, “Hey, roof girl,” I think he realized where he was. He was seeing me.
“What? No defending your own sex?”
“Not them.”
He squinted, his gaze taking in my figure. “You’re not much older than my brother, you know.”
My brows rose. “Did you ask or something?”
“He did.”
“Oh.”
He pulled another cigarette out of his pocket, but he didn’t light it. “He’s a good kid. A girl could do worse.” He studied me, his gaze hardening. “He’s not interested in taking over my grandfather’s casino either.”
My nose scrunched. Redneck rich, Hetty had called them. It didn’t really matter to me one way or another. “That’s good, I guess. Is that supposed to have something to do with me?”
Twirling the cigarette around in his fingers, he said, “It could if you were interested in him.”
I straightened, a strange feeling stealing over me. I wasn’t interested in Jonathan. I didn’t want to be interested in either of them. “Then it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“You don’t like him?” A defensive tone crept into his voice.
My toes curled into the soil below. “Is that why you stopped? To pick me up for your brother?”
“No.” His shoulders slumped. “Well, maybe I did.”
I squirmed. “Look, nothing against your brother or anything. He’s charming as hell, but I’m not interested in anyone. Ever.”
He froze. “What? You don’t like men?”
“To have sex maybe. Outside of that … I’m not interested in love. Period.”
My words, unlike his, did shock him. “You’ve had sex?”
