Nobody's Angel

by Sarah Hegger

  His jeans were old and worn, but they clung to his thighs and butt in a way she would have to be three weeks dead not to notice. Lucy stepped into the bright light of a kitchen and gulped.

  A white, long-sleeved T-shirt molded his body in all the right places. This might have been easier if he’d had the decency to grow the smallest paunch or perhaps be losing his hair. But no, Richard looked better than ever and angrier than hell. Lucy realized she was stretching even his legendary gallantry to the breaking point.

  “I offered to bring the soup round because I wanted the chance to speak to you.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I wanted to apologize for … um … the thing with my car door. Out there in the storm. I didn’t see you until it was too late.” Silence descended between them. Lucy could hear the soft tick of the kitchen clock behind her.

  “Is that it?” His eyes were like a shark’s, all relentless focus and no leeway.

  “No,” she responded carefully. “But I might be here for a while.” He started looking murderous. “I’m here to help my mother and I thought it best to break the ice, so to speak.”

  Not a flicker, not a twitch, just the same hostile silence.

  “Break the ice.” She motioned to the snow and ice outside the window and attempted a light laugh. “Anyway …” She cleared her throat when she got nothing. “We got off to a bad start and I wanted to apologize.”

  There, that wasn’t so bad. She could do the adult thing, even with her heart going like a jackhammer inside her chest.

  “You came over here to apologize for us getting off to a bad start?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, nodding. “I thought we could be civil, maybe, for the time that I’m here.”

  The silence in the kitchen hung heavy.

  “You did, did you?” he spoke at last. “Like we could put it all behind us.”

  “No.” That’s not what she meant. He was due an apology and he would get one, but not like this.

  “Would that be after dooring me the other night or the way you ran out of my life nine years ago?”

  Lucy’s heart stopped and then lurched to a start again. There would be no easing into this if Richard had his way.

  He carried on in a frigid voice, “I want to be clear about what it is that we are sweeping under the rug.”

  “Yes, I—”

  “If I don’t get my questions in fast, you might skip town again and I might spend another nine years wondering why.”

  “You’ve been wondering why all this time?” That took her by surprise. She realized it was the wrong thing to say as his eyes went glacial.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he snarled. “But now that you’re here I thought I might ask, for shits and giggles.” He didn’t look much like he was laughing. “Why did you do it?”

  Oh, man, she didn’t want to get into this. There would be a time and a place for that, but now wasn’t it. “Does it matter?”

  “Humor me.” He jerked his chin in her direction. It was a gesture she recognized. Richard was more than mad. He was boiling on the inside. “I’m still hazy on the why. Because you”—he took a step closer to her—“you didn’t even have the balls to break up with me to my face, but left a message on my phone.”

  She had been stupid to come here. She thought they could agree to disagree or something. Yeah, right. She stepped away from him, brushing against a stool that screeched loudly in protest. The noise scrambled her already jangling nerves. “I’ll leave the soup and go. This is not a good time, clearly.”

  “I must have left over a hundred messages for you.” He kept coming.

  “Yes, I know.” Lucy backed up. “I … um … threw the phone away.”

  She needed to get out of here.

  “Ah.” He stepped around her so that he stood between Lucy and the door. His eyes were piercing. “Thus, eliminating any possibility I might contact you.”

  “I can …”

  “Tell me?” he murmured and put his head on one side. “Was that your idea or Jason’s?” The name ricocheted around the kitchen as they stood in silence. Richard spoke first. “That was the name of the guy you ran off with, right? Brooke Taylor’s boyfriend. Have I got all of this right?”

  “Perfectly.” Lucy let out a shaky breath. “And you are long overdue both an explanation and an apology, but perhaps now isn’t the time.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said, his tone now downright nasty. “Perhaps you could text me something touching?” There it was, the truth in all its glory. “Or, I am sure you can find an e-card to express the right sort of sentiment.”

  “You look fine,” she yelped, desperate to shut the flow of eloquence. He was being a prick, but no more than she deserved.

  “What?” He blinked at her in confusion.

  “I mean, you don’t look injured.”

  “Really? That’s probably because some scars are hidden.”

  “I was talking about yesterday.” Anger is hurt, she reminded herself fiercely. Stay out of defensive and in the moment. Get out of your goddamned head. This is not about you, it’s about him and he has every right to be pissed at you. She ran out of AA poster material. “I wasn’t expecting someone to be out on their bicycle.”

  “Really?”

  “It was snowing.”

  “I’m in training.”

  “For what?” She eyed him skeptically.

  He clammed up and went back to glaring.

  Lucy couldn’t take too much of the ensuing silence. It was time for a good exit line. “Anyway. I am sorry for what happened and I hope you weren’t hurt.”

  “Nine years, Lucy.” His eyes bored into the back of her brain. “You come back here after nine years and you want to brush everything under the carpet and talk about yesterday?”

  “I don’t want to brush things under the carpet,” Lucy insisted gently. “I think …”

  “Fine.” He made a decisive motion with his hand. “Let’s play this stupid little tragedy out your way. That’s how we did it in the past, anyway.” He crossed his arms over his chest, biceps bulged against the white of the shirt, and Lucy fixed her gaze there. It was easier than facing the fury of his eyes. “Tell me again what the hell you’re doing here.”

  “I’m here to help my mother.” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Richard gave a harsh bark of laughter. “You?” He sneered at her. “You’ve never helped your mother in your life.”

  “Nevertheless.” Lucy clutched her tattered dignity and held his hostile gaze. “She is struggling with my father and she needs my help.” Lucy sucked a ragged breath into her lungs. “You’re right, I wasn’t there for her in the past, but I can be there for her now. And I intend to.”

  “Bravo,” he jeered in a soft voice. “Look at you getting all noble. You know I’m your father’s doctor, right?”

  “I just found out.” Lucy forced herself to meet his gaze.

  “Change of plans?”

  “No.” She kept her eyes steady. “I said I would help and I meant it.”

  A muscle clenched in his jaw and he unfolded his arms to jab a finger in her direction. “Just so you know, Lucy. I will be watching you. I take care of your mother as well as your father and the last thing that poor woman needs is your crap. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal.” Lucy snapped her spine straight and glared right back. She had nothing to fear.

  “Lynne is as fragile as hell right now.” His eyebrows closed over his eyes like thunderheads. “You pull any of your shit, any of your tantrums or bring your fucking drama into that house and I will tear you to pieces.” He meant every word of his threat and Lucy felt a slither of fear snake down her spine. That, more than anything, pissed her off.

  “There will be no tantrums, no drama, and no need for puerile threats,” she said, putting a bit more force in her voice.

  “I mean it, Lucy.” Another step brought them so close she could feel
the heat of his body.

  “I understand,” she said, nodding and crossing her arms over her breasts. Her mouth felt dry and she swallowed carefully. “But you have nothing to worry about. I’m not going to do anything to hurt my mother. Or my father, for that matter.”

  He didn’t speak for the longest time. He stood there, staring down at her. His hand shot out.

  She jumped, but not quickly enough to evade the hard grip on her chin.

  He tilted her head up to the light and stared at her, his eyes raking her features as if he could see some truth beyond the exterior. “Still so fucking beautiful.”

  His face was perilously close to hers and Lucy’s breath caught. He traced her features with a long, slow look. Something flickered into life in the tense silence, a shiver of awareness that hovered in the air between them.

  Richard felt it too. His eyes darkened; a small frown creased the skin above them. It unnerved her and she jerked her chin away.

  She stepped to the side and put some physical distance between them. Everything inside her felt shaken up and out of place. “Well”—her voice sounded loud and jarring in the torpid atmosphere—“if you are sure there is no lasting damage from the other night, I will let you get back to whatever it was you were doing.” Probably constructing little voodoo dolls of girlfriends past. “Please let me know if there are any repairs needed to the bike and I will take care of them.”

  “The bike is fine.”

  “Good.” Lucy turned tail and headed for the door. “My mother is waiting for me to get back.”

  “I don’t remember that ever having any impact on your plans before,” he said, going for another body shot.

  “People change, Richard.” Lucy wrenched the front door open. Freezing air rushed through the door and made her eyes tear up.

  “Not you,” he said from somewhere behind her.

  Lucy took a moment to stop and stare. “I think you’ll find that you’re wrong.” She shut the door behind her before he could reply.

  Outside the weather did its best to add drama. Hard pellets of snow were being hurled against her by a frigid wind.

  “So,” she said to nobody in particular. “That went well.”

  Chapter Six

  Lucy did not expect to sleep well and she was right. It was with a sort of grim satisfaction she stomped downstairs the next morning. The staircase protested her weight all the way down. When she’d been a child, she’d played a game with the staircase. It was her mission to make it all the way up or down without a creak. Information she’d put to much use as a teenager.

  This morning, she didn’t give a shit. The stupid old thing needed a good carpenter and she needed caffeine and she needed it now. No booze and, as of six months ago, no cigarettes either, and caffeine took on a whole new meaning in your life. That and cheesecake.

  Lynne had beaten her downstairs. Lucy was ashamed to say that she took one look at her mother and nearly snuck away.

  Lynne looked like hell. Her shoulders were slumped like a kicked dog’s as she sobbed quietly into a cup of tea. Lynne always cried like this, silent and unseen tears, anything to keep Carl from hearing and relishing his handiwork. Impotent fury for her mother turned to acid in Lucy’s stomach. A lifetime of being bullied and belittled and now the old man was losing his mind.

  “Mom?” She kept her question gentle.

  “Good morning, Lu Lu. Did you sleep well?” Lynne scrubbed tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands. Her face was blotchy and her eyes puffy from weeping. Bits of salt-and-pepper hair had escaped and clung to the sodden mess of tears on her cheeks. Lynne looked pitiful.

  “I slept great, Mom.” Lucy slid into a stool opposite her. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s nothing.” Lynne managed a watery smile.

  Lucy watched her, and Lynne’s smile started to slip away. Lucy grabbed a box of Kleenex and slid them toward her. “Tell me.”

  Lynne plucked a sheet out of the box and blew her nose. She took a long pause and then a soft sob escaped her, then another and another.

  “I haven’t got any milk,” she hiccupped.

  “What did you say?” Lynne never liked being held when she cried, so Lucy stayed on her side of the scarred work counter. “You don’t have any milk?”

  Lynne gave a snuffle and shook her head. She rattled the empty carton at Lucy for emphasis. “I ran out of milk.”

  Lucy took it in: the cup with the tea bag in it, the kettle starting to boil, and the penny dropped. Carl’s morning cup of tea and there was no milk. Lucy peered closer at Lynne’s face.

  “He will want his tea,” her mother wailed.

  “I am sure he’ll wait, Mom,” she suggested gently. “Is he even awake?”

  “No … o … o.” Lynne looked at her wide-eyed. “But he will be and then he is going to want his tea.”

  Lucy sat nonplussed. This was uncharted territory. Carl must have gotten a whole lot worse. I should have come sooner, whispered guiltily in her head.

  “I tell you what,” Lucy said, inching forward carefully. “You keep getting his breakfast ready.” Lucy kept a close eye on her mother. Last night, Richard had told her how fragile Lynne was. Looks like he was right. “I will pop up to the store and get the milk. You put the coffee on for us and by the time the rest of his breakfast is ready, I’ll be back. Dad will get his tea and be none the wiser.”

  “He will notice.” Fresh tears welled in Lynne’s faded blue eyes. “He notices everything, everything I don’t want him to see.”

  “Oh, Mom.” Lucy sat down again. “What’s this all about?”

  Lynne seemed to hesitate, as if wondering how much to say. She took a handful of tissues and blew her nose enthusiastically. “I had a terrible night,” she said quietly. “Sometimes, he doesn’t sleep well and then he gets angry.”

  “He gets angry?” Unease tightened in Lucy’s belly as more tears seeped down her mother’s cheeks. “He doesn’t hurt you, does he?”

  “What?” Lynne stopped crying all of a sudden and stared at her, aghast. “Why would you think such a thing about your father?”

  Lucy’s mind juddered to a jarring stop and her jaw dropped open. Part of her wanted to snap back that it was maybe because she’d never heard him say a civil word to his wife? Or perhaps it had something to do with the way he had bullied and blustered his way through both of their lives? Or could it even have a little something to do with the fact that Lynne was down here, weeping into the tea and looking like running out of milk was a fate worse than death?

  In the end she said none of that, but murmured something about having done some research on Carl’s condition.

  “Well.” Lynne huffed and snatched up a couple more Kleenexes. “This is not some stranger on that Interweb. This is your father we are talking about and he gets so angry and then he cannot rest and he needs to get it all out.” She blew her nose and tucked the Kleenex under the cuff of her sweater. “Carl rants and raves, but he would never lay a finger on me. I am shocked you would think such a thing, Lucy.”

  “Why don’t I go and get that milk?” Lucy knew when she was beat.

  “You have to be shitting me.” Lucy planted her hands on her hips and glared. She took a step toward the mound of snow that was her rental car. The brush in her hand looked a bit like a whistle squaring up to a thunderstorm.

  She started back toward the house, stamping snow off her boots as she went. This was strictly a shovel job and there was sure to be one in the basement. She opened the front door and was hit by a blast of warm, humid air.

  “You let her go for milk? Did you give her money?” Carl’s peevish tone drifted down the staircase.

  Lucy shut the front door decisively. A walk it was then.

  The store was less than a ten-minute amble away. The day was cold, but clear and crisp and she really, really didn’t like shoveling. She lived on the damned West Coast with all the worthy and worthless of the U.S. to avoid shoveling, for the love of God. Lucy pulled her
cap tighter around the top of her ears and took a deep, bracing breath. The cold air scraped through her sinuses and froze the hairs to the side of her nostrils. Not a good day for licking a lamppost. Lucy grinned like a kid and started tromping.

  Hate the cold as she did, there was something magical about those clear mornings after a fresh fall of snow. Around her the gleaming, white world snapped and crackled in the sunlight, diamonds danced underneath the treacherous surface and invited her to step knee-deep into its pristine beauty. Lucy resisted for half a block before the urge to leave her mark overcame her and she planted two perfect footprints into a glistening, flawless snow bank. The snow gave with a crack beneath her feet and she sank up to her thighs with a happy shriek. It was a good day for a walk, after all.

  As she walked, the huge snowplows worked beside her, grinding and scraping against Main Street ahead of an impatient morning buildup. The cold made her eyes water and she ducked her head, tucking her chin into the neck of her coat to avoid the wind. Across the railroad tracks she went. The tracks that led straight into the heart of the city, humming all day with the busy people on their way to and from downtown Chicago.

  These tracks separating the north from the south side of Willow Park were a sort of rite of passage. You were a big girl when you got to cross these on your own, first on foot and then—joy of all joys—on your bicycle. Lucy smiled to herself. A flood of memories raced at her. She and Ashley riding up to the pool in summer, dashing up to the skating rink in the winter, or ambling along after school trying to attract the attention of the boys who went to school at St. John’s, up the road. Well, that was a thing of the past.

  The video shop was gone. A Realtor had moved into the space instead. But the bakery was still there, doing a roaring trade in breads and pastries. Memories of chocolate croissants that melted in your mouth and baguettes still warm from the oven made Lucy’s mouth water. The smell of fresh roasted beans got her moving faster. As soon as she got that milk home, she could have her java fix.

  The store was exactly the same. It even smelled the same. Of wet wool, candy, and stale beer. Wire bins almost blocked the entranceway, selling dollar-store gloves and hats. The beverage fridges hummed loudly in the quiet of the shop. There was nobody else around and Lucy peered down the first aisle.