by J. E. Parker
Bella looked up.
My heart twisted when I glimpsed the tears falling from her eyes.
The sight of them only made Clara move faster.
When she was intercepted by another teacher, this one a male one, I shifted the car into park and popped open my door. I was ready to climb out and intervene when Bella took off running full-speed toward Clara.
Clara ducked beneath the man’s arm and caught Bella as she leapt for her.
Wearing a huge smile on her face, she lifted her into the air.
Bella wrapped her legs around Clara’s waist, and in turn, Clara slid her arms around Bella’s lower back beneath her small backpack, hugging her tight. Again, the male teacher said something to her, but she pointed at my SUV. Reaching inside, I grabbed the tag and held it up in the air for him to see.
He nodded and stepped to the side, letting both of my girls pass.
I climbed back in as they reached the car. Clara opened the back door, slid Bella inside and buckled her in. Then she jumped back in beside me. Before shifting into drive, I looked at Bella over my shoulder. “Did you have a good day, princesa?”
Despite the tear-tracks that marred her face, she smiled. Big.
Hers eyes shifted to Clara and then back to me. “She kept her promise, Daddy,” she whispered. “Clara kept her promise.”
The look on her face made my heart beat double time.
“She did,” I replied, looking over at Clara. “And she always will.”
Clara’s fingers tightened on the door handle. “That I will,” she replied, looking seconds away from choking up. She turned and held up a single finger in the air. “And that, my sweet Bella Boo, is a pinky promise.”
Bella smiled and wrapped her finger around Clara’s.
Choked up from watching my girls—one big, one little—I looked back out the windshield and shifted the car into drive. “Alright, you two. Let’s go get the boys.”
Bella squealed in excitement and I stepped on the gas.
We pulled into the boys school parking lot five minutes later.
“Where’s your car?” I asked Clara.
Clara pointed to a parking spot near the front of the school. “It died after I dropped them off, but I was still moving so I was able to roll into that empty spot. It was pure luck.”
“I’ll call a tow and get it taken to the nearest shop.”
Clara sunk her teeth into her bottom lip. “I was going to have it taken to Pop’s house.”
My brows furrowed. “Why?”
“Because I can’t afford a shop. Pop always does my repairs for just the price of the part”—she scowled—“even though he doesn’t let me pay for that half the time.”
Irrational as it was, jealousy boiled in my gut.
I fucking hated someone else taking care of her.
Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful that Pop had been looking out for her, but it wasn’t his job. Not anymore.
It. Was. Mine.
Still, as much as I wanted to ride roughshod and make the decision to have her car towed to the best mechanic in town, I couldn’t. Clara was doing her best to be independent, and I couldn’t stifle that. The only thing I could do was voice my opinion and support whatever decision she made.
“How about this—what if I have it towed to the dealership down on Sycamore street? I’ll pay for the repairs.”
The look she shot me would have made a weaker man wither.
“No, thank you,” she replied, crossing her legs. “I already owe Evan and Hope for paying my bills this month. I can’t add more on top of that. I’ll never get out from under it.”
I clenched my jaw tight. “What if I fix it?”
The look she gave me was one of disbelief. “You?” She asked, her brows climbing her forehead. “You know about car stuff?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Baby, my parents may have white-collar money, but they raised Evan and me blue collar. There isn’t much I can’t do.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, mulling over my words. “I can’t pay for labor, but I can pay you back for the tow and parts. Will you let me do that without throwing a hissy fit?”
I wanted to shout, “Fuck no,” but again, I couldn’t do that.
Let her stand on her own two feet, the voice in my head said.
As much as it pained me to do so, I nodded. “Yeah, bella dama, I will.”
The smile that overtook her face was all the proof I needed that I’d made the right decision.
Tap, tap, tap.
I was pulled out of the moment when a teacher tapped on my closed window.
Rolling it down, I took the tag Clara had handed me minutes before and showed it to her.
She nodded but said nothing before lifting her own radio—much like the one Mrs. Shook had—and said, “I need Liam and Declan O’Bannon to the red cone, please.”
The teacher didn’t offer us another glance before we pulled forward. “Red cone?” I asked Clara, confused.
“When you get up front there are like six different colored cones. You park beside whichever one she calls over the radio. That’s where the boys will be waiting.”
I nodded in understanding. “Got it.”
“Daddy,” Bella said from the backseat. “Make sure you park beside the red one. We don’t wanna miss the boys.”
Seeing the red cone, I steered the car toward it. “I’ve got it, princesa,” I replied, chuckling. “Don’t you worry.”
Second later Liam and Declan came into view.
Both look confused by the sight of my SUV.
Clara leaned out the window as Bella squealed, making my ears ring. “The boys!”
When I stopped, Clara climbed out of the car and opened the back door. “Climb in, delinquents. It’s time to head home.”
Both boys climbed in.
Clara followed.
“Declan!” Bella hollered. “I missed you! You too Liam!”
Declan laughed and buckled his seatbelt while Liam leaned forward and tapped me on the shoulder. “What are you doing here? Mom always picks us up.”
I pointed toward her car. “Her car broke down.”
“Again?”
Jesus Christ. How many times had it broken down?
“Yeah, but we’re getting it fixed. No worries.”
Liam nodded.
“Is everybody buckled?” Clara asked, looking over her shoulder.
Liam buckled his seat belt. “We’re good.”
“Alright,” she said, looking over at me. “Take us away, Pretty Boy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Doing as she said, I drove us away.
Brantley
We were seated at my oversized kitchen island.
Backpacks sat on one end of the marble countertop while sheets of homework and workbooks were strewn across the other. When we left the boys’ school, we’d decided to come back to my house to eat supper. Clara wanted to get the kids into their new afternoon routine right away, and I wasn’t about to argue with her. The longer I had her and the boys under my roof, the better.
Only problem with eating supper here was that my fridge was empty.
When I told Clara as much, she rolled her eyes and told me that’s what grocery stores were for.
The smartass.
After giving me directions to Kroger in downtown Kissler, she’d volunteered to do all my shopping for the week. All she’d requested was my credit card.
Wearing a smile on my face, I handed it over.
My only stipulation had been that she bought enough stuff for her and the boys to eat with Bella and I each night. I refused to have her cook supper at my house and then have to drive to her apartment to do it all over again.
Besides, I’d seen her apartment.
How was she supposed to cook when everything was broken?
An hour and two hundred bucks later, we’d walked out of the store with a cart full of groceries, and a smile on everyone’s faces. The boys were excited to have real food
to eat—their words not mine—and Bella was about to come out of her skin from spending time with Clara.
Throughout our shopping trip, Clara let her pick out items, showed her how to pick out fresh produce, and just paid attention to her, something that Chastity had never done.
Bella soaked the attention up.
“What’s for supper?” Bella asked, climbing to her knees on the bar stool where she sat, watching Clara cut and dice a bell pepper. “And what’s that green thing?”
“The green thing is a bell pepper.” Clara replied, handling the knife with efficiency. “And we’re having spaghetti. You said it was one of your favorites.”
Bella’s eyes lit up. “Do we get dessert too?”
“How does the cheesecake that you picked out from the bakery sound?”
“I love cheesecake!” Bella hollered, bouncing in place.
“Me too,” Declan added, looking up from the spelling homework he was working on.
Reaching over, I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her onto my lap. “If you keep bouncing like that you’ll fall, princesa.”
Her eyes never left Clara as she leaned back against me, relaxing.
“I don’t understand this crap,” Liam huffed in frustration as he dropped his pencil to the countertop. “I hate Math. It’s stupid.”
“Need help?” I asked, looking over at him.
The look he gave me was one of doubt mixed with confusion. “You’ll help me?”
His words made me pause.
“Of course, I will”—I lifted my chin in the air—“what are you working on?”
He slid the worksheet he’d been staring at for the past thirty minutes toward me. I looked down at it and blew out a relieved breath when I saw that it was something I could easily explain. “I used to hate this stuff,” I said, pointing to the place value problems he was working on. “That and number graphs. All of it confused me when I was your age.”
Liam’s face softened the smallest amount. “I thought lawyers were super smart.”
That made me chuckle. “I am super smart, just like you”—I paused for emphasis—“but I had to work for it.”
“You think I’m smart?”
I nodded. “Yeah, buddy, I do. But I also think you’re strong and loyal as can be.” When he said nothing, I lowered my voice, and continued, “The way you’ve taken care of your mom and little brother? That isn’t something a normal kid would do, Liam. That’s something a man would do.”
At my words, Liam’s shoulders straightened. Pride gleamed in his eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to them,” he replied. “Not like…”
In an instant, he deflated.
Seeing it was worse than a knife to the gut.
“Princesa,” I said, standing Bella on the ground. “Can you go help Clara for a minute? I need to talk to Liam.”
Clara looked at me through curious eyes as Bella skipped around the island and scooted up next to her. “What can I do?” she asked.
Eyes still on me, Clara pointed toward the sink. “Wash your hands first, baby. Then you can help me make the salad.” When Bella turned to do as she was told, Clara mouthed the words, “What are you doing?”
I stood from my stool and winked. “Trust me, Firecracker.”
Then, I looked down at Liam. “Come on, Liam”—I nodded toward the door—“take a walk with me.” He stood and looked over at Declan, an unanswered question his eyes. “You too, Dec.”
Declan jumped off his stool. “Alright!”
“We’ll be back, bella dama,” I said to Clara, giving her a reassuring look. “The men need to talk.”
Her eyes were unsure. Still, she said, “Take care of my sons, Brantley.”
“Always, baby.” I put a hand on each boy’s shoulder. “Always.”
A small smile tilted her lips up. “When you get back, we need to tell the kids the good news.”
I nodded. “Be back in a few minutes.”
The boys and I stood at the end of the backyard beneath one of the towering oak trees.
Liam stared at me with hard eyes while Declan picked dandelions for Clara and Bella, oblivious to the tension surrounding us. Both boys were good kids, really good kids, but Declan still had a naivety about him. Liam? Not so much. At only seven, he’d already experienced enough pain to leave him jaded.
It’s why he didn’t trust me.
Squatting so we were closer to eye level, I rested my elbows on my knees. “You really love your mom, don’t you, Liam?”
He slid his hands into his pockets and nodded once.
“Yeah,” I said, plucking a piece of grass from the ground. “I can see that. The way you take care of her and Declan says a lot about you as a man.” When he didn’t speak, I continued. “I know you’ve seen bad stuff in the past with your mom being hurt, but you know that’s over, right?”
He clenched his jaw and ripped his gaze from mine. “No, it’s not,” he mumbled.
I tilted my head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“She still cries,” he said, “all the time.”
“And you don’t like it when she cries.”
It was a statement, not a question.
Still, Liam gave an answer. “No. It makes me think about Colin,” he said, calling his father by his first name. “He was mean. He yelled at me and Declan, but he yelled at her more.”
The pounding of my heart filled my ears.
“He did more than yell at her, though didn’t he?”
Again, he nodded. “He hit her.” My hands clenched. “And he shook her a lot too.”
“Shook her?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Yeah, he would hold her shoulders and shake her. She’d fall down when he was done. Sometimes she would get sick and he would kick her while she cleaned it up.”
“I tried—” he started before snapping his mouth shut and turning away from me. A few seconds later, he continued, “I tried to help her, but she would make me hide. I didn’t want to hide,” he snapped. “I wanted to help her, so he didn’t make her go back—”
His shoulders shook, and I stood.
Walking over to him, I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Go back where?” Refusing to answer me, he shook his head. “Liam, buddy, it’s okay,” I assured him. “You can tell me. I just want to help—”
“The darkness,” Declan said, interrupting me.
I swung my gaze to him.
Standing next to the tree swing, he held a dozen or dandelions in each hand.
“What darkness, Dec?”
His bottom lip trembled. “The one at the bottom of the stairs. Where the monster lived.”
My chest tightened to the point that I felt like I was suffocating. “The basement?”
Liam nodded. “It’s where he hurt her the most,” he said, choking up. “She would scream but I couldn’t help her. He locked the door. I couldn’t get in. I tried.”
The world around me seemed to collapse. “What else?” I asked looking from one boy to the next. “What else did he do?”
“He left Mama in the darkness,” Declan replied, looking down at the flowers he held. “I missed her. I didn’t see her. Not for a long-long time.”
Liam turned to face me. “I heard her,” he said. “I heard her screams, heard her crying. And I heard the chain.”
“Chain?” I asked in disbelief. My voice was so broken, so raw, that I hardly recognized it.
Liam’s pain-filled eyes met mine. “He chained my Mama,” he said, a river of tears falling down his face. “He took my Mama into the d-arkness and chained her down t-here. My v-vent… that’s how I h-heard him hurt her.”
Without thinking twice, I dropped to my knees and pulled him to me. Wrapping my arms around him, I held him tight. Sob after sob racked his little body, making him jerk against me. “I d-don’t want her to cry no more,” he said, gasping for breath.
“Liam, I swear to you and Declan both that I’ll do everything I can to make your mom the happiest woman
in the world. I will do whatever I have to do to make sure she stops crying, and I will do whatever I need to in order to make sure she feels safe. You have my word that I will not stop fighting until all three of you are free of the thing that hurts you the most.”
I pulled back, looked Liam in the face, and wiped away his tears with my thumbs.
Face redder than a fire hydrant, he fought to stop crying. “Will you keep making her s-smile?”
My answer was swift. “Yeah, buddy, I will.”
“Promise?”
“I swear it.”
“You have to keep your promises,” Declan said from beside me where he stood. “That’s what Uncle Evan always says.”
Dropping an arm from Liam, I wrapped it around Declan and pulled him into my side. “Uncle Evan is right,” I said, forcing a smile. “But don’t tell him that. His head will get even bigger than it already is.”
Declan giggled. “Hey, Brantley, guess what?”
“What is it, little dude?” I asked, biting back the disbelief and anger that flowed through my veins.
“Uncle Evan let me try on his old football helmet the other day. It has a picture of a lion on the side. He said you have one like it.”
“I do,” I replied, fighting to keep my composure. “We both played football together. From the time we were your age all the way through high school.”
“What position did you play?” Declan asked.
“Quarterback.”
Liam wiped his face with the back of his arm. “Uncle Evan said you were good. Like, really good.”
“I was,” I replied, calming some. Seeing Liam less upset helped abate the fury that roared inside me, causing my heart to beat erratically and my adrenaline to surge.
Keep your shit together, I told myself. The boys need to feel safe.
“How come you don’t play in the NFL then?” Liam asked.
“I blew out my knee. Tore my ACL and MCL.”
“You got a scar?” Declan asked, peering down at my legs.
“I do.” Smiling a genuine smile, I dropped my arms from around them, and stood. Pulling up my slacks, I showed them the raised pink scar that extended below my knee. “That’s from the first surgery”—I twisted, showing them the side of my knee—“and those are from the second and third.”
