by Dani Wyatt
“What are you doing here? Did you follow me?” I bark as my feet hit the ground and I immediately start to dig around in my purse for my phone. “Stalker.”
It’s shocking, but even after everything. After all this time. There’s this part of me deep down that craves her love. Craves her approval.
It’s hard not to hate myself for those feelings right now. An internal struggle catapults itself into my head. The little girl who looked up to her versus the woman who knows better.
My first thought is to call Stas and tell him that I’m at the store and I’m face to face with my mother. I know he’ll be here inside of a second.
“Wait! I wanted to see you. Grandmother had a stroke. She’s not going to make it. I followed you from the house.” Her accusatory tone does nothing to soften my vitriol.
“What’s with everyone staking out our house? God, we’re going to move and none of you will ever find us again. You shouldn’t be here, you should be with your mother.” I pull out my phone and her hand darts out to grab my wrist. I shoot daggers at her with my eyes, then soften when I see what is looking back at me. She’s sort of pitiful. A wave of sadness engulfs me as the thought dawns that my baby won’t have any loving grandparents to dote on him. Or her. “I’m calling Stas.” I pull my hand back.
“Please.” Her voice cracks. “Please don’t, not yet. He won’t let you talk to me and I just need to talk to you, princess.”
My former pet name slices deep into the most painful parts of my childhood.
They would only use that name when I won a pageant, lost weight or achieved some stupid goal they’d set for me. It was the only affection I received, and it was always circumstantial and conditional.
“Talk.” I keep the phone out but give her a moment to make her case for listening to whatever she has to say. “The clock is ticking.”
“Can we...” She looks around. “Can we go somewhere? Coffee, maybe? There’s a coffee shop just around the corner. I’ll drive. I can’t get up into your car—my hip, you remember—well it’s worse than ever. Please, Stephanie. I’ve missed you so. I’ve changed. You leaving made me see things I didn’t before. What happened last week, I didn’t have anything to do with all that. It was your father and your grandmother’s idea.”
“Right here is fine.” I counter, steeling myself against all the childhood Stephanie’s hopes for a connection with this woman.
“Grandmother is dying and...I’m leaving your father.” She chokes back a sob and for some reason I feel sorry for her. “I need to talk to you, princess. Please, just for a little while. There are things I need to tell you. Just come with me for a half hour, I’ll bring you right back here. I promise. For your mother, Steph, I’m begging you.”
I take a breath and look down at my phone.
“Please.” She repeats and the brokenness in her voice tugs at my heart.
“Okay. Half-hour, but that’s it.”
“Thank you, princess.”
I follow her to the decade old Cadillac I still remember from when I left. Grandmother’s old car. A hubcap is missing and the vinyl top is torn. I take a seat inside and the scent of my childhood turns my overly sensitive stomach.
As we ease out of the parking space I roll the window down and lean over toward the fresh air, trying to keep my breakfast from reappearing.
We ride and park in silence. I exit the car before she’s turned it off, unsure if I can take another minute in that space.
I don’t look back as I march into the coffee shop. I know I’m being rude but I’m on the defensive and it’s going to take a lot more than a little pity to patch up the disaster of a relationship I have with this woman.
Taking a table in the corner, I watch as my mother goes to the counter and orders two coffees, then slowly walks to where I’m seated. Her slight limp from the car accident that ended her pageant career is more pronounced than before, but I steel myself from too much additional pity. She doesn’t deserve it and I can’t handle it.
“Thank you for this.” She sits and slides the paper cup to my side of the table.
“So what is there to talk about?”
I let her ramble for a bit, sipping my coffee and letting my stomach settle.
Looking at her while she talks, I see the woman I remember. The woman I wanted to be when I was a little girl.
She was beautiful back then. Stunning even. Willowy and elegant, with my hair but shocking green eyes. She’s taller than me, her legs ending high on her body, and she always reminded me of one of the actresses from that old, black and white golden age of Hollywood.
Sure, she’s older, but she’s still far more classically beautiful than I will ever be.
She talks about that piece of shit that is my sperm donor. How the affairs with both her and my grandmother turned my already misogynistic grandfather into a full-blown asshole, which set the stage for my Grimm’s fairy tale childhood.
No revelations are forthcoming, and I’m a bit surprised at myself that I have no questions for her. Still, there’s a remnant of the little girl inside of me that still longs for her approval. It’s a battle of will to not cave to her obvious manipulation.
After about fifteen minutes of me nodding and giving her a few, uh-huh’s at appropriate times, my curiosity gets the better of me.
“Okay, so you aren’t telling me anything new. I get that you’re sorry. I hear that you’re leaving your husband.” I deliberately emphasize that I’m not calling him my father. He lost that right a long time ago, and now I know it was never even true. “What I don’t get is why are you here? Why now?”
Her fingertips tremble and she spins the coffee cup on the table. “I want to come live with you.”
I nearly spit my coffee across the table, then can’t hold back the gut busting laugh that spills out of me.
“Is this a joke?” I spin around, looking around the coffee shop. “Are there cameras hidden somewhere? You are joking, right?”
“No.” The cartoon image of this woman who is my biological mother turns from eliciting pity in me to frothing anger.
“Thanks for the coffee.” I push my chair back to stand. “Have a good life.”
“Wait.” She half shouts. “I have nowhere to go. When my mother dies, the executor of the trust puts your father in charge. My father left me nothing, it all goes to him. When I told him I wasn’t happy, that it wasn’t working and it hasn’t for a long time, maybe it never worked, he kicked me out. He has the power to do it, too, everything will be in his hands now. Your grandfather didn’t believe women could handle money. I have nothing, Stephanie. I need you. Please.”
I hear her words, but her face tells a different story. I guess I know now where I get my ability to lie from. She’s good, but it’s like looking in a mirror. Every tell, every pull of her face is screaming at me that this isn’t the truth.
So what is?
“What do you really want?”
“I told you! I have nothing. No one. Nowhere to go.”
Before I can reply my phone goes off. It’s Daddy texting me.
“Please.” She repeats. “Is that Stas? Please don’t tell him I’m here. Not yet. I’m begging you, Stephanie, I need you. I’ve missed you, okay? Is it so wrong for a mother to miss her daughter?”
I look down at my phone and try to form a clear thought but my head feels hazy all of a sudden.
Daddy: Baby, did you forget something?
Me: I’m sorry. I forgot.
Daddy: I’m sorry? I forgot? That’s it? Hmmm, not what I need to hear, little girl.
Me: I’m sorry, Daddy, Sir. I got to the store and was excited and I forgot.
Daddy: Better. Now send me some pics.
Me: I’m in the ladies room right now. Had a wave of sickness.
Daddy: You need me to come, baby?
For a second I think about that. He’d be here in an instant if I just told him. He’d get me away from here and I’d never have to see this woman again. But something tug
s at me, call it compassion or sentiment or the stupid little girl inside. Whatever it is, I want to hear her out.
Besides, I’ve just lied to him. Told him I’m somewhere I’m not.
Me: No. I’m okay. Just taking a minute, Daddy. You need to do your work. I’ll just take my time. Love you.
Daddy: Okay, Babybear. Love you too. Send me pics when you can.
Me: XOXOXOXOXO
As I listen to her voice, I’m not even sure why I didn’t just tell him where I was and ask him to come and get me. I hate that she still has control over me even after all these years.
But I plan on wrapping this up and getting myself back to the store in the next five minutes. I’m done here.
“I’m sorry, mom. I don’t know what you’re really after, but I can’t. I just can’t.” Even as the words leave my lips, that little girl deep down wants to give her what she wants. Wants to be what she needs.
“Don’t be like that.” Her tone hardens. “You put me through hell leaving like you did. The worry. The sleepless nights. I just need a fresh start. We’re family, Stephanie. We always will be, whether you like it or not. You don’t turn your back on family.”
Stas’s words echo in hers as I stare at the shell of a woman across from me. She’s been beat down not only by her own parents, but by the man she married. Now I know why, but it doesn’t make it hurt less that they treated me like I was the cause of every misery in their life. Doesn’t forgive her for allowing everything that happened to me. Being an accessory to it all.
“It’s Ginger now, and Stas is my family. Whatever you were, whatever this is, it’s not family. It’s a mess. Even now, you can’t tell me the truth. What is it? Is there some further clause in the will that I don’t know about? Something that you need me for to get access to a few extra dollars? Well, I won’t do it. I won’t be taken in by your lies...your...”
Suddenly my head feels light and I lose the train of thought. I look down at her face and in a moment of clarity I see it. I was right. Somehow I hit on the truth while I ranted. She doesn’t care about me, all she cares about is that stupid will and the conditions my asshole grandfather wrote in.
“Leave. Me. Alone.” I’m on my feet, arms crossed, waiting for her to take the hint.
Dizziness overtakes me in the next moment and the coffee shop looks like it’s full of steam, only the clouds aren’t out there, they’re in here. In my head.
My mom is on her feet, taking my arm.
“You don’t look good, Stephanie.” She says the words loudly. An act for everyone else in the place.
Things begin to spin, and I try to say something but my lips are too heavy.
“Let’s get you to the car. Let your mother take care of you. Your father is waiting.”
The last thing I see before dropping into the back seat of the car is Calfus, my father, smiling down at me.
T W E N T Y
Stas
“FUCK.” I BARK AS I call her phone one more time and this time it goes directly to voicemail.
I’m on my feet in an instant, tapping my phone to punch up the ‘find me’ app I installed on her phone, along with the other tracking app I have embedded in the bracelet I gave her the day we got home from the cabin.
The tightness in my gut turns to abject fear when I see the phone blip is stationary yet the blip on the tracker is moving down Sullivan Avenue toward the freeway. And fast.
“What the hell is going on, baby?” I grit out as I charge to my car, drop into the driver’s seat and hit the ignition button.
As soon as the garage door is high enough for the roof of the car to clear, I’m peeling out and down the driveway toward Sullivan Avenue and the blip.
She’s miles ahead of me but I barrel through traffic as horns blare. I don’t give a shit. It’s my baby. And now, it’s really my baby.
Christ, I’ve never been so fucking angry before. If she’s fine and just neglecting her phone, along with the command I gave her to check in, I’m going to tan that ass of hers so she won’t sit down for a week.
If she’s not fine, and something’s happened to her, I’ll apologize to her later but I won’t be able to keep my promise to not hurt anyone.
Because if there is one hair out of order on her head, someone is getting hurt.
As I round the corner onto Sullivan, the blip takes a hard left into the less desirable end of town. She’s moving fast and if it’s her driving like that, and I pray it is, again her ass is going to pay the price for speeding.
But in my gut, everything about this tells me it’s not her.
The last hope of that possibility is dashed when I see her Jeep parked outside of the baby store. For a moment, I debate if I should pull in and see if for some crazy reason she’s in there and someone has her bracelet, but my instinct tells me otherwise. The phone may have been dropped, but she would have noticed if the bracelet was gone.
I take the chance and keep driving. After all, if she’s safe inside the store then there’s no harm done. I make the ten-minute drive to the street where she turned in five, and she’s still moving but I’m closing the gap fast.
It’s a miracle I don’t kill myself or someone else as I try to watch the blip move and negotiate the car, screaming down the city streets. Traffic isn’t helping and I consider leaping over the curb and driving down the sidewalk to make better time, but when I look down at the app and see the blip has stopped moving, I know I’m close.
It’s blinking at a location about three miles away and I push the Suburban into the red, driving out and around the car in front of me on the wrong side of the road until I find a stretch of the street with no one in front of me.
Two minutes later I’m on top of the blip outside one of those residence kind of hotels. Not horrible, but not nice. Probably the best on this side of town. But that’s not what’s bothering me. My mind is spinning as red clouds my vision and I try not to imagine what could be happening to her right now.
I screech into a parking spot and charge out of the car, leaving it running in case I need to pull off fast. With my phone in my hand, I follow the blip to a doorway on the ground level.
There’s no knocking. I boot kick the door right by the knob and the doorframe cracks. Another kick and it’s open.
Hate and fury engulf me when I see the two people hovering over Ginger as she lays on the sofa unconscious.
“Get the fuck away from her.” I pull my Beretta out of the shoulder harness and twitch it back and forth between the two people, scarcely able to believe my own eyes.
I recognize Leonard Calfus in an instant, and my best guess about the second person, going by her hair color and skin tone, is that she is Ginger’s mother.
“Face that fucking wall, fingers intertwined and on the back of your head. I want your nose on that wall right fucking now!” I keep the gun trained on them as I step to Ginger, my heart in my throat.
They do as I command, although that fuck Calfus is fucking smiling and humming and it takes every ounce of my will not to splatter his brains all over the generic beige wallpaper.
“We do keep running into each other, don’t we?” He spouts, and I walk up behind him and slam the butt of the nine-millimeter into the back of his head, crashing it into the wall.
When it springs back, I take a second shot just to make sure he understands. I’m not playing this time.
“One of you better tell me what’s wrong with her right fucking now.”
“I did it.” The lady caves and I step back to put a hand on Ginger’s forehead. She’s cool—too cool—and I feel like I’m dying as I look down at her. “I gave her Rohypnol.”
“How much?” I scream. “How much did you give her?”
“Just enough to make her sleepy.” The woman is clearly not as comfortable with whatever is going on as Calfus.
“You’re her mother, right?”
I see the woman nod but there’s not time for more questions. “I don’t know what you are getting out of th
is, but I’ll tell you right now it’s not enough. Hell is waiting for you. I only wish I could send you there right now.”
My brain spins as I scan the room and see a box of syringes and zip ties and my finger twitches on the trigger.
“I’m sorry.” The woman breaks down. “I’m so sorry. I just needed her to come with me. I just needed her to help me. I had nowhere else to go. I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you will be.”
Calfus chuckles at my statement and fire engulfs me in hatred.
“Laugh now. I’m coming for you. As sure as the sun is going to set, I’ll find you. And I’ll kill you. Keep your noses against that wall.” I order as I snug my gun into the harness.
“I told you, Stanislov, I always win. That girl’s family ruined me. Stole my daughter from me. Stole a woman I loved. You understand that, don’t you? Men like us, we don’t get many chances at a life like this. I tried to forget all those years. But when I saw you with her outside your house? It was fate. It was time I took back what was mine. They ruined me. My chance with her. Now I’ve ruined them.”
Ginger’s mother starts to sob.
“Shut the fuck up. Both of you.” I stick my hand into my pocket, come up behind Calfus and put a death grip on the back of his neck as a reminder of his current position. There’s no more time for what I’d like to achieve with his neck, so I step back to Ginger, reach down and scoop her off the sofa. A minute later I’m backing out the door, keeping my eyes pinned on those two.
Once I’m outside I spin and run to the car, open the back door and buckle her in.
“You’re going to be okay, baby. Daddy’s here.”
I believe her mother. They didn’t give her much Rohypnol. I’m guessing they slipped it into something she drank, but I’ll never know how. What I do know is it will wear off before long. But judging by the syringes they had in there they were planning on keeping her controlled indefinitely if necessary, and I know what could have happened to the baby if that was the case.
I tear out of the parking lot, punching up George as I go, glancing in the rear view to keep my eyes on her while I drive.
