by Gina Watson
Sawyer’s heart pounded and his veins thrummed with the rush of increased blood flow—one call per week for six years, and then suddenly seventeen over the course of three days. His father was a free man—there wasn’t a doubt in his mind.
A knock at his bedroom door preceded Courtney’s soft interruption.
“Hey.” She walked up to him and placed her arms around his waist, her head on his chest. “I love you.”
“Court…I love you so much.”
She pulled back to meet his eyes. “Are you done with your burger?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s tormenting you, Sawyer?”
He let out a ragged breath, feathering his hand through his hair. “I want to tell you. I do, but once I do I’ll never be able to go back to a time where you didn’t know and so I’ve been hesitating.”
“I realize that.”
“You do?”
“I know there is something. I just assumed you don’t tell me because you want to keep me away from whatever it is.”
“Not keep you away—protect you.”
She considered his response for a moment, her forehead puckered in thought. “Who’s going to protect you?”
He held his arms out sacrificially, “This life is my birthright.”
She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her toe. “No it isn’t. If it’s yours then it’s also the girls’, yet you seem to be keeping this from all of us.” She looked away and produced a long sigh. “You can’t continue to carry this burden on your own. I don’t need protection from your past. I’m here because I want to know everything about you. Don’t you trust me?”
“I do. I swear I do, but I can’t”—
Her palm on his cheek halted his words. “It’s okay. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here. I just needed to know that you have faith in me.”
He pulled her close, inhaling her sweet strawberry scent. “I have more faith in you than I do in myself.”
“Come.” Lacing her hands in his, she pulled him from the room and down the hallway back to the dinner table. “Riley and I have a little surprise.”
Riley jumped up and skipped into the kitchen. When she returned she had three extremely colorful cupcakes. “We went to Candy Coated!” She pulled a chocolate cake from the tray. “I got you your favorite…German chocolate.”
He smiled at the gesture of love so simple yet so deep it had him almost in happy tears. “Thank you. What did you pick?”
Riley pulled hers from the tray and held it out, admiring. “I got a strawberry bean which is vanilla bean icing and a strawberry cake.”
“What about you, Court?” Her large smile as she spied the cake drew one equally as vast from his lips.
“My absolute favorite”—she grabbed a red cupcake with white icing and took a bite that demolished half the cake—“Mmm, red velvet with cream cheese frosting.” She spoke around a mouthful of cake. Icing dotted the area around her mouth. She walked to the kitchen and pulled a paper towel from the roll. Positioning her chair at the table she was halfway to sitting when there was a knock at the door. Courtney set what was left of her cake on the table and said, “I’m on it.”
A whine from beneath the table had Sawyer searching for the source. “I’m sorry Levi, but this is not for you.” His brown eyes beamed as his head tilted to make sense of the words his owner spoke.
Unlike Courtney, Riley was attacking her cupcake like a lady, savoring every bite. “You know what I would really like?” Sawyer posed. Riley’s large brown eyes regarded him curiously while she chewed. “I’d like to taste the strawberry bean cake.” He estimated there to be about a bite and half left.
Riley froze, hitched her brow and gazed from him to the last bite of her cupcake. Smiling, she passed him the pink confection. “I think you’ll like it. It’s amazing.”
“You’re a sweet kid, Riles.” He winked at her. “I was totally picking on you.” He pushed the last bite of strawberry bean dessert back to her.
She smiled. “Now you know how much I love you!”
“I do.”
A harsh voice cut through Riley’s cherished giggles. A single disembodied voice of a person so wrecked and tormented it brought chills to his spine. Sawyer stood, turning to find Courtney standing aside holding the door open, inviting the wickedness inside.
Evil infiltrated the home like a thick fog, covering the wood floor he’d laid on his knees, the couch he’d saved up for in order to buy it from a neighbor, the bookshelf he’d created with his bare hands. Before him a blue-eyed angel stood with a worried look on her face.
“Sawyer?” Her voice came to him slowly, through the vacuum created by the thick, putrid air. Her fingers touched his wrist, grounding him to the moment when all he wanted to do was flee. Her intense eyes rolled slowly from him, across the square footage, and landed on his father. She stared, taking in his haggard appearance before slowly turning back to face Sawyer. Her lips parted and she took in a quick breath of air on a gasp. She had figured it out. She knew.
Riley stood. “Well I’m going to get ready for the Princess Diaries marathon.”
At her words his father turned. “Oh, God…Jessica.”
Riley’s lips flattened out, “I’m not Jessica, I’m Riley.”
He smiled. “Of course you are.” His shaky hand threaded through his oily hair.
She grinned. “Who are you?”
“Just a guy I work with.” Sawyer grasped Riley’s elbow. “Go to your room and pack an overnight bag.”
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Yes. Somewhere fun. Now go.”
He turned to find Courtney, staring confused between the men. “I need to speak to you in private.” She nodded and followed him into his room. Closing the door he said, “I need to ask something of you and I need you to do it no questions asked, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I need you to leave and take Riley with you.”
“You want us to go?” Confusion marred her perfect features.
“That sounds like a question and you already agreed. Will you help me or not?”
“Yes, of course you know I will, but I need you to tell me what’s going on.” His fingers in his hair gripped hard and he winced in pain.
Reaching for his hands she whispered, “I’ll go get her now. Just give me a call when you wish for me to bring her back.”
His relief was immediate. “Thank you.”
On their way out of his room they ran into Riley hauling her tote bag down the hallway. “I’m ready for fun!”
Courtney grabbed her hand. “Great! You’re coming home with me.”
“Oh! Can we do makeovers again? Please?”
“Of course we can.” Walking through the house Courtney grabbed her purse on the way to the door. Turning back to Sawyer before exiting she said, “I love you. Call me.”
He nodded and closed the door. He rested his forehead against the door, concentrating on deep breathing to control his nerves. “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?”
“When you wouldn’t answer my calls what choice did I have?”
His voice was on the move. Sawyer turned to find him standing in the living room, holding Levi in his arms. “Why are you here?” Sawyer reached out and took the pup from him.
“I’ve been paroled. It’s been six years—I want to visit the girls.”
Sawyer shook his head, “No! That’s not going to happen. You were ordered by the courts to stay away and I swear I’ll report you if you press this. Your parole will be taken away before it can even begin.” Sawyer set Levi in his basket.
He held his hands up in surrender. “Look son, I’m not trying to upset you. I really wanted to see you, but I get it.”
“You get it? I don’t think you fucking do.” His father was forty-five years old but looked ten years older. His hair was long but he’d attempted to wrangle it into a low ponytail. However, several greasy pieces escaped the band. Around his eyes and on his forehead
his face held deep creases, but most pronounced were the folds from his nose to his mouth. The dentures they’d given him in the pen filled his mouth out well and he was still as handsome as he’d been all those years ago, even if a little more rugged.
“Look, I don’t want to get into a fight. I just…I’m out and I’ve got a chance to make up for some of the bad I’ve done before I’m dead and I wanted to try to make amends. I know that I can’t make up for the pain I caused, but I’d hoped you’d let me come over every now and then. You don’t have to tell them who I am.”
“No. I can’t do this. You need to leave.” He opened the door and gestured, hoping his father wouldn’t say another word. Sawyer cast his gaze down to the floor to avoid what he knew he’d see—the agony on his father’s face. But what about his own ongoing agony? His father had loved meth more than he’d loved his own family. “You can’t just waltz back into my life like nothing’s happened. I struggled.” Sawyer made a fist, but instead of aiming it at his father he brought it to his mouth and exhaled into it. “God, there were nights I wondered how I would feed the three of us. I’ve struggled to provide everything they need for school and at home—physically and emotionally. When they ask me about their mother, about their father, I have to swallow back my own painful lump and comfort them.” He heard his father’s cough, but refused to look his father in the eye. “There was no one to comfort me. I was alone. You saw to that. You took my life from me. You took my mother.”
Sawyer bit his cheek, hoping the words wouldn’t come through the barrier, but they did. “My father is dead. Forget knowing them. Forget me.” He walked to the kitchen to gather his wallet and keys. There was only one person he needed in this moment and he was desperate to get to her.
***
“Oh, I found them!” Courtney pulled long black gloves from the shelf in the back of her closet. Riley snatched them from her hand before she could even exit.
“Help me put them on.”
Courtney held one glove up and Riley slid her arm into it. “We need to tape up the hem of the dress so that the shoes can be seen.”
“Good idea! How do we do that?”
Courtney held up the other glove. “Garment tape.”
Once she found the tape, Courtney set about securing the hem of the dress. Breakfast at Tiffany’s had been her favorite movie since she’d seen it as a young girl. She was delighted that Riley had the same reaction to it. “Okay, now we can see those patent leather jewels.” She squeezed the toe bed on Riley’s shoes.
“Wow!” Riley admired herself in Courtney’s three-way mirror. “I look expensive!”
Courtney laughed. “Not expensive, classy.”
“Classy.” Riley patted a hand delicately over her hair. “I can’t believe you made my hair look exactly like hers.”
“Puh-leeze! I’ve been doing the French twist since second grade.” She pulled a box from beneath her bed. “Guess what else I have?”
Riley’s eyes grew as large as peppermint patties. “What?”
She pulled the crown from the box. “Check it out…your tiara.” She positioned the jewelry onto Riley’s head. “Be still or you’ll make the twist fall.” She made a few adjustments and then said, “Voilà!”
Riley ran to the mirror. “Where did you get it?” She stretched her fingers to touch the tip.
“Last year I was the Southeast Louisiana Crawfish Queen.”
“Crawfish Queen!” Riley squealed.
“I’ll have you know the Crawfish Queen gets all the dates.”
Riley turned on her toes. “Did you have a lot of dates?”
Courtney exhaled a long sigh and thought how best to answer that question. “I had dates, but I never had any of substance.”
“What’s substance?”
Courtney dug through her jewelry box and then held up a pearl choker. “Substance is when a guy values the same things you do.”
She attached the choker to Riley’s neck. “Like my brother?”
“Yes, your brother has the most substance of any man I’ve ever known.” Courtney grabbed the black clutch, passing it to Riley. “Now say ‘hand me my purse darling, a girl can’t read that sort of thing without her lipstick.’”
“What are you two cats doing?”
Arms folded, Sawyer stood in the doorway of her bedroom, leaning against the jam. In his work jeans and Henley he was the perfect combination of sexy and dirty.
“We watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Courtney did my hair like Holly’s.”
Their eyes met and she saw the pain in his face as he attempted to smile, but instead grimaced at her. He needed her. “Riley, do you want to start Sabrina?”
“Can I keep wearing the Tiffany clothes?”
“But of course.” Riley shuffled toward the door. “Why don’t you get it started and we’ll be along in a bit, okay?” Thankfully, the eleven year old seemed to understand Courtney’s unspoken request for needed privacy with Sawyer. She closed the door. He sat on her bed, his booted feet flat on the floor, rubbing his palms on his denim-clad thighs.
Sawyer was deep in thought. His haunted eyes had a glassy appearance and she wondered what they were seeing. She sat next to him, quiet so as not to disturb his thoughts. “When I was seventeen I realized my father wasn’t the man I thought he was. Who he was then was better still than the man he eventually became.”
Courtney gasped at Sawyer’s words that indicated his story would start badly, but get progressively worse.
“When I was a teenager I found out my father was selling meth. It was wrong and I was devastated, but the one thing that saved me was that he wasn’t a user.” Sawyer’s face furrowed in confusion, “I remember being relieved when I’d asked and he’d told me that he and Mom had never used.” His palm rubbing increased with vigor. “When I was twenty I asked that question again…in health class they’d taught us about the meth-head makeover. Between the mood swings, weight loss, and rotten teeth, I knew he was using and I knew my mother was too.”
She thought about him at twenty years old. His sisters would have been so young—four and six. He should have been focused on work or maybe college, but instead he’d had to try and salvage what he could of his family.
She leaned back on the bed and he followed her lead. “Why do you want to know all of this?”
She propped her torso up using her elbow. “I love you and want to know what’s hurting you.”
He placed his palm on his chest and stared at her canopy. “My mom got sick. She weighed less than a hundred pounds.” He turned and narrow, intense brown eyes met hers. “She had a heart attack and died.” His eyes closed tightly. “I was twenty-one. The police came and arrested my father. The charges against him were negligent homicide and various drug charges.”
He laid on her bed, eyes closed tight for several minutes. When he opened them, she saw the added moisture. “He’d shot my mom up with heroin and when her heart stopped he was too drugged to notice. He didn’t call for help. I found her the morning after.” Lazily he blinked and thick, dark lashes bushed his cheeks. “I’m glad it was me that found her and not one of the girls.”
She rolled into his side and kissed his cheek. His arm closed tightly around her. On her bed, in her childhood room, they stayed fused together for a while.
“I guess Riley’s wondering what happened to us, huh?” Sawyer asked.
Courtney wasn’t worried. Riley sensed their need to be alone and she was sure they would go undisturbed. His story was only half told. “So your father is out of prison?”
“Obviously. You saw him. I could tell you knew who he was.” His voice was raw, gravel-like.
“He’s had a hard life, but when I looked closer I could see your eyes were his eyes.”
Sawyer’s body tensed beside her and he slowly sat up. “Let’s get something straight right now…there is nothing I have that is like his, including my name.”
His tone was serious, even a little frightening. She sat on the bed wi
th bent knees, her arms hugging her legs. “Your name?”
“I changed our last names to Murphy when I became legal guardian of my sisters. Murphy was my mother’s name.”
Okay. He may have changed his name and severed ties with his father, but he couldn’t change his DNA. “He’s still in your blood.”
The look he shot her could have killed her. Her chest tightened. “Why would you say that to me?”
“You can’t turn your back on who you are—as soon as you turn around you’ll realize your shadow is still there.”
He roughly scrubbed his face with his hand. “I can turn my back on a life that no longer exists.”
“But it does exist. Your father is back now and he wants to know you and his girls.”
“They’re not his girls!”
She tensed at his yell.
“The court gave them to me because he was unfit to be their father. They belong to me.”
He shuddered and it was then she realized he feared losing them.
“I’ve tried to do my best in rearing them, but they constantly ask about their parents. Everything I’ve done isn’t enough to take the place of a mother and father. That’s what they really want. They’re constantly asking me why they don’t have parents.”
Courtney assumed he’d never told them the story. “They ask because their family is different from what they see everyone else at school has and they’re just trying to understand.”
“What if they decide they want to live with him instead of me?” Brown eyes filled with tears, begging her for the right answer.
It was crazy—the broken man that had come to the door and asked to speak with Sawyer couldn’t care for two children. She doubted his ability to care for himself. Surely he’d been paroled and there was no option for him to take the girls back. Sawyer’s hands shook as his body processed the emotion he wouldn’t set free. She covered his hands with her own. “You’re their father, their brother, their kisser of ouchies, and their provider. They will never forget the sacrifices you’ve made. If your worry is that in meeting him they would somehow desire to live with him then you can stop worrying now.”
“How do you know that? I’m telling you they want a father.”
