Don't Turn Around

by Hunter Morgan

  As the sisters picked through super deals on winter sweaters and cute outfits for the kids, Jayne didn’t ask about Lincoln and Casey didn’t offer any information. They totally ignored the subject, as if Casey had not brought her boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner the day before, as if she wasn’t dating anyone at all. A part of Casey was annoyed that her sister didn’t ask how things now stood with Lincoln, but she thought maybe Jayne was just giving her some privacy.

  The crowds at the stores started to be overwhelming by midmorning, and Casey was home by noon. When she walked into the laundry room from the garage, her father startled her. He stood solidly in the doorway between the kitchen and the laundry as if planted like a tree.

  “Hey, Dad,” she greeted, wrestling an armful of shopping bags into the room and resting them against the dryer.

  Frazier was lying on the floor in the kitchen just behind Ed. The dog’s posture suggested they had been there a while, that they had been waiting for her. Casey closed the door behind her, locked it, and unwound her scarf. She could hear the sound of the TV in the living room. A commercial. “Everything okay, Dad?”

  “You were gone a long time.” He removed his handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his mouth. This was a new habit he had developed recently; he was continually wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, a tissue, his napkin, the arm cover off the couch if he could find nothing else.

  “Not so long. Five hours, maybe. Not as long as I’m gone when I’m at work.”

  “Frazier missed you.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” Smiling, she hung her scarf and then her coat on the hook. “And how about you? Did you miss me?”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m your father.” He turned and shuffled into the kitchen.

  Casey took a deep breath, exhaled, and followed him. “You hungry? I thought I’d make a salad with some of the turkey Jayne gave us yesterday. Would you like one?”

  He sat down at the table. “Don’t like salad. Rabbit food. You think I live in a hutch?”

  “Then a sandwich. I could make you a turkey sandwich with lettuce and pickles and mayonnaise. You like it that way.”

  “I do?” He looked up at her, the lines around his mouth heavy. He wasn’t just contrary today; he was…sad.

  “Dad, are you okay?” Casey pulled a chair out next to him and sat down. “Has someone been here?” She hesitated. “Has Richard Nixon been back?”

  “President Nixon is dead, Casey.”

  She had to fight a smile. It wasn’t that she wanted to laugh at her father, just the bizarre situation they both found themselves in these days. What was that saying? It’s better to laugh than to cry?

  “I know Nixon is dead, Dad. But was someone here? Did you see someone looking in the window again?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” He snapped his fingers and the dog rose and loped over to him. “I’ll take that sandwich. You want a biscuit, boy?” He fished a dog treat out of his pocket and tossed it.

  Frazier caught it midair.

  Casey considered grilling her father further. If someone had been here, she should probably call the police. But what were they going to do? Question her father? Check for shoe prints in the flower bed? This was beginning to play out like a broken record.

  Frustrated, she got up to make the sandwiches. “Dad, what do you think about Lincoln?” she asked.

  “He understands the importance of our climate. How it affects our day-to-day lives.”

  She set the mayo and lettuce on the counter. “What do you think about him as a person? I mean…for me?”

  “You planning on marrying him?”

  She found the turkey wrapped in waxed paper and closed the refrigerator. “Actually, right now I’m not sure I’m even speaking to him, so no, no plans for marriage this week.”

  “Why aren’t you speaking?” Ed harrumphed. “You have a fight?”

  “A disagreement. I got angry because he didn’t tell me something he should have told me.”

  “You like honesty,” her father observed, scratching the dog behind his ears.

  She wanted to say, “Doesn’t everyone?” but she knew that wasn’t true. Her parents had had secrets and it appeared, in hindsight, that, at some point in their lives, they had agreed that honesty and disclosure were not necessary to their relationship. It had to be true; otherwise, why would they have stayed together? Even though things had been bad in the house, never in the twenty-two years she had lived at home had there ever been even the suggestion that either of them might consider divorce.

  “What’d he lie about? Another woman?”

  As Casey pulled slices of bread from the bag, she turned toward her father, surprised that he was initiating conversation. Sensible conversation. He actually seemed interested in what was going on in her life. “It was something about work that sort of spilled into personal.” She spun the bag from the end before clipping it with a clothespin. “It’s kind of complicated.”

  “You think I’m stupid? You think I can’t understand?”

  She put the bread in the cupboard. “No, I don’t think you’re stupid.” She felt her temper rise a little, but she kept it in check, reminding herself that he couldn’t know how he was now and she couldn’t punish him for who he had once been. “That was my polite way of saying I don’t want to tell you what the fight is about. Some things are private.”

  He sat back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He had pulled a sweater vest over the oxford shirt she had left out on the bed for him. He looked nice today. Like his old self, sort of.

  He scowled, wrinkling his forehead. “So why didn’t you just say that?”

  She took a second before responding. “I wanted your opinion on what you thought about Lincoln. I might be making more of this issue than I should. I didn’t want to go into the details about the disagreement. I just wanted to know what you think about the man I’m dating. I wanted to sort of talk it out with someone. With you.”

  “Frazier likes him.”

  “Do you? Do you think he’s good for me?” She hesitated. “Do you think I can trust him?”

  Her father didn’t answer but seemed to be thinking.

  Casey spread the mayo on the last piece of bread, screwed the lid on the jar, then put the jar in the refrigerator.

  “I liked Billy Bosley. He drove a white car.”

  “Dad, Billy hurt me,” she said stiffly.

  “He had a nice car.”

  She arranged the lettuce on two slices of bread. “I just wanted to know what you thought of Lincoln,” she repeated. “We’re not talking about Billy.”

  “Because you’re fighting with him.”

  “Yes, I’m fighting with Lincoln and I don’t know what to do. I want to be cautious. I want to be sure he’s—”

  The doorbell rang and Frazier leapt to his feet, barking wildly.

  Casey grabbed a kitchen towel and wiped her hands, then walked out of the kitchen. The dog followed. If that was Lincoln she wasn’t sure she wanted to let him in. She didn’t know if she was ready to talk to him. And how juvenile was that?

  But as she passed the living room window she saw that the car in her driveway was not a blue Mini Coop. It was a silver BMW.

  She put her eye to the peephole to see who was there. Surprised, she flipped the dead bolt, signaled for the dog to sit, and opened the door. “Adam.”

  Chapter 15

  “How ’bout some cereal, honey bunny?” Angel leaned over to put her face right in front of Buddy’s. “Brunch, they call it. Breakfast and lunch together.”

  The little boy squealed and grabbed at her nose. She pulled back and he laughed again.

  “Can you catch me? Can you get Mama’s nose?” He grabbed again and this time she let him catch her. “What a smart boy!”

  He laughed. She laughed.

  “Told you, you was smart. Smart enough to go to college, I’d say.” She looked into his dark, liquidy eyes. He had the skin color and eyes of his daddy, b
ut his smarts came from her family. She was sure of that. No offense against Shonda, whose cousin was Buddy’s father, but the man was stupid. Stupid enough to try to buy crack from an undercover cop in Wilmington. Enough to make it look like he was dealing—which he was. Buddy wouldn’t be seeing him for at least five years, which was fine with Angel.

  “Mama!” Buddy hollered, shaking his little hands.

  “Mama,” Angel echoed.

  She heard the familiar groan of her car door open, then heard it slam shut. She dropped a handful of Toasty O’s on Buddy’s high-chair tray. The other car door banged shut. Leaning over him, she pulled back the curtain. The Asshole Brothers were back.

  “Be right back, honey bunny.” Angel kissed Buddy’s short, wiry hair and walked out of the kitchen. She met Charlie at the front door, one hand perched on her hip. “Where have you been all night?”

  Charlie walked past her. James followed, slamming the door so hard that a photo of Buddy, taken at Sears on his first birthday, rattled on the wall. The men both stunk of beer, their clothes were wrinkled, and James had the makings of a black eye. Charlie’s lip was fat and there was dried blood at the corner of his mouth. One of them smelled like puke.

  “I said, where you been, Charlie?” Angel demanded. “I told you I had to go to work and Shonda couldn’t baby-sit. You said you would watch Buddy so I could make us some extra money. You promised.” She gave him a little push. “My sister’s called me three times wantin’ to know when I’ll be there. She’s swamped at the store.”

  James brushed past her and went down the hall to the bathroom.

  Charlie walked into the cluttered living room. The toe of his boot caught the end of a big plastic dump truck and he almost tripped. He kicked the truck hard. It hit the wall next to the TV and exploded into a million plastic pieces.

  The sound scared Buddy and he started to cry. Or maybe it was just the sound of Charlie’s voice. Buddy cried a lot when Charlie was around.

  “Mommy’ll be there in a minute, Buddy,” Angel called toward the kitchen. She looked back at Charlie, who had plopped himself on the couch and was digging around for the remote between the lumpy cushions.

  “I wanna know where you been all night,” she repeated stubbornly. “I make a nice turkey breast dinner. I peeled potatoes and everything, and before I’m even done eatin’, you and James are pullin’ out of the parkin’ lot in my car.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I waited up half the night for you. I thought you was dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  “I told you we was goin’ for cigarettes.” He pulled the remote out of the couch and hit the power button.

  “It don’t take all night to get cigarettes.” She moved in front of the TV, blocking his view.

  Charlie leaned one way and then the other. “Move.”

  “You been drinkin’ all night, haven’t you? Sittin’ in some trashy bar talkin’ to trashy girls.”

  “You’re drivin’ me crazy. I just had to get out of here. I just wanted to have a quiet beer with my brother. That a big crime?”

  “Bars close at one. It’s noon. Where were you after that? Where were you spending my money?”

  “I got money.”

  “You don’t. You don’t have any money. That’s my money you’re drinkin’ at the bar and my food stamps you’re eatin’. You and your brother are eatin’.”

  “I’ll get money.”

  “How? How you gonna get money if you don’t get off your lazy, fat ass and apply for a job? Your granny’s not gonna keep sendin’ your sorry asses money. You know how much she paid that lawyer to get you off? She had to mortgage her house to get that money.”

  Charlie changed the channel. Angel was getting angrier by the second. She was pissed that he had been out with James instead of here with her and Buddy after she went to all that trouble to make him a nice Thanksgiving dinner. She was pissed that he had spent money at a bar, money they didn’t have. And she was pissed mostly at herself for ever telling him he could move in when he got out of prison. Amber had warned her not to. So had Shonda. At the time, Angel had reasoned that both of them had worthless boyfriends living with them, so who were they to be giving advice? Now she was thinking she should have listened to them in the first place.

  She snatched the remote out of Charlie’s hand.

  The second she did it, she knew it was a mistake. Charlie came off the couch in a rage. Angel backed up, but not far enough, not fast enough. He hit her across the cheek so hard that the remote flew out of her hand. She screamed as she went down on one knee, grabbing her face. As she hit the stinky carpet, she instinctively curled up, protecting her face. Just in case there was more to come.

  In the other room, Buddy was crying so hard that he was gagging.

  James hollered something from the bathroom.

  “You hit me,” Angel accused, choking back a sob. Even though Charlie had hit her only with his open hand, the whole side of her face throbbed and her neck felt like it had been stretched too hard and snapped back like a rubber band.

  “I didn’t hit you.” He picked the remote up off the floor and went back to the couch. “If I had hit you, you’d have known it.” He sat down again.

  Still on the floor, Angel sat up, drew her knees up, and hugged them to her chest. Buddy was still bawling in the other room. She wiped her runny nose with her sleeve.

  “Make him shut up,” Charlie warned, changing the channel.

  “Okay,” she sniffed, starting to get up.

  “Make him shut up!” Charlie shouted. “Or I’ll shut him up!”

  Angel scrambled to her feet and hurried for the kitchen, her own pain forgotten. She had to protect Buddy. Buddy was her baby. She couldn’t let Charlie hit her baby, because if he did, she knew she’d have to kill Charlie.

  “I hope it’s okay that I stopped by. I tried to call from my cell.” Dressed casually in khakis and a dark green jacket, Adam held what appeared to be a homemade pie in a blue pottery pie plate. “There was a lot of static, though. I couldn’t get the call to go through. I don’t think the towers are great around here.”

  “Happens all the time. No rhyme or reason. Some days I have three bars in my driveway, some days one.” As she backed up to open the door for Adam, she pointed to Frazier and said, “Stay, boy.” She motioned to Adam. “Come on in. He’s big but he’s friendly.”

  “I…I brought pie.” He held it in both hands, showing her. “Someone in my office made it. Staff gave me, like, five homemade pies,” he explained almost bashfully.

  She laughed. “What kind?”

  “Apple. I thought I should play it safe.”

  “Come on into the kitchen and meet my dad. We were just sitting down to have lunch. Leftover turkey sandwiches. Would you like to join us?” Casey led him through the dining room. Frazier followed on their heels, sniffing Adam’s coat.

  “I’d love a turkey sandwich. If it’s not too much trouble. You have a nice home,” he said, looking around. “Real turkey sounds great. I think we had ‘turkey product’ at the nursing home yesterday.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She turned back, grimacing. As she made eye contact, she was glad she was dressed and had on make-up. She would have hated for Adam to see her in sweatpants, a stained T-shirt, and her glasses, her usual day-off attire when she wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Dad, look, we have a visitor.” She gestured toward Adam, then introduced them. “Adam Preston, my father, Dr. Ed McDaniel.”

  “Dr. McDaniel, it’s very nice to meet you.” Adam nimbly switched the pie to his left hand and offered his right. “Are you a medical doctor?”

  Ed’s mouth was full of turkey sandwich. Mayonnaise oozed from the corners of his lips.

  “Retired professor. A PhD in American literature.”

  Chewing noisily, Ed stared at Adam.

  Casey held a napkin out to her father. “Adam and I know each other from work,” she explained. She was nervous and she didn’t know why. “He’s a prosecuting attorney for
the county, Dad.”

  Ed took the napkin, looked back at Adam, paused, then looked at Casey, obviously dismissing their guest. “Got any chips?”

  Casey felt her face grow warm. “Sorry ,” she mouthed to Adam.

  He smiled, dropping his hand and walking to the counter to set the pie down.

  Casey grabbed a bag of chips and a wooden bowl. “Here you go.” She carried the bowl of chips to the table. “Let me take your coat, Adam.” She glanced at the counter. “The pie looks great.”

  “I’ll take care of my coat. Where should I put it?” He slipped out of his coat. He was wearing an oxford shirt, but it was obviously a weekend shirt, dark blue with a subtle red pinstripe. Dressy for a holiday weekend, but nice. Very nice.

  “Laundry room around the corner. Pick a hook, any hook.” She pointed in the general direction. “Would you like mayo, lettuce, and pickle on your sandwich?”

  “Anything. Sure, that’ll be great. Real turkey and anything.”

  Casey took the loaf of bread out of the cupboard and grabbed another plate. As she picked up the knife from in the sink, she realized her heart was beating a little fast. She felt silly, almost giddy. It was nice of Adam to stop by. And he brought pie. She was surprised by how pleased she was to see him. Pleased bordering on thrilled. But how had he known where she lived? She didn’t recall having discussed where her house was.

  “You just driving by?” she asked him as he walked back into the kitchen.

  “Yeah, passing by.” Adam sat in the chair across from Ed. “No. Actually, I have to confess…” He hesitated, then chuckled as if caught in some mischief. “This morning when I got out of bed, I decided I absolutely was not going to the office today. I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself. I had all these pies and I was sort of driving around wondering what to do with them. I remembered you lived in this neighborhood so I took a chance.”

  She spread mayo on his bread. “I told you where I lived?”

  “You should be an attorney, Casey. You’re good at extracting confessions. And you’re good at remembering important details.” He took a chip from the bowl. “No, you did not tell me where you lived, because, I suspect, a woman in your business knows not to share personal information with a stranger. Truth is, I saw your address somewhere in the Gaitlin records. I remembered it,” he finished sheepishly.