Finding Patience

by Eden Rose

  I drop the pictures on the ground and when they flutter down, they turn to the other side. There’s writing on the back of the pictures!

  “P! You gonna tell us what the fuck that was?” Josh asks me with his attitude.

  Mr. Bates left the rehearsal room a few minutes ago to find me new shoes. It was only a matter of time before he came back in.

  He would ask questions.

  Shrugging my dance crew off, I bend over, sorely- those dance moves are rough!- and grab the pictures. I stuff them into the envelope and walk over towards my bag.

  “Are we going to do this thing or not?” I ask my crew of twenty people. “We have forty songs to learn choreography for and I want to go home to tuck Alexa in tonight!”

  *

  “Bye, thank you!” I tell the nanny as I pick Alexa up.

  She’s wearing a new pink princess costume with a whole bunch of makeup on her face. I giggle and pick her up.

  “Ready to go home, sweetie?” I ask her.

  “Yes, mommy. Did you know that you burn a lot of calories when you dance.”

  I smirk and set her up in her seat in the back of my Thunderbird. “Really?” I ask her.

  “Yep,” she squeals and thrusts out her hands a little towards me. “We going home?”

  “Yep. What did you do at daycare?’”

  She scrunches up her little face and looks to the left. I can see her in my rear view mirror doing this. It’s the cutest thing.

  “We played outside and we played near the pool which was so much fun and then we went inside and ate lunch and then we went to watch a movie but some man knocked on the door. Mommy, can we play in the pool?”

  My head whirls around in circles. “What man?” I question her nicely.

  I look through the rearview mirror to see her rolling her eyes at me. “I don’t know. Sally don’t tell us.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Tall… A man, mommy!”

  Fuck. This is getting nowhere.

  “He come before. You know? He’s come over a couple times. One time he asked me if we had a swimming pool! I wonder if he wanted one, too.”

  “You, uh, you talked to him?”

  “Duh! That’s what I said, mommy.”

  “And you don’t know what he looks like?” I continue questioning her as I pull into my driveway.

  “Mommy, he looks like a man! He’s really tall and has paintings on his arms!”

  Opening the garage, I try hard to not jump out of my skin. This is not good. This is not good at all.

  By the time that we get my house, my nerves are all over the place and I can’t help but feel panicked. Who would show up at my daughter’s daycare out of the blue? I don’t get it!

  “Alexa, how about you go wash some of the makeup off and I we will make dinner together,” I suggest with no room for her to argue with me.

  “I don’t want to. I want to show daddy!”

  I throw my head back and look at the ceiling. “Do as I say, please!”

  She stomps her feet and runs up the stairs towards her room, I’m guessing. She will blow the tantrum for a few minutes and then come downstairs as if nothing happened.

  Digging my phone out of my purse, I dial Brett’s number. He doesn’t answer the first time I call so I do it again.

  Still no answer.

  I dial again.

  “Hello?” A woman answers the phone.

  “Who’s this?” I demand.

  “You called this phone, you should know who I am.”

  “I called my husband’s phone!” I bark.

  “Who? Rabies? He doesn’t have a wife, you crazy bitch!”

  My anger has skyrocketed. Everything that I was thinking about those pictures was true! He’s banging other bitches.

  I chuck the phone down on the couch where it bounces off and hits the coffee table with a thud. Angrily, I stomp over to it to call my body guards.

  Skin answers on the first ring. “Hey, little mama.”

  “Skin, I have a problem. Is Andre there?”

  “Yeah, P. I’m here,” Andre chimes in.

  Taking a deep breath, I focus on the more important issues than my husband’s infidelity. My daughter’s safety is more important than him being a dumb ass. “I went to go pick up Alexa at daycare and she told me there was a man that knocked on the door. She said she saw him before a couple times.”

  “You at home?” Skin asks.

  “Yeah. I’m about to make dinner with Alexa and then put her to bed. Why?”

  “We’re coming over,” Andre blurts before disconnecting the line.

  Looking over at the pile of mail that’s stacked up neatly next to my lamp, I decide that I should probably go through it eventually. I don’t like checking the mail and I’ve been pretty fucking busy lately.

  Hell, I’ve been preparing for a tour and then my husband comes back to life.

  My stomach growls at me while I shift through the letters until my fingers land on one that makes my blood crawl.

  The front of the envelope is written in newspaper clippings with my name blasted over it. My finger hovers over the flap in the back to take a look at what’s inside.

  That was a bad idea.

  *

  RABIES

  As we pull up in front of the cabin, Chantal’s calling the prez. His phone rings in with Crazy Bitch by Buckcherry. He can make jokes all he wants, but he loves that girl.

  “Hey, baby. What’s up?” He croons into the phone.

  I can’t hear what she’s saying but we are parked so we’re looking at him waiting. She normally doesn’t call us when we’re on a mission so this must be good.

  The Bear pulls the phone away from his ear and clicks a button. “All right. You’re on speaker.”

  “Hey, guys. Sorry to bother you but I thought you should know something about Rabies’ parents’ cabin.”

  A thick feeling of dread comes over me while I try to think of what it could possibly be. “What’s that, Pinky?”

  She clears her throat which only makes my anxiety sky rocket even more. “Did you buy a cabin out there and not know about it?”

  “Those mother fuckers,” I huff under my breath.

  “I’ll take that as a hard no, Pinks,” Bic mutters.

  The Bear takes over the questions because all I’m busy thinking about it how they could have done this without me knowing about it. How could they have put my name on a cabin without me having any idea what was what happening? Wouldn’t the relator ask to speak to the person who’s buying it? You would think that would be how they would operate.

  “How long?” I question. “How long have I had it in my possession?”

  “Four and a half years it looks like.”

  I laugh sardonically. “That’s fuckin’ rich! I was in Germany gettin’ treated for the bomb that blew up! Those mother fuckers are gonna pay for everything.”

  Without letting anyone else say anything, I’m out of the van and walking towards the cabin that I apparently own. It’s a small one with nothing special about it but I guess it’s mine. There’s shutters around the two little windows of the front of the cabin.

  Fighting for the restraint that I didn’t know I had, I knock on the door daring them to answer me. “Hello?” I shout through the thin wooden door. “Hello?”

  When there’s no answer, I gear up to kick open the door. I hear my brothers running up to where I’m fuming and they are calling my name.

  Looking back to them, I growl: “I’m so fuckin’ pissed off. These bastards took everything from me.”

  “And, you’ll get ‘em back,” Flip says from behind me. “Let’s stick to the plan.”

  We each go separate ways around the house to start distributing bombs and explosives. The smell from the gun powder, tickles my nose and almost makes me sneeze. Once my shit is out and ready to go, I stroll leisurely to the front of the cabin with a smile on my face.

  It’s about damn time these fuckers realized they
can’t fuck with me. They stole five years worth of time with Patience and Alexa, but I’m done allowing them to steal anything else. It’s the end for them.

  We’re all smiling for different, sick reasons.

  I press the detonator and watch while it gets to working. A strange feeling of completion comes over me as the whole house is set on fire. It’s a sickening feeling that I’m so happy about setting my own cabin on fire but it’s great.

  Plumes of smoke, debris and my need for revenge go up in smoke.

  Bic is the first one to the van and he’s looking around the area with precaution. “No sight of anyone. We need to get outta here before the police come here!”

  Trip’s breathing heavily behind me and I turn to look at him wonder. “You okay?” I ask him. “I don’t need you passin’ out or some shit while we’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

  He shakes his head and climbs into the van. “I’m good.”

  Even though I know he’s lying, I let it go.

  The house goes up in flames and makes me feel so much better about all the shit that they have caused me. They stole a lot from me but I am done with allowing them to do it. If they want to fight, they have to fight with all of us.

  “Want to stay and watch the light show?” I ask The Bear without looking away from the fire.

  “Yeah, man. Let’s do that!”

  For the next three minutes, the house burns to the ground after the bombs went off. There’s a loud popping noise coming from the middle of where the cabin used to be but we didn’t dare go in there.

  That’s asking for trouble.

  I look one more time at the cabin before it completely burns to the ground. It was a decent looking cabin, I will give them that. Too bad it had to be destroyed.

  *

  “Holy shit!” I murmur to myself while I replay the bombs we just let off to my parents’, I mean my, cabin. “Can you believe how quickly that bastard burned down?” I ask the van.

  Flip shakes his head while flicking on the turn signal. We just blew up a cabin, do you really think we need to be pulled over for something as fucking stupid as a turn signal.

  “Man, that was a nice cabin. You could have sold it, or whatever,” Flip suggest.

  “Fuck, we could have kept it! Used it as a secret bachelor pad!” Trip blurts out with glee.

  I chuckle. “I’m married, fucker. I don’t think I get a bachelor pad, too.”

  “Bic,” Trip states trying to get the older man to pay attention to him. “It’s just you and me now. These mother fuckers had to go get wifed up.”

  Bic throws up his middle finger. “Brother, I’m too old to be fuckin’ around with a bachelor pad. I like my pussy easy and freshly delivered to me at the end of a party. I don’t need a pad to get that when I got the club house.”

  We all burst out laughing.

  “Damn! Poor fuckin’ Trip!” Slice taunts him.

  The Bear’s next. “What’s the matter, little boy? Can’t find someone to play with ya?”

  “Your girlfriend sure like to play with me!” Trip unwisely states.

  The brothers and I didn’t even need to coordinate it. We all punched him in his arm or chest to teach him a lesson. Even The Bear did it even though he’s driving.

  “My wife is so far outta your league, peewee!”

  “Aww, poor peewee!” Flip eggs him on.

  It’s only a matter of minutes before we are pulling up to the safety of our compound. I already feel lighter. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I tap out a text to Patience.

  ME: hey baby what are you doing

  For the next five minutes, I walk through the bar of the clubhouse with my nose in my phone like some chick. She still hasn’t texted me back.

  ME: what are you doing

  ME: text me back

  ME: you okay?

  “Rabies!” Ash yells from the other side of the bar with attitude. This fly is one of the newer ones but her attitude is going to piss a lot of the brothers off. Unless we can fuck it out of her.

  And by we, I mean them.

  “What?” I bark out.

  “Some asshole’s at the door saying you owe him money or some shit.”

  “What the fuck are you talkin’ about, Ash?” I uncurl myself from my seat and walk to where she’s at.

  There’s a woman who looks beat to shit and she’s glaring at me as if I owe her something. I squint my eyes trying to make out if I do, but I can’t figure anything out. “Who the hell are you?” I demand. “You can’t roll up to a bikers’ compound and expect to be let in!”

  “Brett,” the woman says meekly.

  “No! Hell no!”

  PATIENCE

  *

  RABIES

  “You’ve got some fuckin’ nerve coming up here!” I yell at the woman who is my mother. I want her to know that I know everything. I want her to know that all her secrets she thought she was keeping from me are done. I know everything!

  She has the audacity to fake cry.

  “Don’t give me that shit,” I call her out.

  “Brett, please! We need to talk about everything.”

  I shake my head and place my hands on her small shoulders to shove her out of the clubhouse. “We have nothing to talk about.”

  “Maybe you want to know about Patience and your daughter!” She throws the red flag in front of the bull because I want to know.

  Her shoulders start to shake a little while she fake cries some more.

  “Quit the bull shit and tell me what you came here to tell me.”

  “Can I come inside?” She sobs.

  Not falling for the shit that she’s giving me, I cross my arms and glare at her. “What do you think?”

  “Rabies, let your mom in here!” Ash advices from behind me.

  I spin a little to glare at her hoping she knows when to mind her own business. “What the fuck?”

  She throws up her hands in the air and walks over to the bar stool that I gave up to come here.

  “She seems like a nice woman,” my mother states with no signs of the remorse or sadness from earlier.

  I told you she was faking it.

  I cross my arms around my chest effectively blocking her from getting too close to me again. After everything that they put me through, they keep coming back for more of me.

  Patience’s blonde hair whirling around in a circle while she dances with Alexa flashes through my mind. They are two things that are unreplaceable.

  “What?”

  “What, what?” She asks me.

  I haven’t seen her in a few years and I will tell you that she looks every bit of the alcoholic I heard she was around town. Her skin is yellow and her eyes are bloodshot. She looks dead or pretty close to being dead.

  “Spill!”

  I can see that she’s trying to grasp at anything to give her the upper hand over me. “You have to promise that you’ll protect me.”

  I roll my eyes. “From what? What are you doing here?”

  “We thought that if Patience thought you were dead you would pay us the money that we needed to keep the house from foreclosing.”

  My heart beats faster than before from the adrenalin from earlier and now this bull shit. “Excuse me?”

  Please tell me I heard her wrong. Please for the love of god, tell me I heard her wrong.

  “We were about to lose the house,” she explains with no remorse. “We had to think of something. We thought that if you couldn’t find her, you might come to us to have us look for her!”

  “So, let me get this right.” I walk a circle in front of the woman that I’m about to kill. “You told my wife that I was dead so I would pay you to help me find her?” I need clarification over this ridiculous plan. “You thought that by telling her I was dead, I would swoop in to pay you? What kind of fuckin’ bull shit is that?”

  “Brett, listen!”

  Without even thinking, my fist is formed and I’m throwing it in her face but there’s a meaty hand that
grips my fist before I can deliver it. Pissed off that someone stopped me, I glance over to see The Bear.

  “Rabies, this is not how we conduct business,” he states to me before looking at the skeleton of the woman who was once my mother. He glares at her with daggers in his eyes. “Who the fuck are you and why are you fuckin’ here?”

  “I’m Brett’s mom!” She cries out as if that’s going to save her from all the shit that she’s done.

  The Bear doesn’t give a shit about what she’s claiming and I don’t blame him. He’s well aware of all the bull shit that she’s done to me.

  “This woman’s a piece of shit!” I spit at her. I look her in the eyes as I deliver the truth bomb that she’s needed to hear all along. “You need to get the fuck out of here and the only reason why I’m not killing you right now is because my prez is here.”

  “Is that a gay thing?” She asks me with genuine curiosity on her face.

  Both The Bear and I are looking at her with wonder as to how someone could be that stupid and still be alive.

  “This is your mother?” He asks me.

  “Was. If you can call her that. If you call a woman who cared more about getting dick and doing drugs over taking care of her son as a mother… Then yeah.”

  I feel a boney hand on my arm and I look over to see Ash staring at me. “Some woman called for you and said she was your wife… Since when were you married?”

  The Bear chuckles a little but the woman who’s about to die is bursting out in laughter. “You always were a man whore.”

  “Get out!” I roar at her. “Get the fuck out of here and don’t ever come back. And tell your stupid fucking lapdog that he needs to leave Patience and Alexa alone or I’m coming for him,” I tell her honestly. “And when I do come for him, I won’t make it a secret.”

  She has the nerve to look upset but I think it’s more from me calling her out on the bullshit that she’s been spewing. “But, Brett! Are you sure this is what you want to do?” She asks me with fake tears in her eyes.

  Fake ass bitch.

  I take one look at The Bear and ask him a silent question. He nods his head in understanding and I follow through with the punch that I have been wanting to deliver since I found out what she did to Patience.