Without answering, I held up the letter still clutched in my hand. I watch him read it, watch his lips part and the center of his brows crease. Wordlessly, he looks up at me, his eyes looking between mine.
“It’s not that we weren’t invited, but she’s never mentioned this guy before, I mean…” I stop and run my hand through my hair. “I just hope she didn’t marry the first guy who’s shown her love and been there for her.”
“Why would she do that?” he asks.
I sigh, “You know why Sven. It’s the same reason I lost my virginity to a guy I didn’t know. It’s why his rejection killed me. It’s why I loved Kendall deeper than anything. Because she was the first thing that loved me.”
“Kendall’s more well-adjusted than you give her credit for,” he tells me, putting his palm on my cheek and rubbing his thumb across my skin.
“I just…I can’t help but think with everything she’s gone through that she’d be searching for something like that, searching for love,” I reply.
“I don’t know, Missy,” he shrugs. “She’s an adult now, I don’t know what else to say.”
I nod, because I don’t know either, what more needs to be said for me to ever get over the regret of my past actions. I know that no matter what happens with Kendall, she’s always going to be the one I worry about the most, the one I want to know that she gets her happily ever after.
“I’m going to take a bath,” I tell him after a long minute and stand.
His arms around me don’t surprise me as Sven stops me by pulling me into his body. We hold each other and I know he’s trying to make it all right, just like he always does.
Soaking in the claw foot tub, it takes longer than I expect for Sven to come up, but when he does he sits on the covered toilet and watches me.
“I called Kendall to congratulate her.”
“Sven,” I sigh, because I can only imagine that he told her I was upset.
“I didn’t mean for you to get to the bottom of it, I was gonna call her.”
“Stop it,” he tells me.
“I just-”
“She said she’s known him since she moved to Montana, that they’ve been serious for a while. She still goes to therapy and they’ll come to visit as soon as they can.”
Opening my eyes, I turn my head to face him. His face is etched with lines around his eyes, his beard long, his hair short and brushed back with his hands. He’s older now, but still so beautiful. Under the beauty, I see something troubling him something different than what’s going on with Kendall. His posture and other subtle things I can see after knowing him for so long.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
He lets out a small, low sigh and looks at me. “Yeah, but I don’t know exactly how to tell ya,” he confesses.
Inhaling, I sit up, my eyes on his. They drop to my chest before meeting mine again. I’m still getting used to my much more perky new breasts even though it’s been many years since I got them. Soaking wet, I rise from the tub, stepping out and he sits back on the toilet as I straddle his lap. My hands slide over his shoulders, my wet hair dripping between us. I circle my hips on him and lean in to place a kiss on his temple, then below his eye, my hips still moving slowly as I feel him growing in length beneath me.
“Lift up,” he tells me, moving his hands to his jeans fly and making swift work of it.
He raises his head to kiss me as I feel the blunt head of his dick searching for entry. I adjust and nip his lip as I slide down his shaft and rest on his lap.
“So fucking perfect,” he growls in Norwegian and I smile at him, moving my hips back and forth. “Who taught you to fuck this good?” he asks, grasping the back of my hair and turning my head so his lips are right against my ear.
“Oh, God-you. This cock,” I moan and whimper, his pelvis moving against mine, hitting my core deep. One of his arms moves under my knee, lifting my leg and changing the angle.
“Damn right this cock,” he pants, leaning down and causing my back to arch as he sucks a nipple into his mouth. “I miss your titty milk,” he teases, but he really did love when my old tits were lactating.
His teeth nipping me there has my shoulders jolting. My new enhancements were still sensitive and it felt like years since anything there was so responsive after nursing two babies.
“Oh, yeah? That? There?”
I moan and nod, biting my lip, moving faster against his length as he plays between my two breasts and my head falls back as my orgasm takes me over. His hands grip the back of my neck, pulling me flush against his torso, fucking me hard as he holds me tight and comes inside me.
“Dornan and Joey are being investigated for Katie’s parents’ murder,” he pants against my neck.
“What? Why didn’t you tell me when you came up?
“No guy is gonna stop his woman from grinding on his dick to tell her anything unrelated.”
“So, tell me what now? What do we do?”
Sven inhales deeply and slowly, running his hand over his hair.
“I gotta see what Milton’s got on ‘em.”
“I’ll go,” I state almost immediately.
Sven’s eyes meet mine, pinning me with that gaze he gives me when we’re communicating without words. After a long moment, he nods.
**
My hands tremble slightly as I walk toward the police station only an hour or so later. My stomach feels sick that my son, no matter what he did, could face prison time for doing the right thing. I haven’t spoken to Milton in years. Even when we’ve seen each other, we’ve shared a brief acknowledgement before moving on. The two women at the reception desk are busy on the phone and don’t even look up as I walk through the glass entryway, using their distraction to my advantage as I breeze past and into the hub of the building. It still looks the same as when I worked here. It makes me feel nostalgic and I smile at the memory and how simple things were then. I notice as I approach his office, there’s no one sitting where I used to and there isn’t a desk there anymore, just seats and file cabinets. I’m taking this in when I hear my given name, Faye. I don’t reply for a long moment since it’s been some time since anyone called me that.
“Milton…Cheif Milton,” I correct.
He gives me a warm smile, while covertly looking me over. I remain in the entryway as he stands and pulls out the chair in front of his desk.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” I tell him, removing my purse from my shoulder and setting it on my lap as I sit.
“I have to say,” he says, rounding his desk and sitting back behind it. “I thought it’d be Sven, or maybe one of the other guys, but I didn’t expect it to be you.”
I inhale deeply. “I wanted to speak with you myself.”
He nods, opening his hands and urging me to do so.
“Sven told me just the basics. What you’re thinking my son was involved with-”
“What we know he did,” he corrects.
I swallow my words. “He’s my boy, my only boy, please,” I choke out, looking up at him. “I’ll do anything. I’ll turn myself in as Faye Hamilton-”
“No, you won’t!” he says firmly as he slams his fist on his desk and I startle.
He takes a deep breath, looking over my shoulder and making sure no one heard him.
“No,” he repeats calmly. “You’re talking nonsense.”
“Wouldn’t you? Do anything for your kids?” I ask rhetorically. “He’s my son and he did what was right, whether you think so or not. Just like when what happened to your sister was taken care of…” I let my sentence die as he gives me a look that he doesn’t need me to continue.
We share this look, both silent as I plead with him wordlessly.
“Chief Milton,” a male says behind me and Milton’s eyes once again move over my shoulder.
“Fine, Mrs. Frederickson, thanks for coming by,” he says, standing. I too stand and give him a small nod of my head before looking down and walking past the man in the doorway.
Returning home, I sit in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea and feeling lost. I’ve got that nervous, anxious energy you get when you want to do something but don’t know what, like something’s pulling you. After a long moment, I realize it’s the craving to escape, the need to lose myself and not deal. Getting up, I begin to pace, running my hands through my hair and the phone begins to ring, startling me from my thoughts.
“Hello?”
“Yes, is this the daughter of Gaye Douglas?”
“It is.”
“Hi, I’m Maureen with the Mississippi Long Term Medical Group. How are you?”
“Fine,” I reply, hesitantly.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but your mother suffered a stroke several months ago and we’ve been unable to contact her husband as of the last two weeks. We need to provide Mrs. Douglas with a long-term care facility and we need a next of kin for that.”
“What do you need from me, a signature or somethin’?”
“Well, not exactly. We provide long term care here at a cost of two thousand dollars a month.”
“What?” I ask astonished.
“We understand, but this is state of the art care-”
“Okay, and if I don’t keep her there, then what?”
“You’d have to find her another facility, transport her-”
“What’s her situation like?”
“Her situation, ma’am?”
“Yeah, can she walk, talk, feed herself?”
“Speech is limited, mobility is limited. As of right now she goes to physical therapy and is also in a wheelchair and requires a feeding tube.”
“That stuff I can do with her at my house?” I ask.
“Well, sure, we could provide you with some help on training and have a nurse come once or twice a week to assist.”
34
SVEN
Sitting in the room where we hold gathering, it’s silent amongst us as we sit around the table.
“I won’t let her turn herself in,” Owen says.
This is a gathering of just the elders. Dornan and Joey aren’t here and I made it that way, since neither of them know that Missy was ever in some trouble. It didn’t surprise me when Missy wanted to go talk to Milton and tell him what she would do for Dornan. This is why we’re meeting, because none of us want Dornan and Joey going to prison and we aren’t going to let Missy take the fall.
“They already got so much on me, I’m heading down that path anyhow. I’ve been lost since Shine and I haven’t done a damn thing right by Maven since. I’m willing to turn myself in for the murders and take the hit. Milton will allow it. Yes, he covered when the feds came for Missy, but he still owes me personally for helping his sister.”
Owen’s words resonate and seem to hang in the air. I scan the table. Joseph, Rocket, Boo-Boo, Chilly, all the old timers who’ve been in the club since we were young. Were with us in Vietnam. We all know this is nearly as sacrificial as death and I sense no one can make that call but Owen.
“If that’s what you want, brother,” I finally say, my voice thick with emotion.
Slowly he nods. “I know it’s the right thing. It’ll give these kids a chance for a life.”
Telling Missy that night, I can’t hold in the flood of tension and heaviness. Not only had the meeting with Owen and the elders rocked me to my core, but bringing in Dornan and Joey to tell them their fate, nearly broke me. To hear the words repeated to them, to watch their faces and the weight visibly lift off their shoulders, was overwhelming. Missy held me in her arms as I voiced how devastated I was, but how grateful I was too and how I don’t think I could ever be such a man as Owen. She listened, listened and comforted me, allowing me to show a vulnerability I’ve always been able to unmask with her.
After Missy and Owen sat Maven down to tell her the basics of what he was going to do, after Maven lashed out and yelled and screamed, Owen turned himself in while Missy tried to rebuilt Maven’s crushed heart. Everything moved fast, the arrest, the trial, the sentencing. All of us elders, along with Missy and Gwen were there every day. Maven refused to go and Joey was hiding from Katie that her parents were even gone, let alone murdered, and it all was just stressful. Missy spent a lot of time with Maven, making sure she was okay and taken care of. Maven was bitter and not wanting to even acknowledge her dad, but I knew in time when she one day learned the full story, she’d understand her father’s sacrifice more and come to terms, just like how I hoped the same would happen for Kendall and Missy. And like between Missy and Gaye…who was now moving in with us.
Missy
Sven was shocked when I told him my intention to bring Gaye to live with us. Honestly, as easy as it could’ve been for me to pay the money to keep her somewhere and forget her, I couldn’t. I already struggled with guilt over so much in my life, I didn’t want to add to it. I didn’t expect penance or some sort of forgiveness. In the end, I just knew that if this were me, if I were in Gaye’s situation, I’d want Kendall to take care of me. At the end of the day, Gaye is still my mom. No matter how much I like to think she’s a terrible and vindictive person, in the time before I quit pageants and got pregnant, she was hard on me but I think she did love me. Or at least she acted like it. When I was winning and making her proud, that’s what I did them for. Regardless, I needed something to take my mind off Owen going away to prison, and how my son could easily be in his place if Owen hadn’t taken the fall.
I met with the local Plantain doctor and told him what I was doing and he helped me organize getting all the equipment I’d need for Gaye, along with a medical bed. Sven, Dornan and I cleared out one of the front rooms and got it all set up.
I wait on the porch for the medical transport to come to the house. Everything’s set up and ready to go and I’m anxious as hell. I know I can do this, the nurses and home care staff that are coming weekly to check on her, assure me I can. I just don’t know how I’m going to feel when I see her. Finally, the ambulance-type vehicle pulls up into the driveway and I hold my breath for a long moment before stepping off the porch.
The driver and another man, both in uniforms get out, one moves toward the back of the van while the other comes to me with a clipboard and paperwork to sign. A nurse and the first man appear again as they begin to lower a gurney and roll it down to the sidewalk and up the walkway. I can’t see her yet and I barely listen to what the man’s telling me as I wait. My eyes are trained on the bed as she finally comes into view, passing by me as they lift her up the steps. She looks terrible. Her hair is unkempt and a white mess, her face clear of make-up, which I’ve never seen. Her eyes scan all around and I can tell she’s confused, until she sees me there. I wait for the hate to spark there, like they always do. But it doesn’t happen. Instead I see those eyes begin to well-up as a brittle hand twitches in an attempt to reach for me. Then the medics move her fully onto the porch and our moment is over.
I direct them where to go and they move her onto the bed there. I changed the décor in this room to something that Gaye will like. She’s going to have to be in here most the time so it’s the least I can do. Originally blue, I painted it a mauve, changed out the curtains to lacey shears and placed the nicest tiffany lamp I’d gotten from my aunt’s stash and set it beside the bed. When the setting sun catches the small pieces of stained glass, it sends the color all over the room, something Kendall loved as a small girl and something I think Gaye will like to.
The staff leaves and then it’s just us. Closing the door behind them, I linger in the doorway for a long moment, feeling unsure of what to do. Slowly, I move into the room, happy Sven and Dornan went off to do something so I’d have this initial alone time with her. Gaye’s eyes meet mine and I give her a small smile, still feeling like a child under her gaze. Her mouth opens to speak, clearly the stroke has affected her left side, because it’s the right that opens wider, but words barely come out. I move closer to hear her and make out that she’s asking if I’m going to be taking care of her.
Her fragile hand takes mine, not squeezing but just resting atop it and I look down. Her nails are still long but unpolished, again, something I’ve never seen.
“You still like pink nail polish?” I ask, looking up at her.
She nods and I give her hand a tap. “I’ll be right back.”
I give her a manicure and pedicure, painting everything in a shiny pink. Then I wash and curl her hair. It might be silly, but when I went to my training classes, it was always mentioned that one way to help the patient feel better was to do things they liked or often did. Gaye Douglas was never undone and I know that if she were able to speak, she’d be mortified that anyone ever saw her like that.
I can tell she’s enjoying my efforts as I continue and, even through limited communication, she’s telling me ‘happy’ and ‘pretty.’ I look at this woman in her most basic time of life, needing me and depending on me and I know I could never turn my back on someone, especially her. As the weeks go by, I begin to settle in with this new version of Gaye and my roll of caretaker. Her speech remained limited, but I knew she was happy living with us and with me. One of her favorite things to do was sit on the porch and watch Dornan ride his bike. Actually, she just loved watching Dornan in general, and he doted on her. My sweet boy, who loved to sit and read to her and explain some of the decades newest inventions or improvements, like CD players and VHS. For the first time in years, I felt love for my mom again. We shared moments of unspoken apologies and affection in the way she’d stop my hand as I cleaned her up, or how she would just look at me when I spoke to her. I knew I did the right thing by having her come stay with us, and I was grateful to have a second chance at making things right with her. Two years later, when she was in her last moments of life, she wanted me to hold her hands and sing to her, and I did. Watching as the woman who was my biggest champion and biggest tormentor, slipped away.
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