Reclaim: (A Redemption Novel)

by Marley Valentine

  Sasha walks into the bathroom, and I swing my bedroom door open. Reality hits me smack bang in the face when I see my bed covered in illegal drugs and weapons. I’m reminded of the job I started before Sasha got home. Scattered all over the bed are bags of pills, sadie’s of cocaine, and three guns.

  What the fuck have you agreed to, Jagger?

  George came over to remind me I sold myself to the devil, and unless my family and I wanted to be out on the streets, I would hide it all here until he came back for it. It started off as small quantities, but this amount and the guns are more than I bargained for. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I turn my back on my mess and bury my head in my hands. I think of how much money I’ve saved working at The Club, and I tell myself it’s only another six to eight months more.

  Sliding the built-in wardrobe door open, I begin to clear out the highest shelf hoping if I bury them far enough, Sasha won’t stumble across them.

  I hear my mobile phone ring, and step out, then into the kitchen to grab it. Surprised to see Hendrix’s name flash on the screen, I quickly press answer and hold it to my ear. “Hey.”

  “Hey. I just bumped into George down on Queen Street.”

  “And?” I try my hardest not to appear skittish or guilty.

  “Don’t play fucking dumb, I thought you said he was going to give you a job at The Club, none of this other bullshit I hear him talking about.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You know I’m working down at The Club almost every fucking night.”

  “It’s your life, Jagger, but don’t fucking put Sasha and Dakota in danger.”

  “What, now you want to give a fuck?” I taunt. “You won’t even look at her.”

  “Fuck you.” Anger is the only way you’ll ever get the truth out of Hendrix. “Oh wait, that’s what she did. Had sex with my brother while I was there waiting for her to notice me like a dumb cunt.”

  I imagine him biting his fist, annoyed that he even let this much slip.

  “You know how that went down.” I steady my voice and try to calm him down.

  “Whatever. This isn’t what I called you for. Just be fucking careful. I’ve got a bad feeling about him.”

  No sooner than the forewarning leaves his mouth, a penetrating boom bounces throughout the house. The phone drops from my hand, and my legs move at their own volition. My feet pound against the floorboards, racing to find cause of the sound.

  In four large strides, I meet Dakota’s wail of pain along with Sasha’s bloodcurdling scream.

  “No. No. No. No.” I mutter. Walking further into the room, I drop to my knees next to Dakota’s bloodied body. I watch her wither in pain and am paralysed with fear. Do I touch her? Will I make it worse?

  Fists swing into my back as my mind tries to process what the hell just happened.

  “What did you do?” Sasha howls. With unparalleled strength she pushes my body to the side, and picks up our baby girl. “How could you let this happen?” she yells.

  Walking her out and into the lounge room, I quickly follow. Unable to think, move or make any decisions on my own.

  Sasha is hysterical, but I’m frozen.

  This is all my fault

  “Snap the fuck out of it Jagger! She’s going to bleed out. Call the fucking ambulance!”

  I run back to Sasha’s room and grab her mobile now that mine’s broken. I dial triple 0 and wait for a voice to come through.

  “Hello, what’s your emergency?” The lady’s voice is painfully cheerful. “We need an ambulance. My daughter.” The bile rises in my throat as I try to explain what happened.

  “Yes, sir. What happened to your daughter?”

  “She.” My throat begins to close, my heart palpitates, and I’m sure I’m about to pass out. “She.” A hand reaches for the phone from behind me, and I turn to see Hendrix. With Queen Street only ten minutes away, I know he wouldn’t have hesitated to speed over here once he heard the gunshot. My body slumps to the floor in defeat as I hear him take over the conversation with the operator.

  “Hello, yes, that was my brother. We’re calling about his daughter, my niece.” He heads out to Dakota and Sasha, and I aimlessly follow.

  “Yes. She’s conscious, and she’s breathing.” He pauses, taking in whatever it is she’s saying on the other end of the line. “She’s three years old… Um, it appears that she’s found a loaded handgun and accidentally shot herself in the arm.” As I listen to him describe the reality of our situation, the bile from earlier returns. Right in the middle of the room, I vomit until there’s nothing left.

  And then I pass out.

  She stands there staring at me as my eyes start to well with tears. I can’t believe she’s here, her eyes so full of life. Unharmed and so forgiving, she’s everything I prayed she’d be.

  Emerson’s hand presses against the middle of my back, and I welcome the little push. Hendrix stands protectively beside my daughter, and I’ve never been more grateful for the man my brother has become than I am right now.

  She looks up at him, and he nods encouragingly. She’s wide-eyed and innocent, making sense of everything around her. Inspecting me with knowing eyes, she looks between Hendrix and me, a small smile gracing her face. ”You really do look like Uncle Drix.”

  Seven words have us all sighing in relief, the pressure slowly evaporating into thin air.

  “It’s really good to see you,” I say, awkwardly offering her my hand.

  “Um, is it okay if I hug you instead?”

  I hide my shock at her request, and talk past the lump of emotion sitting in my throat. “I’d love a hug.” She starts off with small steps of caution towards me, and I meet every one with a silent prayer of gratitude. The last two steps feel like leaps, and on the last one I catch her with open arms. Her arms wrap around my neck, both of us holding on for dear life.

  I never let myself imagine this moment. I was too busy punishing myself with images of her body marred by blood and how loud her cries of pain were. The worry she wouldn’t want anything to do with me was too great, enough for me to never contemplate a moment like this.

  But now she’s here, more willing than I could have ever imagined, and the emotions are inescapable. For the first time in twelve years I let myself cry. Tears fall for the time I lost and for the pain I caused. For the memories she doesn’t have and the sacrifices everyone else has made. A heartbreaking reunion, I hold my daughter. My family. And I let every unavoidable tear ask her for forgiveness.

  Okay, we’re going to wait in the car while you finish up here,” Hendrix explains.

  “Sounds good.” Slowly feeling myself return to normal. I turn to Emerson and think of all the reasons I’m not ready to say goodbye to her.

  “Jagger, it was lovely to meet you,” she says stiffly. Putting out her hand, the gesture is inadequate and impersonal. That’s not how I want this goodbye to go. I grab her hand and pull her to me, my hand gripping her hip. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to look but at each other. Cupping her cheeks with my hands, I tilt my head and softly press my lips to hers. We both still. She doesn’t make any attempt to move, and my resolve crumbles at the simplicity of it all. Our lips part slighty.

  “What are you doing?” she whispers.

  “Saying thank you.” Without faltering, we yield to one another, forgetting about who we are and where we are. Her palms rest on my cheeks, and our mouths merge together. Each stroke of our tongues a welcomed hello and a painful goodbye. I kiss her as if it’s my first kiss. I kiss her knowing it’s our last. Our hands fight the urge to move. Fight the urge to explore, because anything more than this is torture.

  She had a life before me, and I have a life after this. The kiss is a commemoration. An ode to the random, unexpected, and beautiful things that come into your life when you need them most.

  Reluctantly, the kiss ends, reality fluttering around the edges of our thoughts. “I better go.”

  “Of course, you’ve got a lot waiting for you.�
�

  “Thank you, Em.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  I skim my thumb across her bottom lip, and kiss her one last time. Our eyes meet and we nod at one another in understanding. I walk away from her, ignoring the need to have one last look.

  “Jagger,” she calls out.

  “Yeah.”

  “If you need anything...”

  Tipping my head at her with gratitude, I wink and walk away, wishing we met in a different life. Because the one thing I need from her is never going to happen.

  8

  Emerson

  My apartment door opens, and a carefree Taylah waltzes in. I peek over my Kindle and watch her slide her black rimmed sunglasses to the top of her head, trying to keep her wind blown copper hair out of her face. Without saying a word, she hangs her body purse on the back of my door, grabs her Kindle, and curls up on the other end of my couch.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, hiding my face behind my e-reader.

  “I think what you meant to say was, ‘Hey Taylah, How are you doing? It’s so nice of you to visit me instead of having breakfast with your mum.’”

  “You mean you told your mum we had plans so you could avoid breakfast with her?”

  Taylah and her mother have one of the healthiest but still dysfunctional relationships I’ve ever seen. Growing up with only her mum, they argue about everything, but support each other implicity.

  “Tomayto, Tomatoh.”

  “Well, you know the drill,” I say, pointing at her Kindle. “It’s Sunday morning and reading time. No talking.”

  “Can we do something different today?”

  “Absolutely not.” I shut her down instantly, reluctant to do anything but lay on my couch for the next eight hours.

  “Yes.”

  “You know, barging in on me wasn’t what I had in mind when I gave you the spare key to my apartment, right?”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “I recall words like ‘only use for emergencies’ being mentioned.”

  “This is an emergency,” she cries dramatically.

  I can’t help but laugh at her theatrics, even though I know she’s hurt by my choice to avoid everything and anything.

  “I tried to pretend I didn’t notice or don’t care, but you’ve made me resort to speaking to Joe for information, and I need to know what the hell is going on?”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I promise. “You won’t need to speak to him again.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “Huh?” I act distracted by the words I’m reading, but Taylah quickly picks up on my diversion tactics and sneakily grabs my Kindle out of my hands. She raises it over head. “I’m holding this hostage till you spill.”

  “There’s honestly nothing to tell.”

  “Em, what is it?” Everybody has always called me Em, but now when she says it, I think and hear Jagger. I don’t want to think of him. “Honestly, it’s stupid. I just want to let myself wallow in it before I pack it up and move on.”

  “Is this about your client? Jagger?” she asks with trepidation.

  “He got out last week; he’s no longer my client.”

  “Is that what you’re upset about?”

  “No. Yes. Ugh.” Grabbing the cushion from beside me, I cover my face and groan into it.

  Pulling it away from me, Taylah’s patience is wearing thin. “What is it?”

  Sighing loudly, I decide to spill the beans. It’s going to sound ridiculous, may as well just bite the bullet. “It’s stupid Tay, I’m turning something into nothing.”

  “It doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me about it.”

  “I think Joe was right,” I blurt out.

  “Geez, this is more serious than I thought if you’re giving dickweed some credit.”

  “He said I was too invested in Jagger and his case, and I was… I am.”

  “Hold up,” she interrupts. “Nobody in our office is as passionate as you are about this job. Of course you’re bloody invested.”

  “Tay.” I stop her before she goes off on a tangent defending my honour. “We kissed.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’m assuming it wasn’t while he was inside?”

  “Release Day.”

  “Okay, well you’re probably never going to see him again, so don’t worry.” Unknowingly she hits the nail on the head, dismissing the very reason I’ve been sitting in my house wallowing for the last few days.

  When I first laid eyes on him, there was no denying he was attractive. But it was his determination to wear his pain like a tattoo that had me intrigued. It was a cloak of shame that he used as a deterrent but all it did was pull me in.

  I’d visited Goulburn numerous times, met different inmates, and facilitated release plans for people much less deserving than Jagger. And when he challenged Joe for putting his hands on me; someone he didn’t even know, his secret was out. It didn’t matter how imperfect he thought he was, his actions spoke louder than the mistakes that he let define him.

  “Oh my god, look at your face.” Taylah screams. “You like this guy. Like, like him, like him.”

  My cheeks flare in embarrassment, but I don’t bother hiding it from her. The sooner we talk about it, the quicker I can get over this pointless crush. “Well, I don’t usually make a habit of kissing people I don’t like.”

  “Tell me how it was.”

  “No, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m never going to see him again. I spent the week savouring it, and now I’m ready to let it go.”

  I can lie all I want, but the truth is Jagger Michaels seared himself into my memory. The kiss was the icing on the cake, and I never wanted it to end. His lips, his proximity, the way he owned his vulnerability and his strength. Holding his daughter and letting their pain run wild, he entered the prison a kid, and I had the pleasure of watching him leave as a man.

  “Are you though?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Ready to let it go?”

  I run a hand over my forehead and let my head fall in resignation. “I don’t really have a choice.”

  Cleaning up my desk, I file all the day’s paperwork and write up my list of things to do for tomorrow. Arriving at work today, I dealt with an influx of emails and voicemail messages that needed to be responded to.

  I included Jagger’s file in my clean-up, deciding it was a good time to close that door. There are plenty of moments in my life that didn’t eventuate into anything, yet the memory was significant all the same. I’ve accepted my time with Jagger is exactly that.

  It’s six pm, and my desk phone rings, startling me. I ignore it, because anything past five can wait till tomorrow. The call ends, only to start up again.

  “Hello,” I huff.

  “Emerson honey, is that you?” My mum’s voice comes through, surprising me.

  “Mum, why are you calling me at work?”

  “If you answered your mobile we wouldn’t have to,” my dad intercepts.

  “Do you two really have to both be on the phone at the same time.” I open my top drawer to grab my phone and see I’ve missed a few of their calls.

  My parents are the only people in the world who still use landlines. What’s worse is their need to both speak to me at the same time. Usually lounging around in the living room, a cordless phone in each of their hands, they call and pry as best they know how.

  Being an only child means a lot of their time is focused on me, and while I don’t always like it, I don’t really know any different.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, we just wanted to know if you were feeling better this week.” Last week’s lie trickled into every aspect of my life. Peopling just wasn’t something I wanted to do. “Will we be able to catch up for dinner?”

  “Yes, I’m much better. I think I was just a little run down.”

  “Of course you’re run down,” my dad exclaims. “Look at the hours you�
�re putting in at the office. Your job doesn’t pay overtime, Emerson.” It’s been years and there’s not a conversation that goes by where his disdain for my place of employment doesn’t seep through.

  “It’s not overtime Dad, I’m just catching up on work from last week.”

  “You know there’s always room for you with me.”

  “I know Dad, and if I need a change, I promise you’ll be the first to know.” His constant need to remind me of what he’d rather I do used to bother me. Now I’m secure enough to know I can be successful, even if it isn’t by his standards. “So, what night of the week are we catching up?” I question, deciding it’s the quickest way to pacify them both.

  “Can we make it a Friday night?” my mum chimes in.

  “Yep, Friday is fine. I’ll come over after work.”

  “That sounds lovely, Em. We can order in your your favourite food from Abby’s.”

  “Locked it in, Mum.” Shutting down my computer, I grab my bag, phone, and keys, ready to leave. “I’m going to head off home now, I’ll see you guys on Friday.”

  “Okay, honey. See you then.”

  “And answer your phone when we call please.”

  “Got it, Dad. Night.”

  Putting the receiver back on the console, I quickly scan my desk and make sure everything is in order for tomorrow.

  Standing in the lobby, I slide through my Facebook feed as I wait for the elevator to come. Distracted by my notifications, I don’t notice anyone around me until the familiar ping, and a voice I recognise comes from inside.

  “Emerson.” It’s Joe.

  I close my eyes and silently beg the floor to swallow me whole. I haven’t spoken to him since our altercation. At this time of night the building is a ghost town. There’s no way to avoid the confrontation. No other distractions, no other people.

  “Joe.”

  “You’re working late.” There’s a slight slur in his voice, and as he steps off and toward me a whiff of beer and cigarettes surrounds us.

  “Yeah. I had a few things to catch up on. What are you doing back here?”

  “I just had a few drinks with some friends.”